134 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. attention to the storm which had long been gathering in the countries of the North, and which could not fail one day to burst over the very centre of Catholicism. This letter of the Georgian Queen has been preserved.* She states in it that she has not sent the help she had promised against the Saracens, because she had need of all the strength she could collect, to repulse a sudden invasion of barbarians. The Mongols, by an artifice of which the Georgians had been the dupes, had presented themselves as Christians, placing in their front some priests, whom they had taken in the countries through which they had passed, and carrying before their batta- lions the Cross as a standard. The Georgians, deceived by this trick, had suffered themselves to be surprised, and had lost six thousand men. " But," continues the Queen, " as soon as we l^erceived they were not true Christians, we rose against them, killed 20,000 of them, took many prisoners, and put the rest to flight." Rhouzoudan adds, that she has just learned that the emperor was about to go to Syria, to begin the war against the Saracens, that she rejoices at it, and will send to the help of the Christian armies the Constable John, and a considerable number of dis- tinguished persons of her kingdom, who have taken the cross, and are only waiting for orders to fly to the defence of the Holy Sepulchre. David, the Bishop of Ani, had been charged to carry this letter to Honorius the Third, and he brought also one from the Constable John, who, after holding lan- guage pretty nearly similar to that of the Queen of Georgia, begged the blessing of the sovereign pontiff
- Odor Raynaldi, " Annales Eccl. Ann. 1224," p. 535.
