André de Longjumeau

[4] At the Mongol camp near Kars, André had met a certain David, who in December 1248 appeared at the court of King Louis IX of France, who was preparing his armies in the allied Kingdom of Cyprus.

André, who was now with the French King, interpreted David's words as a real or pretended offer of alliance from the Mongol general Eljigidei, and a proposal of a joint attack on Ayyubid Syria.

[5] The party set out on 16 February 1249, with letters from King Louis and the papal legate, and lavish presents, including a chapel tent lined with scarlet cloth and embroidered with sacred pictures.

From Cyprus they went to the port of Antioch in Syria, and thence traveled for a year to the Khan's court, going ten leagues (55.56 kilometers) per day.

The regent Oghul Qaimish, Güyük Khan's widow (the "Camus" of William of Rubruck), seems to have received him with presents and a dismissive letter for Louis IX.

[6] André's report to his sovereign, whom he rejoined in 1251 at Caesarea Palaestina, appears to have been a mixture of history and fable; the latter affects his narrative of the Mongols' rise to greatness, and the struggles of their leader Genghis Khan with the mythical Prester John, and in the supposed location of the Mongols' homeland, close to the prison of Gog and Magog.

This insulting behavior, and the language of the letter with which André reappeared, marked the mission a failure: King Louis, says Jean de Joinville, "se repenti fort" ("felt very sorry").