Help with an Old French Translation!! " à la sainte terre "

This phrase is from the essay written by Henry David Thoreau entitled "Walking" 

He uses it in this manner: 

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la sainte terre" — to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a sainte-terrer", a saunterer — a holy-lander. They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all, but the Saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which indeed is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this holy land from the hands of the Infidels.

It seems to be an Old Fench translation and would not be translated in the same way today. I am wondering if someone saw " à la sainte terre " they would think you translated incorrectly or not. This phrase has been a part of my life for a long time and I was thinking about tattooing it on my shoulder. I just don't want any confusion. Part of me dosen't really care because this is the way it is used in the text and essay that means so much to me but on the other hand I want people to be able to understand.