ABSTRACT
Egypt, in the Delta, May 1250: the king of France is to be set free, against an immediate ransom of 200,000 pounds.1 The king's people began to count out the money on Saturday morning, and it took them the whole of Saturday, and Sunday until night. They were 30,000 pounds short, and Joinville (who was present, and tells the story2) advised the king to send for the Marshal of the Temple-*»the master being dead-~and to ask for a loan. Joinville was sent to negotiate the matter, but he got no for an answer. The Commander of the Temple told him that he had given the king bad advice, since he well knew that the moneys held by the Temple were trust funds which could only be released to the depositors. They had a blazing row, and eventually the Marshal of the Temple intervened to say that the commander was quite correct, but the seneschal's advice was sensible, namely that if Joinville could not get the money by asking for it, he should take it. With the diplomacy which marks bankers in every age, he added that Joinville must decide for himself what to do, and that if he seized Templar funds in Egypt, there was no serious problem, because the Order held so much of theirs in Acre, that it would be easy to indemnify them.
