Читать книгу The History of the Crusades (Vol.1-3) - Joseph François Michaud - Страница 15

The Venetians, who for several centuries enjoyed the commerce of the East, and feared to break their profitable relations with the Mussulmans of Asia, had taken but very little interest in the first crusade, or in the events that had followed it. They waited the issue of this great enterprise, to take a part and associate themselves without peril with the victories of the Christians; but at length, jealous of the advantages that the Genoese and the Pisans had obtained in Syria, they wished likewise to have a share in the spoils of the Mussulmans, and prepared a formidable expedition against the infidels. Their fleet, whilst crossing the Mediterranean, fell in with that of the Genoese, which was returning from the East; they attacked it with fury, and forced it to fly in great disorder. After having stained the sea with the blood of Christians, the Venetians pursued their course towards the coasts of Palestine, where they met the fleet of the Saracens, just issuing from the ports of Egypt. A violent conflict ensued, in which all the Egyptian vessels were dispersed or destroyed, and covered the waves with their wrecks.

Whilst the Venetians were thus destroying the fleet of the Mussulmans, an army sent by the caliph of Cairo was beaten by the Christians under the walls of Jaffa. The doge of Venice, who commanded the Venetian fleet, entered the port of Ptolemaïs, and was conducted in triumph to Jerusalem. When celebrating the double victory, they resolved to profit by it, by following it up by an important expedition. In a council, held in presence of the regent of the kingdom and the doge of Venice, it was proposed to besiege either the city of Tyre or the city of Ascalon. As the opinions were divided, it was resolved to interrogate God, and to follow his will. Two strips of parchment, upon which had been written the names of Ascalon and Tyre, were deposited upon the altar of the Holy Sepulchre. In the sight of a numerous crowd of spectators, a young orphan advanced towards the altar, took one of the strips, and the chance fell upon the city of Tyre.

The Venetians, more devoted to the interests of their commerce and of their nation than to those of a Christian kingdom, demanded, before beginning the siege of Tyre, that they should enjoy a church, a street, a common oven, and a national tribunal in every city in Palestine. They further demanded other privileges and the possession of a third of the conquered city. The conquest of Tyre appeared to be so important, that the regent, the chancellor of the kingdom, and the great vassals of the crown accepted the conditions of the Venetians without hesitation: in a deed which history has preserved,[245] they engaged not to acknowledge Baldwin du Bourg or any other prince who would refuse to subscribe to it.

When they had thus, by a treaty, shared the city they were about to conquer, they began their preparations for the siege. Towards the commencement of the spring, the Christian army set out from Jerusalem, and the Venetian fleet sailed from the port of Ptolemaïs. The historian of the kingdom of Jerusalem, who was for a long time archbishop of Tyre, stops here to describe the antique wonders of his metropolis. In his recital, at once religious and profane, he invokes by turns the testimony of Isaiah and of Virgil; after having spoken of the king, Hyram, and the tomb of Origen, he does not disdain to celebrate the memory of Cadmus, and the country of Dido. The good archbishop boasts above all of the industry and the commerce of Tyre; of the fertility of its territory, its dyes so celebrated in all antiquity, that sand which is changed into transparent vases, and those sugar-canes which, from that time, were sought for by every region of the universe. Tyre, in the time of Baldwin, was no longer that sumptuous city, whose rich merchants, according to Isaiah, were princes; but it was yet considered as the most populous and the most commercial of all the cities of Syria. It was built upon a delightful beach, which mountains sheltered from the blasts of the north; it had two large moles, which, like two arms, stretched out into the waves, to form a port to which no tempest could find access. Tyre, which had kept the victorious Alexander seven months and a half before its walls, was defended on one side by a stormy sea and steep rocks, and on the other by a triple wall surmounted by high towers.

The doge of Venice, with his fleet, entered the port and closed up all issue on the side of the sea. The patriarch of Jerusalem, the regent of the kingdom, and Pontius, count of Tripoli, commanded the army by land. In the early days of the siege, the Christians and the Mussulmans fought with obstinate ardour, and with equal success; but the divisions among the infidels soon came in to second the efforts of the Franks. The caliph of Egypt had yielded half of the place to the sultan of Damascus, to induce him to defend it against the Christians. The Turks and the Egyptians were divided among themselves, and would not fight together. The Franks profited by these divisions, and every day gained great advantages. After a siege of some months, the walls crumbled away before the machines of the Christians; provisions began to be short in the city, and the infidels were ready to capitulate, when discord arose to disunite the Christians in their turn, and was on the point of rendering useless the prodigies of valour, and the labours of the long siege.

The land army complained aloud of being obliged to support alone, both fighting and fatigue; the knights and their soldiers threatened to remain as motionless under their tents, as the Venetians did in their ships. To prevent the effect of their complaints, the doge of Venice came into the camp of the Christians, with his sailors armed with their oars, and declared that he was ready to mount the breach. From that time a generous emulation animated equally the zeal and courage of the land and sea forces. The Mussulmans, being without hope of succour, after a siege of five months and a half, were obliged to surrender. The standards of the king of Jerusalem and the doge of Venice waved over the walls of Tyre; the Christians made their triumphal entry into the city, whilst the inhabitants, according to the terms of the capitulation, went out with their wives and children.[246]

The day on which they received at Jerusalem the news of the conquest of Tyre, was a festival for the population of the holy city. To the sound of the bells the Te Deum was sung on bended knees; flags were hoisted on the towers and the ramparts of the city; branches of olive, and garlands of flowers were suspended in the streets and public places, and rich stuffs were hung upon the outsides of the houses, and upon the doors of the churches. Old men reminded their neighbours of the splendour of the kingdom of Judah, and young virgins repeated in chorus the psalms in which the prophets had celebrated the city of Tyre.

The doge of Venice, on his return to the holy city, was saluted by the acclamations of the people and the clergy. The barons and the principal inhabitants did all in their power to detain him in Palestine; they even went so far as to offer him the crown of Baldwin; some believing that that prince had died among the infidels, others only recognising a king when at the head of an army, or on the field of battle. The doge refused the crown they offered him; and, satisfied with the title of prince of Jerusalem, sailed with his victorious fleet back to Italy.

Whilst they were offering the throne of Jerusalem to a foreign prince, the captivity of Baldwin du Bourg was drawing to an end. The emir Balac,[247] who held him prisoner, after having conquered in a battle ten thousand Christians commanded by Josselin, besieged the citadel of a Mussulman city of Syria, and was preparing to succour the city of Tyre, when he was wounded by a javelin, and died regretted by the most ardent disciples of Mahomet. Baldwin was then enabled to purchase his liberty, and, after a captivity of eighteen months, appeared once again among the Christians. The king of Jerusalem had promised the Saracens a considerable sum as his ransom; but it was much more easy for him to fight and conquer his enemies than to fulfil such a promise. The Mussulmans, besides, by ill-treating the hostages he had left with them,[248] furnished him with a pretext to attack them. When the infidels demanded of him the stipulated price of his liberty, he only replied by gaining victories over them. The Christian knights, who seemed to have forgotten him, now that they saw him once again in arms, returned thanks to Heaven for his deliverance, and came in troops to range themselves under his banners, and recognised with joy the authority of a prince who appeared only to have issued from his prison to lead them to new combats.

The Christian states at that period numbered as enemies the caliphs of Bagdad and Damascus, the emirs of Mossoul and Aleppo, and the descendants of Ortoc, who were masters of several places on the Euphrates.[249] The Egyptians were weakened by their numerous defeats, and of all their ancient conquests on the coasts of Syria, only retained the city of Ascalon. But the garrison of this place, formed of the wrecks of several conquered armies, still threatened the territories of the Christians. Although the Egyptians had lost the cities of Tyre, Tripoli, and Ptolemaïs, they still continued masters at sea, and their fleets cruised without obstacle along the coasts of Syria, when the maritime nations of Europe did not happen to send succour to the Franks established in Palestine.

The Turks, accustomed to the military and pastoral life, did not aspire to the empire of the seas, but they never left the Christians at rest. They made themselves dreaded, not so much by their great armies, which were frequently nothing but confused and undisciplined multitudes, but by their continual, harassing incursions. Docile and patient, they endured hunger, thirst, and fatigue, better than they would face an enemy. Their knowledge of the country, their being accustomed to the climate, and the intelligence they kept up with the inhabitants, gave them, in all their warlike expeditions, a decided advantage over the Christians. Their soldiers surpassed the Franks in the arts of shooting with the bow, or hurling a javelin, as well as in horsemanship; and their leaders were practised, and excelled in all the stratagems of war. Their tactics consisted in wearing out their enemies, in preparing ambushes for them, or in drawing them into difficult positions, where they might triumph without fighting. The endless discord which prevailed among the Mussulman princes of Syria, and the revolutions which daily threatened their power, prevented them from following up, for any length of time, the same plan of defence or attack; but when in the enjoyment of a transient tranquillity, sometimes excited by a thirst for plunder, or sometimes animated by the prayers and the counsels of the caliph of Bagdad, they would burst like a sudden and unexpected storm over the territories of Antioch, Edessa, Tripoli, or the kingdom of Jerusalem. If the Mussulmans experienced a defeat, they retired with the hope of finding a more favourable opportunity; if they were conquerors, they ravaged the cities and the plains, and returned to their country, loaded with booty, singing these words: “The Koran rejoices, and the Gospel is in tears.”

The hopes of booty every year attracted new hordes and tribes, which poured down from Mount Caucasus, Mount Taurus, from Koraçan and the banks of the Tigris. These tribes, for the most part wild and barbarous, mingled among the Mussulmans of Syria and Mesopotamia, and replaced in armies and cities the hosts which war had swept away. Among the tribes which had thus established themselves in Syria, history must not forget that of the assassins or Ismaëlians, whose sect had sprung up, towards the commencement of the eleventh century, in the mountains of Persia. A short time before the first crusade, they took possession of a part of Libanus, and founded a colony between Tripoli and Tortosa, which colony was governed by a chief whom the Franks called—the Old Man, or the Lord of the Mountain. The chief of the Ismaëlians only reigned over about twenty castles or towns, and scarcely more than sixty thousand subjects; but he had converted despotism into a species of worship, and his authority was without bounds. His subjects considered that he alone was the depositary of the laws of Mahomet, and that all who opposed his will merited death. The Old Man of the Mountains, according to the belief of the Ismaëlians, could distribute, at his pleasure, the delights of Paradise to his servants; that he who died in an act of obedience to his chief, ascended to heaven, whither the prophet of Mecca welcomed him, whilst he who died in his bed went through long probationary pains in the next world.

The Ismaëlians were divided into three classes: the people, the soldiers, and the guards. The people lived by the cultivation of the lands and by commerce; they were docile, laborious, sober, and patient: nothing could exceed the skill, strength, and courage of the soldiers, whose qualities were particularly valued in the defence or sieges of cities. The greater part of the Mussulman princes were very desirous of having them in their pay.

The most distinguished class was that of the guards or fédaïs. Nothing was neglected in their education. From their infancy their bodies were strengthened by constant and violent exercises, and their minds were cultivated by the study of the arts. They were taught the languages of Asia and Europe, in order that they might be sent into those countries to execute the orders of their master. All sorts of means were employed to inflame their imaginations and heighten their courage; during their sleep, which was provoked by intoxicating drinks, they were transported into delicious gardens, and awoke surrounded by the seductions of voluptuousness. It was there that the Old Man of the Mountains, by showing them the image of the joys of Paradise, inspired them with a blind obedience. In the midst of illusions which fascinated them, their master could order them to cast themselves from the height of a tower, to precipitate themselves into flames, or to pierce themselves with mortal wounds. When the Old Man of the Mountains had pointed out to them any one he wished to punish, they went, armed with a poniard, indifferently, to seek him in palaces or camps, and were impeded by neither obstacles nor dangers.

Princes often intrusted the charge of their revenge to the chief of the Ismaëlians, and looked to him for the death of their rivals or enemies. Powerful monarchs were his tributaries. The fears which he inspired, and the murders committed by his orders, heaped up his treasures. Surrounded by his intrepid soldiery, he sent death into distant regions; the terror of his name was spread everywhere, whilst he himself had nothing to fear from his enemies.

The Ismaëlians, as implacable sectarians, entertained a profound aversion for the Turks of Syria. Many of them were in the pay of the emirs and the sultans of that nation; but they sold their services at a very high price, and often took an active part in the bloody revolutions which precipitated from thrones the Mussulman dynasties of the East. They had less hatred for the Christians, because the latter fought against the Turks; nay, sometimes they became useful auxiliaries to the Franks. When Baldwin du Bourg was liberated, they proposed to deliver up Damascus to him, a great number of their warriors being in that city; but the plot being discovered, they miscarried in their enterprise, and six thousand Ismaëlians were slaughtered by the Mussulmans.[250]

The Old Man of the Mountains commanded the death of the emir of Mossoul, who had defended the city of Damascus against the Christians. The murder of the Mussulman emir threw Syria into a state of excitement and trouble; but from the bosom of this disorder arose a new and formidable power. Zengui, son of Aksancar, one of the most skilful captains of his age, obtained the principality of Mossoul, got possession of Emessa and Aleppo, with several other cities of Syria, and founded the dynasty of the Atabecks, or governors of the prince, which was destined to dominate over the East, and render itself formidable to the Christians.[251]

Whilst this new power was rising in Syria, the Christian states of the East were at their highest point of prosperity. The county of Edessa, which contained a great portion of the rich provinces of Mesopotamia, had all the Armenian princes as its allies and auxiliaries. Several cities of Cœlesyria, Cilicia, and Lower Armenia constituted the principality of Antioch, the most extensive and the most flourishing of the Christian provinces.

The county of Tripoli comprised several places situated on the Sea of Phœnicia, from Margath to the river Adonis. This river, celebrated in both sacred and profane history, bounded on the north the kingdom of Jerusalem, which, towards the south, extended on the sea-coast as far as the gates of Ascalon, and towards the east, to the deserts of Arabia.

These four states formed a redoubtable confederacy. Europe beheld with pride these Christian colonies, which had cost her so much blood; she was afflicted at their reverses, and rejoiced at their progress. The safety of Christianity appeared identified with their preservation. The bravest of the Christians were always ready to devote themselves for the heritage of Christ; religion offered no recompense equal to that promised to their valour, and charity itself became warlike.

From the bosom of an hospital consecrated to the service of pilgrims and the poor, issued heroes armed against the infidels,—the humanity and the bravery of the knights of St. John[252] were equally conspicuous. Whilst some grew old in the offices of hospitality, others went forth to combat with the enemies of their faith. After the example of these pious knights, several men of gentle birth met near the place where the temple of Solomon had stood, and took an oath to protect and defend the pilgrims who repaired to Jerusalem. Their union gave birth to the order of the Templars, which, from its origin, was approved of by a council, and owed its statutes to St. Bernard.

These two orders were governed by the same principle that had given birth to the crusade, the union of the military spirit with the religious spirit. Retired from the world, they had no other country but Jerusalem, no other family but that of Jesus Christ. Wealth, evils, and dangers were all in common amongst them; one will, one spirit, directed all their actions and all their thoughts; all were united in one house, which appeared to be inhabited but by one man. They lived in great austerity, and the severer their discipline became, the stronger appeared the bonds by which it enchained their hearts and their wills. Arms formed their only decoration; precious ornaments were never seen in their houses or churches; but lances, bucklers, swords, and standards taken from the infidels abounded. At the cry of battle, says St. Bernard,[253] they armed themselves with faith within and with steel without; they feared neither the number nor the fury of the barbarians, they were proud to conquer, happy to die for Jesus Christ, and believed that every victory came from God.

Religion had sanctified the perils and the violences of war. Every monastery of Palestine was a fortress, in which the din of arms was mingled with the voice of prayer. Humble cenobites sought glory in fight; the canons, instituted by Godfrey to pray near the holy tomb, after the example of the Hospitallers and the Templars, had clothed themselves with the casque and the cuirass, and, under the name of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, distinguished themselves amongst the soldiers of Christ.

The glory of these military orders was soon spread throughout the Christian world. Their renown penetrated even to the isles and the most remote nations of the West. All who had sins to expiate hastened to the holy city to share the labours of the Christian warriors. Crowds of men, who had devastated their own country, came to defend the kingdom of Jerusalem, and take part in the perils of the most firm defenders of the faith.

There was not an illustrious family in Europe which did not send at least one knight to the military orders of Palestine. Princes even enrolled themselves in this holy militia, and laid aside the insignia of their dignity to assume the red coat of arms of the Hospitallers, or the white mantle of the knights of the Temple. In all the nations of the West castles and cities were bestowed upon them, which offered an asylum and succour to pilgrims, and became auxiliaries to the kingdom of Jerusalem. As monks, as soldiers of Christ, they were remembered in every will, and not unfrequently became the heirs of monarchs and princes.

The knights of St. John and of the Temple for a length of time were deserving of the greatest praises; more happy and more worthy of the benedictions of posterity would they have been, if, in the end, they had not allowed themselves to be corrupted by their success and their wealth; and if they had not frequently disturbed the welfare of the state of which their bravery was the support! These two orders were like a crusade that was unceasingly renewed, and preserved emulation in the Christian armies.

The military customs and manners of the Franks who were then engaged in Palestine, present an object worthy of fixing the attention of the historian and the philosopher, and may serve to explain the rapid rise and the following decline of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The spirit of honour which animated the warriors, and permitted them not to fly, even in an unequal fight, was the most active principle of their bravery, and with them took the place of discipline. To abandon a companion in danger, or to retire before an enemy, was an action infamous in the sight of God or man. In battle, their close ranks, their lofty stature, their war-horses, like themselves covered with steel, overturned, dispersed, or bore down the numerous battalions of the Saracens. In spite of the weight of their armour, nothing could exceed the rapidity with which they passed to places the most distant. They were to be seen fighting almost at the same time in Egypt, on the Euphrates, and on the Orontes; and only left these their customary theatres of victory to threaten the principality of Damascus, or some city of Arabia. In the midst of their exploits they recognised no other law but victory, abandoned and rejoined at pleasure the standards which led them to the enemy, and required nothing of their chief but the example of bravery.

As their militia had under its colours warriors of divers nations, the opposition of characters, the difference of manners and language kept alive amongst them a generous emulation; but sometimes, likewise, gave birth to discord. Very frequently chance, or some unexpected circumstance, decided an enterprise or the fate of a campaign. When the Christian knights believed themselves in a condition to fight an enemy, they went to seek him, without taking the least pains to conceal their march; confidence in their strength, in their arms, and, above all, in the protection of Heaven, made them neglect the stratagems and the artifices of war, and even the precautions most necessary to the safety of an army. Prudence in their chiefs frequently appeared to them an evidence of timidity or weakness, and many of their princes paid with their lives or their liberty for the vain glory of encountering useless perils in the Christian cause.

The Franks of Palestine saw scarcely any dangers or enemies except such as met them in the field of battle. Several important enterprises, which fortune alone seemed to direct, were necessary to assure the safety and the prosperity of the Christian states in Asia. The first of these enterprises was to lower the power of the caliphs of Egypt; the second, to conquer and preserve the maritime cities of Syria, in order to receive fleets and succour from the West; the third was to defend the frontiers, and oppose on all sides a barrier against the Turks and Saracens. Each of those great interests, or rather all of these interests united, constantly occupied the Franks established in Asia, without their having any other policy but that of circumstances, and without their employing, in order to succeed, any other means but their swords. It is in this view we must admire their efforts, and find the bravery, which supplied the place of everything, wonderful.

Among the illustrious pilgrims who at this time repaired to Palestine, and took part in the labours of the Christian knights, history ought not to forget Foulque, count of Anjou. He was the son of Foulque le Rechin and Bertrade de Montfort, who became the wife of Philip I., and for whose sake the king of France had braved all the thunders of the Church. Foulque of Anjou could not be consoled for the death of his wife Eremberge, daughter of Elie, count of Maine. His grief led him into Palestine, where he maintained during a year a hundred men-at-arms, whom he led to battle. He united piety with valour, and attracted admiration by displaying all the qualities of a good prince. Baldwin, who had no male offspring, offered him his daughter Melisende in marriage, and promised to have him nominated his successor. Foulque accepted the proposition with joy, and became son-in-law to the king of Jerusalem.

From that time the two princes gave all their attention to promote the prosperity of the kingdom and to defend it against the Saracens. Their union served as a model to Christian princes, and lasted till the death of Baldwin, who, seeing his last hour approach, ordered himself to be carried to the spot where Christ had risen again, and died in the arms of his daughter and his son-in-law, to whom, with his latest breath, he recommended the glory of the Christians of the East.

Baldwin had a right mind, a lofty spirit, and unalterable mildness. Religion presided over his least actions and inspired all his thoughts; but he perhaps had more devotion than was suited to a prince or a warrior. He was constantly seen prostrated on the earth, and, if we may believe William of Tyre, his hands and knees were hardened by practices of piety. He passed eighteen years on the throne of Edessa, and twelve on that of Jerusalem; he was made prisoner twice, and remained seven years in the chains of the infidels. He had neither the faults nor the high qualities of his predecessor. His reign was rendered illustrious by conquests and victories in which he bore no part; but he was not the less regretted by the Christians, who loved to contemplate in him the last of the companions of Godfrey.

Under his reign the public manners began to decline: by his directions a council was assembled at Naplouse to check licentiousness, and punish offenders against order and morality. But the decrees of this council,[254] deposited in the churches, only served to prove the existence of disorders among the Christians, and did not, in any way, stop the progress of corruption, which rapidly increased under the following reigns. Baldwin was more happy in the measures which he undertook to increase the number of his subjects and enrich his capital. An edict suppressed all duties upon grain and vegetables brought into the holy city by the Syrians. Baldwin, by this means, improved the trade and population of Jerusalem, and revived agriculture in the neighbouring provinces.

Foulque, count of Anjou, was crowned king of Jerusalem after the death of Baldwin. At his accession to the throne, discord disturbed the Christian states, and even threatened with speedy ruin the principality of Antioch. The son of Bohemond, who had recently assumed the reins of government, had been killed in a battle against the Turks of Asia Minor, and a daughter, whom he had had by Alise, sister of Melisende, was called to the inheritance of her father’s throne; but the weakness of her sex and age did not permit her to make good her claim. Alise, her mother, wished to get possession of the royal seat, and in the prosecution of her projects did not scruple to avail herself of the aid of the Saracens. Another candidate appeared in Roger, king of Sicily, who, as a member of the family of Bohemond and Tancred, had pretensions to the principality of Antioch. The people, the clergy, and the nobility were divided into several factions.

The king of Jerusalem, as protector of the confederation of the Franks in Asia, determined to re-establish order, and took the road to Antioch with his barons and the knights of the Temple and St. John. The count of Tripoli, who had embraced the party of Alise, undertook to stop the king of Jerusalem on his passage. The powers of these two princes met; a battle ensued, and the plains of Phœnicia were stained with the blood of Christians shed in unnatural strife. Foulque of Anjou, after having routed the troops of the count of Tripoli, gained the banks of the Orontes, silenced the contending factions, and re-established peace. To perfect his work, he resolved to bestow the daughter of Bohemond on a husband able to defend her rights, who would merit the confidence of the Christian warriors. Syria presenting to him no prince or knight worthy of his choice, he turned his eyes towards the princes of Europe, and nominated Raymond of Poictiers governor of Antioch, as Baldwin II. had chosen him himself governor of Jerusalem. Thus Europe, which had found defenders for the Christian states of Asia, supplied them also with princes and kings. Raymond of Poictiers, brother of William, duke of Aquitaine, left France with the scrip and staff of a pilgrim, and came into Syria to espouse the daughter of Baldwin, and reign with her on the banks of the Orontes.

The troubles of Antioch had revived the pretensions of the emperors of Constantinople. John Comnenus, son and successor of Alexius, put himself at the head of an army, took possession of some places in Cilicia, and encamped before the walls of Antioch. After several conflicts, in which victory remained uncertain, negotiations were opened, which ended in the oath of obedience to the emperor being taken by Raymond of Poictiers. The two princes, united by a treaty, resolved to turn their arms against the Saracens. Their troops, which they commanded in person, attacked without success Aleppo and several other cities of Syria; the want of a good understanding, which accompanied the Greeks and Latins at all times, was sure to defeat their enterprises. The emperor returned with vexation to Antioch, of which he endeavoured to make himself master, but was compelled by a sedition to leave the city hastily. He then formed the project of visiting Jerusalem at the head of his army, with the intention, if the Latins are to be believed, of obtaining possession of Palestine. Foulque sent ambassadors to inform him that he could only be received in the holy city in the character of a simple pilgrim; whereupon John, who did not dare to complain, sent presents to Foulque of Anjou, and gave up, without much pain, his idea of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. After a campaign, for which he had drawn out all the strength of the empire, he returned to his capital, having obtained nothing by his enterprise but the vain and hollow homage of the prince of Antioch.

Foulque of Anjou, after having re-established peace among his neighbours, found, on his return, that discord not only prevailed in his states, but had even made its way into his own house. Walter, count of Cæsarea, accused Hugh, count of Jaffa, of the crime of treason towards his king. This latter noble had drawn upon himself the hatred of the king and the principal people of the kingdom, some say by his pride and disobedience, and others by his guilty connection with the queen Melisende. When the barons had heard Walter of Cæsarea, they decided that a battle, en champ clos, should take place between the accused and the accuser; and as the count of Jaffa did not appear in the lists on the day nominated, he was declared guilty.

Hugh was descended from the famous lord of Puyset, who raised the standard of revolt against the king of France, and who, conquered in the end by Louis le Gros,[255] despoiled of his possessions and banished his country, had taken refuge in Palestine, where his exploits had secured him the county of Jaffa, which he had transmitted to his son. Hugh possessed the turbulent and impetuous character of his father, and, like him, could neither pardon an injury nor submit to an act of authority. On learning that he was condemned without being heard, he set no bounds to his anger, but hastened immediately to Ascalon, to implore the aid of the infidels against the Christians. The Mussulmans, highly pleased with the division which had sprung up among their enemies, at once took the field, and ravaged the country as far as the city of Asur. Hugh, after having contracted a criminal alliance with the Saracens, shut himself up in Jaffa, where he was soon besieged by the king of Jerusalem.

The thirst of vengeance animated both parties; Foulque of Anjou had sworn to punish the treason of his vassal; and Hugh was equally determined to succeed, or bury himself under the ruins of Jaffa. Before the king’s forces commenced the attack, the patriarch of Jerusalem interposed his mediation, and recalled to the minds of the Christian warriors the precepts of Gospel charity. Hugh at first rejected all mention of peace with indignation; but having been abandoned by his followers, he at last lent an unwilling ear to the pacific appeals of the patriarch, and consented to lay down his arms. The king of Jerusalem sent home his army, and the count of Jaffa agreed to quit the kingdom, into which he was not to return till after three years of exile. He was awaiting at Jerusalem the favourable moment for his departure, when an unexpected circumstance was on the point of renewing stifled quarrels. “It happened,” says William of Tyre,[256] “as the count was playing at dice in the street of the Furriers, before the shop of a merchant named Alpham, that a soldier, a Breton by nation, having drawn his sword, fell suddenly upon the said count, who, being attentive to his game, expected nothing less than such an attack, and with the first cut, without the least warning, dealt him such a blow with the said sword on the face as stretched him upon the ground.” At the sight of such a tragical scene the people gathered round in crowds, anxiously inquiring the cause of it. The whole city was filled with rumours of various kinds; all mourned the fate of the count of Jaffa, and thought no more of his rebellion. They did not even hesitate to whisper complaints against the king, whom they accused of having himself directed the poniard of the assassin. The king, however, caused the murderer to be immediately arrested, and he was tried with the utmost rigour of the laws. He was ordered to have his limbs broken; and the king, whilst confirming the sentence, only added that the assassin of the count of Jaffa should not, as was usual, have his tongue cut out, in order that he might name his accomplices. The unhappy wretch expired, declaring that no one had induced him to commit the deed, but that he thought he should serve religion and his king by it. Every one was thus left free to form conjectures according to the feeling that animated him, or the party he had adopted. The count of Jaffa was not long in recovering from his wound; at the end of a few months he quitted Palestine, and went to Sicily, where he died before the time fixed for the end of his exile.

Queen Melisende entertained a deep resentment at all which had taken place; by which she proved that she was not a stranger to the origin of these fatal discords. “From the day on which the count left the kingdom,” says William of Tyre, “all who had against him been informers to the king, and brought him into his ill graces, so incurred the indignation of the queen that they were not in too great safety of their persons, and even the king did not seem to be quite at his ease among the relations and favourites of the queen.” The anger of the queen, however, yielded to time, and did not outlive the count of Jaffa. Foulque himself, whether it was that age had blunted his feelings, or that it appeared more prudent to him to efface the last traces of an unfortunate affair, repented of having compromised the honour of the queen, and neglected nothing that could make her forget the excess of his jealousy and the rigours he had employed.

Amidst these disagreeable events the king of Jerusalem had reason to congratulate himself at having no invasion of the Mussulmans to repel. The prince of Mossoul, Zengui, attacked some Christian fortresses, but he was soon diverted from his enterprises against the Franks by the project of uniting the principality of Damascus to his states. The Mussulman prince who reigned at Damascus could find no other means of resisting Zengui than by calling in the Christians to his help. The king of Jerusalem, after having received hostages and considerable sums of money, took the field at the head of his army, for the purpose of defending a Mussulman city; but Zengui, who feared to try his strength with the Franks, did not venture to attack Damascus. According to the conditions of the alliance with the Christians, the city of Paneas, or Cæsarea of Philippi, which had recently fallen into the hands of the Saracens, was to be given up to them. The warriors of Damascus and Jerusalem marched together to lay siege to that city, situated at the foot of Libanus, and near the sources of the Jordan. For the second time the standards of Christ and Mahomet were seen floating over one army and one camp. Cæsarea of Philippi capitulated after a siege of a few days, and was given up to the king of Jerusalem.

This conquest was the most important event that signalized the latter years of the reign of Foulque of Anjou. The king of Jerusalem, whilst hunting in the plain of Ptolemaïs, fell from his horse, and died of the fall, leaving no one to succeed him but two children of tender age. He was less regretted on account of his personal qualities than for the sad condition in which his death left the kingdom. William of Tyre, who praises the virtues of Foulque of Anjou, remarks, with a naïveté worthy of these remote times, that this prince had red hair, and yet he could not be reproached with any of the faults usually attributed to men of that colour. He was more than sixty years of age when he ascended the throne of Jerusalem; in the last years of his life his memory was so weakened that he did not know his own servants, and had not sufficient strength and activity to be the head of a kingdom surrounded by enemies. He employed himself more in building fortresses than in collecting armies, and in defending his frontiers than in making new conquests. Under his reign the military ardour of the Christians seemed to grow weaker, and was displaced by a spirit of discord, which brought about calamities much greater than those of war. At the period of the coronation of Foulque of Anjou, the Christian states were at the highest degree of their prosperity; towards the end of his reign they showed a tendency to decline.

Baldwin III., thirteen years of age, succeeded his father, and Queen Melisende became regent of the kingdom. Thus the reins of government fell from the weak and powerless hands of an old man into those of a woman and a child. Parties soon sprung up around the throne; the clergy, the knights, the barons, even the people took a dangerous part in affairs of state, and the authority of the prince, which hitherto had been but that of the general of an army, lost under the regency of Queen Melisende the consideration and splendour it had derived from victory. The government insensibly assumed the turbulent form of a republic, and in the political relations which the Christians held at this period with the Saracens,[257] the latter believed that several chiefs were at the head of the kingdom of Jerusalem.

Baldwin did not wait for the period of his majority to be crowned king, being scarcely fourteen years old, when, in the presence of the barons and the clergy, he received the sword[258] with which he was to defend religion and justice; the ring, the symbol of faith; the sceptre and the crown, marks of dignity and power; and the apple or globe, as an image of the earth and the kingdom he was called upon to govern. Young Baldwin already displayed courage above his age; in the very first days of his reign he achieved a glorious expedition beyond the Jordan, in which he gained possession of the Valley of Moses; but he had not experience enough to know what enemies he ought to attack or what allies he ought to defend. On his return from the expedition of the Jordan he undertook an unjust and unfortunate war, the presage of a sad future for the kingdom of Jerusalem.

An Armenian, who governed the city of Bosra in the name of the sultan of Damascus, came to Jerusalem to offer to deliver up to the Christians the place which he commanded, and the barons and principal people were convoked to hear his proposals. The wiser part of the assembly referred to the alliance made with the Saracens of Damascus; the promises of an unknown soldier appeared to them to have no security, and to inspire no confidence; they said the kingdom of Jerusalem did not want for enemies to combat, or conquests to attempt; it was their duty to attack the most formidable, and protect the others as useful auxiliaries. This advice, which was the most reasonable, was that which obtained the smallest number of suffrages. Wonders were related of the country they were about to conquer; Bosra was the capital of Upper Arabia, all the riches of that country appeared already to belong to the Christians, and all who opposed a conquest so brilliant and so easy were accused of treason. They deliberated in the midst of tumult,[259] and the cries of a misled multitude smothered the voice of reason and prudence. The council of the barons and the principal people decided that an expedition, upon which so many hopes were built, should be undertaken.

The Christian army was soon on its march, and across the mountains of Libanus. When it arrived in the territory of Damascus, its first conflict was with the Saracens gathered together to oppose its passage. After sustaining several severe encounters, the Christians succeeded in gaining the country called Traconite, where they found nothing but plains burnt up by the ardent rays of the sun. The roads were difficult, and the locusts having fallen into the wells and cisterns, had poisoned all the waters. The inhabitants, concealed in subterranean caverns, laid ambushes in all directions for the Christian army; whilst the Mussulman archers, planted upon all the hills and acclivities, left the warriors of Jerusalem not a moment’s repose. The misfortunes of the army ’it is William of Tyre who speaks) increased every day, and there was poured upon the Christians such a quantity, and as it were continually, of all sorts of arrows, that they appeared to descend upon them like hail or heavy rain upon houses covered with slates and tiles, men and beasts being stuck all over with them. Nevertheless, the hope of winning a rich city sustained the courage of the Christian soldiers, and enabled them to brave all these perils. But when they arrived within sight of Bosra, it was announced to them that the wife of the Armenian commandant had called the garrison to arms, and that she was prepared to defend the city which her husband had promised to give up to the king of Jerusalem. This unexpected news at once spread consternation and discouragement through the Christian army. The knights and barons, struck with the misfortunes that threatened the Christian soldiers, pressed the king to abandon his army, and save his person and the cross of Christ. Young Baldwin rejected the advice of his faithful barons, and insisted upon sharing all their perils.

As soon as the order for retreat was given, the Mussulmans, with loud cries, set out in pursuit of the Christians. The soldiers of Jerusalem closed their ranks, and marched in silence, sword in hand, bearing away their wounded and dead. The Saracens, who could not shake or break through their enemy, and who, in their pursuit, found no trace of carnage, believed they were actually fighting against men of iron. The region which the Christians were traversing was covered with heath, thistles, and other plants dried by the heat of the summer. The Saracens set fire to these; the wind bore the flames and smoke towards the Christian army, and the Franks marched over a burning plain, with clouds of smoke, ashes, and dust floating over and around them. William of Tyre, in his history, compares them to smiths, to such a degree were their clothes and their faces blackened by the fire which devoured the plain. The knights, the soldiers, and the people who followed the army, gathered in a crowd around the bishop of Nazareth, who bore the wood of the true cross, and conjured him with tears to put an end by his prayers to calamities they were no longer able to bear.

The bishop of Nazareth, touched by their despair, raised the cross, imploring the mercy of Heaven,—and, at the moment the direction of the wind was changed. The flames and the smoke which desolated the Christians were immediately wafted against the Mussulmans. The Franks pursued their march, persuaded that God had wrought a miracle to save them. A knight, whom they had never before seen, mounted on a white horse, and bearing a red standard, preceded the Christian army, and conducted it out of danger. The people and the soldiers took him for an angel from heaven, and his miraculous presence reanimated their strength and their courage. At length the army of Baldwin, after having undergone all sorts of misery, returned to Jerusalem, where the inhabitants rejoiced at its arrival, singing these words from the Scriptures, “Let us give ourselves up to joy, for that people that was dead is resuscitated; it was lost, and behold here it is found again.”

But whilst the inhabitants of Jerusalem were rejoicing at the return of their warriors, the Christian states lost one of their most important places, and experienced an irreparable misfortune. Zengui, whom the caliph of Bagdad and all true Mussulmans considered as the buckler and the support of Islamism, extended his empire from Mossoul to the frontiers of Damascus, and was continuing without intermission the course of his victories and conquests. The Christians made no effort to stop the progress of so redoubtable a power. Zengui, who united with bravery all the resources of a skilful policy, left them in a deceitful security, and determined only to awaken them from their long sleep when he had it in his power to give a mortal blow to their empire. He knew, by experience, that nothing was more fatal to the Christians than too long a repose; the Franks, who owed everything to their arms, were almost always weakened by peace, and when not fighting against the Saracens, generally fell out among themselves.

The kingdom of Jerusalem had two formidable barriers, the principality of Antioch and the county of Edessa. Raymond of Poictiers defended the Orontes from the invasion of the Saracens, and old Josselin de Courtenay had been for a long time the terror of the infidels on the banks of the Euphrates; but he was recently dead. He had fought to his last breath, and even on his bed of death made his arms and his bravery respected.

Josselin was besieging a castle near Aleppo, when a tower fell down near him and covered him with its ruins. He was transported in a dying state to Edessa, and as he lay languishing on his bed, expecting nothing but death, it was announced to him that the sultan of Iconium had laid siege to one of his strong places; upon which he sent for his son and commanded him to go instantly and attack the enemy. Young Josselin hesitated, and represented to his father that he had not a sufficient number of troops to meet the Turks. The old warrior, who had never acknowledged the existence of obstacles, was determined before he died to leave an example to his son, and caused himself to be borne in a litter at the head of his soldiers. As they approached the besieged city, he was informed that the Turks had retired, whereupon he ordered his litter to stop, raised his eyes towards heaven as if to return thanks for the flight of the Saracens, and expired surrounded by his faithful warriors.

His mortal remains were transported to Edessa, the inhabitants of which city came out to meet and join the funeral procession, which presented a most affecting spectacle. Here were to be seen the mourning soldiers bearing the coffin of their chief; and there a whole people lamenting the loss of their support and defender, and celebrating the last victory of a Christian hero.

Old Josselin died deploring the fate of Edessa, about to be governed by a weak and pusillanimous prince; for from his childhood the son of Courtenay had been addicted to drunkenness and debauchery. In an age and a country in which these vices were sufficiently common, the excesses of young Josselin had frequently scandalized the Christian warriors. As soon as he was master, he quitted the city of Edessa, to take up his abode at Turbessel, a delicious retreat on the banks of the Euphrates. There, entirely abandoned to his vicious inclinations, he neglected the pay of his troops and the fortifications of his forts, equally heedless of the cares of government and the menaces of the Saracens.

Zengui had been for a length of time watching for a favourable opportunity of surprising the city of Edessa; as this conquest would not only flatter his pride and ambition, but would render him dearer to all the disciples of Mahomet. In order to retain Josselin in his fancied security, the prince of Mossoul feigned to make war against the Saracens; but at the moment he was supposed to be most busily engaged in an attack upon several Mussulman castles in the east of Mesopotamia, he appeared at the head of a formidable army before the walls of Edessa.[260] A great number of Curds and Turcomans, wandering and barbarous tribes, had joined his standard, attracted by the hopes of a rich booty. At the first signal given by Zengui, the city was surrounded on all sides; seven enormous wooden towers were raised higher than the ramparts; numbers of formidable machines unceasingly battered the walls, or hurled into the city stones, javelins, and inflammable matters; whilst the foundations of the towers of the fortifications were being undermined by the infidels. The walls, which were only supported by slight, ill-fixed posts, were falling to pieces, and, covering the earth with their ruins, seemed ready to offer an easy passage to the Mussulman soldiers.

When on the point to give the signal for destruction, the fierce Mussulmans stopped, and summoned the city to surrender. The sight of the death which threatened them did not at all weaken the courage of the inhabitants, and they answered that they would all perish sooner than give up a Christian city to the infidels. They exhorted each other to merit the crown of martyrdom: “Let us not fear,” said they, “these stones launched against our towers and our houses; he who made the firmament, and created legions of angels, defends us against his enemies, or prepares us an abode in heaven.” Animated by such discourses, the inhabitants of Edessa exerted themselves to destroy the towers and the works of the besiegers, the hopes of being succoured redoubling their zeal and courage. They expected, says an Armenian author, assistance from a nation which they called the valiant, and every day looked to see, from the height of their walls, the standards of the victorious Franks.

The hoped-for succours were vainly expected. When Josselin learnt the danger of his capital, he aroused himself from his sloth, and sent information of it to Raymond of Poictiers, and the queen regent of Jerusalem. But the prince of Antioch, who disliked Josselin, refused to assist Edessa, and the troops of Jerusalem, although set forward on their march, could not arrive in time. Josselin ought to have devoted himself to repair the consequences of his faults, but he had not the courage to seek death under the walls of a city he could not save, and whose defence he had neglected.

On the twenty-eighth day of the siege, several towers fell down with a horrible crash; and Zengui at once ordered his army to enter the place. To paint the frightful scenes of this last attack, I must borrow the words of a contemporary author: “The moment at which the sun began to shine above the horizon, appeared like a night illumined by the fires of the storm. As soon as the ramparts and towers fell, all the city was filled with terror. Nevertheless the defenders of Edessa thought not, for a moment, of flight, but all joined in the cry of the brave, conquer or die. Some employed themselves in propping up the walls, whilst others boldly flew to meet the enemy; the clergy, clothed in helmet and cuirass, marching at their head. The bishops, bearing each a cross in his hands, bestowed their benedictions on the people and animated them to the fight.”

The enemy advanced uttering frightful cries; even amidst the din of a general assault, the voices of the Saracen heralds-at-arms were heard encouraging the soldiers, and promising the pillage of the city to the conquerors. Then, to employ the expression of an Armenian poet, the pusillanimous were seen shedding torrents of tears, whilst the brave, heedless of the stroke of the sabre, rushed amidst the ranks of the Mussulmans.

Neither prodigies of valour, nor the last efforts of despair could save the city or its inhabitants. A great part of the Mussulman army was already in the place; and all who crossed the steps of the conquerors fell beneath the sword. Most of those who sought safety in the citadel, found death under its ramparts, and were trampled upon and stifled by the crowd. The city of Edessa presented, everywhere, the most lamentable scenes; some fell whilst flying, and died, crushed to death by the feet of the horses; whilst others, hastening to the succour of their friends and neighbours, were themselves slaughtered by the barbarians. Neither the weakness of a timid sex, nor age on the brink of the tomb; neither the cries of infants, nor the screams of young girls who sought safety in the arms, or beneath the garments of their parents, could abate the rage of the Saracens. They whom the sword had not yet reached, looked for nothing but death; some crept to the churches to await it, and died embracing the altars of Christ; whilst others, yielding to their despair, remained motionless in their houses, where they were massacred with their families.

The citadel soon surrendered; the soldiers who defended it only asking their lives; but, notwithstanding the capitulation, many were put to the sword. A great part of the priests who had survived the carnage were condemned to slavery; an Armenian patriarch was stripped of his vestments, dragged through the streets, and beaten with rods. Matthew of Edessa, one of the most celebrated historians of Armenia, fell under the sword of the Mussulmans. Hugh, a Latin archbishop, having endeavoured to escape, was, with all his clergy, slaughtered by the infidels. His treasures, which he carried with him, and which might have been usefully employed for the defence of the city, became the prey of the enemy. Pious historians impute the fall of Edessa to the avarice of this prelate, and appear to believe that he was punished in another world for having preferred his gold to the safety of his fellow-citizens.[261]

When the Mussulmans had become masters of the citadel, their priests ascended the steeples of the churches to proclaim these words: “Oh Mahomet! prophet of heaven, we have gained a great victory in thy name; we have destroyed the people that worshipped stone, and torrents of blood have been shed to make thy law triumph.” After this proclamation, the Saracens redoubled their excesses. The Gazis or conquerors satiated themselves with blood; the dead bodies were mutilated, and their heads sent to Bagdad; and even to Khorasan. All who remained alive in the city of Edessa were treated as a flock of animals, and sold in the public places. The Christians, loaded with chains, after having lost their property, their country, and their liberty, had the still further grief of seeing their religion, which was all they had left to console them in their misfortunes, made a subject of ridicule by the infidels. The churches were plundered of their ornaments, and the sanctuary became the scene of the most shocking debaucheries. Many of the faithful whom the horrors of war had spared, could not support the sight of such profanations, and died with despair.[262]

Thus a city, whose citadel, ramparts, and position on two mountains, rendered one of the strongest places in Asia, fell into the power of the Mussulmans. The traditions of religion and history carry back its origin to the highest antiquity. Narses, in a pathetic elegy, deplores the fall of this celebrated city, and makes itself speak of its ancient splendour.[263] “I was,” says she, “as a queen in the midst of her court; sixty towns standing around me formed my train; my numerous children passed their days in pleasures; the fertility of my fields, the freshness of my limpid waters, and the beauty of my palaces were admired; my altars, loaded with treasures, shed their splendour afar, and appeared to be the abode of angels. I surpassed in magnificence the proudest cities of Asia, and I was as a celestial edifice built upon the bosom of the earth.”

The conquest of Edessa exalted the pride of the Saracens. The caliph of Bagdad ordered that the barbarous destroyer of the Christians should be named in the public prayers of the Fridays, and that the whole Mussulman people should offer up thanks to Heaven for his victories. Zengui left some troops in the conquered city, and pursued the course of his triumphs; but fortune did not permit him to finish that which he had begun. He was besieging the castle of Schabar, in Mesopotamia, when he was assassinated by some slaves whom ill-treatment had irritated. The news of his death consoled the Christians for their defeats, and they expressed a joy as immoderate as if they had beheld the whole power of the Mussulmans fall at once. But this joy was of very short duration, for abundance of new enemies and new misfortunes soon followed to overwhelm them.

Josselin, who had taken advantage of the troubles which ensued upon the death of the prince of Mossoul to retake the city of Edessa, ill-guarded by the Mussulmans, found himself unexpectedly besieged by Noureddin, the second son of Zengui. Noureddin had received, as his share of the heritage of his father, the principality of Aleppo, and was eager to signalize his zeal against the Christians. Josselin and his companions, who had surprised the city of Edessa amidst the darkness of night, were wanting in machines of war to besiege and get possession of the citadel. When the city was invested by the prince of Aleppo, the Christian warriors who were placed between the garrison of the fortress and the Mussulman army, saw at once the danger of their position. As in desperate circumstances, a thousand resolutions are, by turns, formed and rejected; whilst they deliberated, the enemy pressed and threatened them. There soon remained no safety for them in a city which they had entered as conquerors; and, after having braved death to get possession of it, they decided upon facing equal perils to get out of it. The soldiers of Josselin, consisting of Christians who had gathered to the city, and of the small number of inhabitants who had survived the massacre of their brethren, had now nothing left but their endeavours to escape the barbarity of the Mussulmans. They made their preparations for flight in silence; the gates were opened in the middle of the night, and every one bearing away that which he esteemed most valuable, a weeping crowd pressed along the streets. Already a great number of these unhappy fugitives had passed the gates of the city, headed by the warriors commanded by Josselin, and had advanced into the plain where the Saracens were encamped, when the garrison of the citadel, warned by the tumult, made a sortie, and uniting themselves with the soldiers of Noureddin, who hastened towards the city, gained possession of the gates by which the Christians were issuing. Many severe conflicts were here maintained, of which darkness increased the horrors. The Christians succeeded in opening themselves a passage, and spread themselves about in the neighbouring fields. They who carried arms united in battalions, and endeavoured to pass through the camp of the enemy; whilst others, separated from the troop of warriors, went on at hazard, wandered about the plains, and everywhere found death following their footsteps. Whilst relating the events of this horrible night, William of Tyre cannot restrain his tears. “Oh disastrous night!” cries the historian Aboulfarage, “dawn of hell, day without pity, day of misfortune which arose upon the children of a city formerly worthy of envy!” In Edessa, out of Edessa, nothing was heard but cries of death. The warriors who had formed battalions, after having pierced through the army of the infidels, were pursued as far as the banks of the Euphrates, and the roads were strewed with their remains, their arms, and their baggage. Only a thousand of them succeeded in gaining the city of Samosata, which received them within its walls, and deplored their misfortunes, without being able to avenge them.

History relates that more than thirty thousand Christians were slaughtered by the soldiers of Zengui and Noureddin. Sixteen thousand were made prisoners, and dragged out their lives in misery and slavery. Noureddin in his vengeance did not spare either the ramparts or buildings of a rebel city; he razed the towers, the citadel, and the churches of Edessa to the ground. He banished all the Christians from it, and left nothing but a few mendicants to dwell amidst the ruins of their country.

Zengui had been considered as a saint, as a warrior beloved by Mahomet, for having conquered the city of Edessa; the blood-stained expedition of Noureddin rendered him dear to the Mussulmans, contributed much to the extension of his renown and his power, and already the Imans and the poets promised to his arms the much more glorious conquest of Jerusalem.

The inhabitants of Jerusalem and other Christian cities shed tears of despair on learning the fall and destruction of Edessa, sinister presages adding much to the terror which the news from the banks of the Euphrates inspired them with. Thunder fell upon the churches of the Holy Sepulchre and Mount Sion; a comet with shining hair was seen in the heavens, and spread general consternation; several other signs appeared, says William of Tyre, contrary to custom, and out of time, indicative of future things. As a crowning misfortune, Rodolphe, chancellor of Jerusalem, was taken by force to the siege of Tyre, and scandal prevailed in the sanctuary. All the faithful of the East were persuaded that Heaven had declared itself against them, and that horrible calamities were about to fall upon the Christian people.