[3] When the Mont Pèlerin quarter was set ablaze by the Mamluks after the reconquest, the castle of Saint-Gilles suffered and stood abandoned on the hilltop for the next eighteen years.

It was essential to have an adequate stronghold in Tripoli for the sultan's troops, temporarily garrisoned in Hisn al-Akrad (Krak des Chevaliers), as the distance was too great in case of enemy attack.

It was the custom that a Mamluk soldier, under contract for a specified number of years, received an annual gratuity which amounted to slightly over eleven days extra pay.

In the years that followed, various Ottoman governors of Tripoli did restoration work on the citadel to suit their needs and with time the medieval crenelated battlements were destroyed in order to open sally ports for cannons.

The graves of a number of nameless Frankish knights, here and there, are the only bits of evidence today evocative of their presence on the heights of Tripoli's "Pilgrim's Mountain" many centuries ago.