Journey to Jerusalem and the Holy Land

On 20 September 1616, a Parisian barely twenty years old climbs into the Lyon coach. Nicolas Bénard has made a vow: to see Jerusalem.

By way of the Rhône he reaches Marseille, waits for the wind, then sails with his companions Resteau and Potier on 9 November aboard the Sainte-Marguerite. So begins a crossing of sixty-two days: storms off Sardinia, calls at Trapani and Malta, corsairs in sight, Christmas at anchor off Cyprus. At Sidon he at last sets foot in the Holy Land, follows the coast by Tyre, Acre and Jaffa, and climbs towards the Holy City, where the Franciscans wash his feet.

Bethlehem, the Way of Sorrows, the Mount of Olives: Bénard sees everything and notes everything, in constant fear of bandits. Then comes the night he has been waiting for, locked in with the pilgrims inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the morning of Candlemas, when he is dubbed a knight with the sword said to be that of Godfrey of Bouillon.

The way home will be another adventure: a corsair on his heels all the way to Sicily, the bandits of Calabria, the Grotta del Cane near Naples, the festivities of Rome, a farewell to a friend, the Gotthard in a thunderstorm, the Rhine and Protestant Holland, and a town that refuses to open its gates for fear of the plague.

Will he return to Paris as he left it? A journal kept day after day, between fervour and fear.