The Princess gave the christian slaves their liberty, and put
in their places all the Saracens she could purchase, with orders to give
the Sultan the following letter:

_The Princess of Ponthieu to the Sultan of Almeria._

"If I had only your generosity to have combated, I would
have discovered to you the cause which urged me to this
flight--convinced, that you would rather have favoured than opposed
it; but your love and religion being insurmountable obstacles, I was
obliged to make use of artifice to be just.--I quit you not, my
lord, through inconstancy, I follow my husband, my father, and my
brother, who were the three captives whose lives you granted me; my
husband having exposed his for your glory, and the security of your
dominions, has, in part, acquitted me of the obligations I owe
you.--I am a christian, and was a sovereign before your wife; judge
therefore, whether my rank and religion did not demand this of
me.---I shall always with gratitude remember the honour you have
done me; I have left you my daughter, being obliged to abandon her
on account of her youth:---Look on her, I intreat you, with the
eyes of a father.---I wish you all the happiness you deserve, and
shall with fervency beg of Heaven to bless you with that divine
illumination, which is the only thing in which your heroic virtues
are deficient.

"PONTHIEU."

The Sultan saw the galley return, and received the Princess's letter,
while she was prosecuting her journey to Rome; he was inconceivably
afflicted at the news, but his reason at length getting the better of
his despair, he endeavoured to comfort himself, by transplanting all the
tenderness he had paid the mother to the little daughter. In the mean
time, our illustrious fugitives arrived at Rome; where they were
received by the Pope with extraordinary honours; and after having
reconciled the Princess and Sayda to the bosom of the church, they
departed, loaded with presents and favours to Ponthieu, where the
unanimous joy of the people for their return is not to be expressed. The
Count dying some time after, his son inherited his dominions; but that
young prince not long surviving, he left the sovereignty to the Princess
his sister, who with her husband reigned a long time in perfect glory
and happy unity. The son she had by the Sultan, married a rich Heiress
of Normandy, from whom are descended the lords of Preau; and the
princess, who was left be