Читать книгу The History of the Crusades (Vol.1-3) - Joseph François Michaud - Страница 17

The conduct of the queen must have scandalized both the infidels and the Christians of the East; and her example was likely to produce fatal effects in an army in which there were a great number of women. Among the crowd of knights, and even of Mussulmans, who during her abode at Antioch by turns were favoured by her partiality,[283] a young Turk is particularly mentioned, who received costly presents from her, and for whom she desired to abandon the king of France. In such affairs, ingeniously remarks Mézerai, “more is frequently said than there is; but sometimes also there is more than is said.” However that may be, Louis VII. could not forget his dishonour, and felt obliged some years after to repudiate Eleanor, who married Henry II., and bestowed the duchy of Guienne upon England, which was for France one of the most deplorable consequences of this second crusade.

The king and the barons of Jerusalem, who dreaded the stay of Louis VII. at Antioch, sent deputies to conjure him, in the name of Jesus Christ, to hasten his march towards the holy city. The king of France yielded to their wishes, and crossed Syria and Phœnicia without stopping at the court of the count of Tripoli, who entertained the same projects as Raymond of Poitiers. His arrival in the Holy Land created the greatest enthusiasm, and reanimated the hopes of the Christians. The people, the princes, and the prelates of Jerusalem came out to meet him, bearing in their hands branches of olive, and singing the same words as the Saviour of the world was saluted with “Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The emperor of Germany, who had left Europe at the head of a powerful army, had just reached Jerusalem in the character of a simple pilgrim. The two monarchs embraced, wept over their misfortunes, and repairing together to the church of the Resurrection, adored the inscrutable decrees of Providence.

Baldwin III., who then reigned at Jerusalem, was a young prince of great hope; and being as impatient to extend his own renown as to enlarge his kingdom, he neglected no means to obtain the confidence of the Crusaders, and urge on the war against the Saracens. An assembly was convoked at Ptolemaïs, to deliberate upon the operations of this crusade. The emperor Conrad, the king of France, and the young king of Jerusalem repaired thither, accompanied by their barons and their knights. The leaders of the Christian armies, and the heads of the Church deliberated together upon the subject of the holy war in the presence of Queen Melisinde, the marchioness of Austria, and several other German and French ladies, who had followed the Crusaders into Asia. In this brilliant assembly the Christians were astonished at not seeing the queen, Eleanor of Guienne, and were thus reminded with regret of the sojourn at Antioch. The absence of Raymond of Antioch, and the counts of Edessa and Tripoli, who had not been invited to the meeting, must necessarily have created sad reflections, and given birth to presages upon the effects of discord among the Christians of the East.

The name of the unfortunate Josselin was scarcely mentioned in the council of the princes and barons; nothing was said of Edessa, the loss of which had raised the entire “West to arms, nor of the conquest of Aleppo, which had been proposed by Raymond of Antioch. From the beginning of the reign of Baldwin, the princes and lords of Palestine had cherished a project for extending their conquests beyond Libanus, and gaining possession of Damascus. As the Christians, when they entered into a Mussulman province or city, divided amongst them the lands and the houses of the conquered, the people who dwelt on the barren mountains of Judea, the greater part of the warriors of Jerusalem, and even the clergy, all appeared to direct their wishes towards the territory of Damascus, which offered the rich booty to its captors of pleasant habitations, and fields covered with golden harvests. The hope of driving the Mussulmans from a fertile province, and enriching themselves with their spoils, made them even forgetful of the redoubtable power of Noureddin and the Attabecks. In the assembly at Ptolemaïs, it was resolved to commence the war by the siege of Damascus.

All the troops assembled in Galilee in the beginning of the spring, and advanced towards the source of the Jordan, commanded by the king of France, the emperor of Germany, and the king of Jerusalem, preceded by the patriarch of the holy city, bearing the true cross. The Christian army, to which were attached the knights of the Temple, and of St. John, in the early days of June set out from Melchisapar, a little city, memorable for the miraculous conversion of St. Paul, and crossing the chains of Libanus, encamped near the town of Dary, from whence they could see the city of Damascus.

Damascus is situated at the foot of the Anti-Libanus, forty-five leagues from Jerusalem; hills covered with trees and verdure arise in the neighbourhood of the city, and in its territory were several towns which have maintained a name in history. A river which falls impetuously from the mountains, rolls over a golden-coloured sand, and separating into several branches, waters the city, and bears freshness and fertility to the valley of Abennefsage, or the valley of violets, planted with all sorts of fruit-trees. The city of Damascus was celebrated in the remotest antiquity, having seen both the rise and fall of the city of Palmyra, whose ruins are still objects of curiosity and wonder in its neighbourhood. Ezekiel boasts of its delicious wines, its numerous workshops, and its wools of admirable tints; and several passages of Scripture represent Damascus as the abode of voluptuousness and delight. The beauty of its gardens, and the magnificence of its public edifices, many of which were built of marble of different colours, were much admired.

Damascus, after being conquered in turn by the Hebrews, the kings of Assyria, and the successors of Alexander, fell into the hands of the Romans. From the age of Augustus the preaching of St. Paul had filled it with Christians; but at the beginning of the Hegira it was attacked and taken by the lieutenants of Mahomet, and a great part of the inhabitants, who, after capitulation, endeavoured to seek an asylum in Constantinople, were pursued and massacred by the fierce conquerors, in the territories of Tripoli.

From this time, Damascus, which formed a government or a principality, had remained in the power of the Mussulmans. At the period of the second crusade, this principality, attacked by turns by the Franks, the Ortokides, and the Attabecks, and almost reduced to nothing but its capital, belonged to a Mussulman prince, who had no less occasion to defend himself against the ambition of the emirs than the invasion of foreign enemies. Noureddin, master of Aleppo and several other cities of Syria, had already made several attempts to gain possession of Damascus, and had by no means abandoned the hopes of uniting it to his other conquests, when the Christians formed the resolution of besieging it.

The city was defended by high walls on the east and the south; whilst on the west and the north it had no other defence but its numerous gardens, planted with trees, in all parts of which were raised palisades, walls of earth, and little towers, in which they could place archers. The Crusaders, when ready to begin the siege, resolved in a council to take possession of the gardens first, hoping to find therein water and abundance of fruits. But the enterprise was not without great difficulties; for the orchards, which extended to the foot of the Anti-Libanus, were like a vast forest, crossed by narrow paths, in which two men could scarcely walk abreast. The infidels had everywhere thrown up intrenchments, where they could, without danger to themselves, resist the attacks of the Crusaders. Nothing could, however, damp the bravery and ardour of the Christian army, which penetrated on several sides into the gardens. From the heights of the little towers, from the interior of the wall enclosures, and from the bosoms of the bushy trees, clouds of arrows and javelins were showered upon them. Every step taken by the Christians in these covered places was marked by a combat in which they could scarcely see their enemy. The infidels, however, attacked without intermission, were, in the end, obliged to abandon the positions they had occupied and fortified. The king of Jerusalem marched first at the head of his army and the knights of St. John and of the Temple; after the Christians of the East, advanced the French Crusaders, commanded by Louis VII.; whilst the emperor of Germany, who had got together the poor remains of his army, formed the body of reserve, to protect the besiegers from the surprises of the enemy.

The king of Jerusalem pursued the Mussulmans with ardour; his soldiers rushing with him into the midst of the enemy’s ranks, comparing their leader to David, who, according to Josephus, had conquered a king of Damascus. The Saracens, after an obstinate resistance, united on the banks of the river which flows under its walls, to drive away with arrows and stones the crowd of Christians brought thither by fatigue and heat. The warriors commanded by Baldwin endeavoured several times to break through the army of the Mussulmans, but always met with an invincible resistance. It was then the emperor of Germany signalized his bravery by a deed of arms worthy of the heroes of the first crusade. Followed by a small number of his people, he passed through the French army, whom the difficulties of the situation almost prevented from fighting, and took his place in the vanguard of the Crusaders. Nothing could resist the impetuosity of his attack, all who opposed him falling beneath his arm; when a Saracen of gigantic stature, and completely clothed in armour, advanced to meet him, and defy him to the combat. The emperor at once accepted the challenge, and flew to meet the Mussulman warrior. At the sight of this singular combat, the two armies remained motionless, waiting in fear, till one of the champions had defeated the other, to re-commence the battle. The Saracen warrior was soon hurled from his horse, and Conrad with one blow of his sword, dealt upon the shoulder of the Mussulman, divided his body into two parts.[284] This prodigy of valour and strength redoubled the ardour of the Christians, and spread terror among the infidels. From this moment the Mussulmans began to seek safety within the walls of the city, and left the Crusaders masters of the banks of the river.

Eastern authors speak of the fright of the inhabitants of Damascus after the victory of the Christians. The Mussulmans prostrated themselves[285] upon ashes during several days; they exposed in the middle of the great mosque, the Koran compiled by Omar; and women and children gathered around the sacred book to invoke the aid of Mahomet against their enemies. The besieged already contemplated abandoning the city; they placed in the streets, towards the entrance into the gardens, large posts, chains, and heaps of stones, in order to retard the march of the besiegers, and thus to afford them time to fly with their riches and their families by the north and south gates.

The Christians were so thoroughly persuaded they should shortly be masters of Damascus, that it became a question among the leaders, to whom the sovereignty of the city should be given. The greater part of the barons and lords who were in the Christian army, courted the favour of the king of France and the emperor of Germany, and all at once forgot the siege of the city in their earnest endeavours to obtain the government of it. Thierri of Alsace, count of Flanders, who had been twice in Palestine before the crusade, and who had given up to his family all his possessions in Europe, solicited the principality more warmly than the others, and prevailed over his opponents and rivals. This preference gave birth to jealousy, and infused discouragement in the army; as long as the city they were about to conquer remained a bait for their ambition, the leaders showed themselves full of ardour and courage, but when they were without hope, some remained inactive, whilst others, no longer regarding the Christian glory as their own cause, sought every means to insure the failure of an enterprise from which they should reap no personal advantage.

The leaders of the besieged took advantage of these feelings to open negotiations with the Crusaders. Their threats, their promises and presents, succeeded in destroying what remained of the zeal and enthusiasm of the Christians. They addressed themselves particularly to the barons of Syria, and exhorted them to be on their guard against warriors come, as they said, from the West, to take possession of the Christian cities of Asia. They threatened to deliver up Damascus to the new master of the East, Noureddin, whom nothing could resist, and who would soon take possession of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The barons of Syria, whether deceived by these speeches, or that, in their hearts, they dreaded the successes of the Franks who had come to succour them, employed themselves only in retarding the operations of a siege they had themselves prosecuted with ardour; and, abusing the confidence of the Crusaders, they proposed a plan, which, being adopted too lightly, completed the ruin of all the hopes that had been built on this crusade.

In a council, the barons of Syria proposed to the leaders to change the mode of attack; the closeness of the gardens and the river, said they, prevented the placing of the machines of war in an advantageous manner; and the Christian army, in the position it occupied, might be surprised, and ran the risk of being surrounded by the enemy without the power of defending itself. It appeared to them, therefore, much more certain and safe to assault the city on the south and east sides.

Most of the chiefs possessed more valour than prudence, and the confidence which victory inspired made them think everything possible; besides, how could they mistrust the Christians of the East, for whom they had taken up arms, and who were their brothers? In addition to this, the fear of dragging out the siege to a great length made them adopt the advice of the barons of Syria. After having changed their points of attack, the Christian army, instead of finding easy access to the place, saw nothing before them but towers and impregnable ramparts. Scarcely had the Christians seated themselves in their new camp when the city of Damascus received within its walls a troop of twenty thousand Curds and Turcomans, determined to defend it. The besieged, whose courage was raised by the arrival of these auxiliaries, put on, says an Arabian historian, the buckler of victory, and made several sorties, in which they gained the advantage over the Christians. The Crusaders, on their part, made several assaults upon the city, and were always repulsed. Encamped upon an arid plain, they were destitute of water; all the adjacent country had been devastated by the infidels, and the corn that had escaped the ravages of war was concealed in caves and subterranean hiding-places, which they could not discover. The Christian army wanted provisions; then discord revived among them; nothing was spoken of in the camp but perfidy and treason; the Christians of Syria no longer united with the Christians of Europe in their attacks upon the city; they were soon informed that the sultans of Aleppo and Mossoul were coming with a numerous army; then they despaired of taking the city, and raised the siege. Thus the Christians, without having exercised their constancy, or tested their courage, abandoned, at the end of a few days, an enterprise, the preparations for which had cost so much to Europe, and raised such expectations in Asia. One of the circumstances of this siege the most worthy of remark is, that Ayoub, chief of the dynasty of the Ayoubites, commanded the troops of Damascus, and that he had with him his son, the young Saladin, who was destined one day to be so formidable to the Christians, and render himself master of Jerusalem. The eldest son of Ayoub having been killed in a sortie, the inhabitants of Damascus raised a tomb of marble to his memory, which was to be seen under the ramparts of the city many centuries after. An old Mussulman priest, who had passed more than forty years in a neighbouring cavern, was obliged to quit his retreat, and came into the city which the Christians were besieging. He regretted his solitude troubled by the din of war, and became ambitious of gathering the palm of martyrdom. In spite of the representations of his disciples, he advanced, unarmed, in the front of the Crusaders, found on the field of battle the death he desired, and was honoured as a saint by the people of Damascus.

If we may believe the Arabian historians, the Christian ecclesiastics who followed the army neglected no means of rekindling the enthusiasm of the soldiers of the cross. During a conflict under the walls of the city, a grey-headed Christian priest, mounted on a mule, and carrying a cross in his hands, advanced between the two armies, exhorting the Crusaders to redouble their bravery and ardour, and promising them, in the name of Jesus Christ, the conquest of Damascus. The Mussulmans directed all their arrows at him; the Christians pressed around to defend him; the combat became fierce and bloody; the priest fell at length pierced with many wounds, upon a heap of slain, and the Crusaders abandoned the field of battle.

The greater part of both Arabian and Latin authors[286] describe the siege of Damascus in a contradictory manner, but all agree in attributing the retreat of the Christians to treachery. A Mussulman historian asserts that the king of Jerusalem received considerable sums from the inhabitants of Damascus, and that he was deceived by the besieged, who gave him pieces of lead covered with a thin coating of gold.[287] Some Latin authors attribute the shameful raising of the siege to the covetousness of the Templars; others to Raymond of Antioch, who burned to revenge himself on the king of France. William of Tyre, whose opinion ought to have great weight, accuses the barons of Syria;[288] but surely all must blame the ignorance and incapacity of the other chiefs of the crusade, who followed advice without examining it, and proved themselves incapable of remedying an evil they had not foreseen.

After so unfortunate an attempt, it was natural to despair of the success of this war. In the council of leaders the siege of Ascalon was proposed, but men’s minds were soured, and their courage was depressed. The king of France and the emperor of Germany thought of returning into Europe, bearing back no other glory than that of having, the one defended his own life against some soldiers on a rock in Pamphylia, and the other of having cleft a giant in two under the walls of Damascus. “From that day,” says William of Tyre, “the condition and state of the Oriental Latins began continually to proceed from bad to worse.” The Mussulmans learnt no longer to dread the warriors and princes of the West. Full of confidence in their arms, they who had only thought of defending themselves, formed the project of attacking the Franks, and were excited to their enterprise by the hopes of sharing the spoils of an enemy who had invaded several of their provinces. Whilst the infidels thus regained their daring and their pride, and united against their enemies, discouragement took possession of the Christians, and the division which prevailed so fatally among them weakened every day their spirit and their power. “The Franks who returned into Europe” ’we leave William of Tyre to speak) “could not forget the perfidies of the Oriental princes, and not only showed themselves more careless and tardy concerning the affairs of the kingdom of Jerusalem, but discouraged all those equally who had not been the voyage with them, so that they who heard speak of this crusade never after undertook the road of this peregrination with so much good-will or so much fervour.”

This crusade was much more unfortunate than the first; no kind of glory mitigated or set off the reverses of the Christians. The leaders committed the same faults that Godfrey and his companions had committed; they neglected, as they had done, to found a colony in Asia Minor, and to possess themselves of cities which might protect the march of pilgrims into Syria. We admire the patience with which they endured the outrages and the perfidies of the Greeks; but this moderation, more religious than politic, only led them to their ruin. We must add that they entertained too low an opinion of the Turks, and did not take sufficient heed of the means necessary to contend with them. The Germans, in particular, were so full of confidence, that, according to the report of Nicetas, they would rather have thought of taking shovels and pickaxes with them than swords or lances, believing that they had nothing to do but to cut themselves a road across Asia Minor. By another singularity, the Crusaders, in this war, did not employ the cross-bow, which a council of the Lateran had condemned as too murderous, and the use of which was interdicted to the warriors of the West. The infantry was left almost without arms, and when the Crusaders had lost their cavalry, they had no defence against an enemy.

The Christian armies, as in the first crusade, dragged in their train a great number of children, women, and old men, who could do nothing towards victory, and yet always greatly augmented the disorder and despair consequent upon a defeat. With this multitude no discipline could be established; nor is it apparent that the leaders made any attempt to prevent the effects of license. Geoffrey de Rançon, whose imprudence caused the destruction of half the French army, and placed the king of France in the greatest peril, had no other punishment but his repentance, and thought he expiated his neglect of duty by prostrating himself at the tomb of Christ. That which was still more injurious to discipline was the depravity of manners in the Christian army, which must be principally attributed to the great number of women that had taken arms, and mixed in the ranks of the soldiery. In this crusade there was a troop of Amazons, commanded by a general whose dress was much more admired than her courage, and whose gilded boots procured her the name of “the lady with the legs of gold.”

Another cause of the dissoluteness of manners was the extreme facility with which the most vicious men, even convicted malefactors, were admitted among the Crusaders. St. Bernard, who considered the crusade as a road to heaven, summoned the greatest sinners to take part in it, and rejoiced at seeing them thus enter into the way of eternal life. In a council of Rheims, of which the abbot of Clairvaux was the oracle, it was decreed that incendiaries should be punished by serving God one year either in Jerusalem or Spain. The ardent preacher of the holy war did not reflect that great sinners, enrolled under the banners of the cross, would be exposed to new temptations, and that during a long voyage it would be much more easy for them to corrupt their companions than to amend their own conduct. Disorders were unhappily tolerated by the leaders, who believed that Heaven was ever indulgent towards Crusaders, and did not wish to be more severe than it.

And yet the Christian army, amidst a most frightful state of morals, presented examples of an austere piety. Surrounded by the dangers of war, and harassed by the fatigues of a long pilgrimage, the king of France never neglected the most minute practices of religion. The greater part of the leaders took him for their model, and when in camp, paid more attention to religious processions than to military exercises; so that many warriors actually placed more confidence in their prayers than in their arms. In general, through the whole of this crusade, sufficient dependence was not placed on human means and human prudence,—everything was left to Providence, which seldom protects those who stray from the ways of reason and wisdom.

The first crusade had two distinctive characters,—piety and heroism; the second had scarcely any other principle but a piety which partook more of the devotion of the cloister than of a generous enthusiasm. The influence of the monks who had preached it, and who then meddled very much in temporal affairs, was but too evident through the whole of this crusade. The king of France in his misfortunes displayed nothing but the resignation of a martyr, and in the field of battle was only distinguished by the ardour and courage of a soldier. The emperor of Germany did not evince greater ability; he lost all by his mad presumption, and from having thought himself able to conquer the Turks without the assistance of the French. Both were limited in their views, and were greatly wanting in that energy which produces great actions. In the expedition which they directed, there was nothing elevated, everything seemed to keep down to the level of their character. In a word, this war developed neither heroic passions nor chivalric qualities. Camps had no great captains to admire or imitate; and the period we have described can boast of only two men of marked genius,—he who had roused the Western world by his eloquence, and the wise minister of Louis, who had to repair in France all the misfortunes of the crusade.

All the energies of this crusade were not directed against Asia. Several preachers, authorized by the Holy See, had exhorted the inhabitants of Saxony and Denmark to take up arms against some nations of the Baltic, still plunged in the darkness of paganism. This crusade was led by Henry of Saxony, several other princes, and a great number of bishops and archbishops. An army, composed of a hundred and fifty thousand Crusaders, attacked the barbarous and savage nation of the Sclaves, who unceasingly ravaged the sea-coasts, and made war upon the Christians. The Christian warriors wore upon their breasts a red cross, under which was a round figure, representing and symbolizing the earth, which ought to be obedient to the laws of Christ. Preachers of the gospel accompanied their march, and exhorted them to extend the limits of Christian Europe by their exploits. The Crusaders consigned to the flames several idolatrous temples, and destroyed the city of Malehon, in which the pagan priests were accustomed to assemble. In this holy war the Saxons treated a pagan people exactly as Charlemagne had treated their own ancestors; but they were not able to subdue the Sclaves. After a war of three years, the Saxon and Danish Crusaders grew weary of pursuing an enemy defended by the sea, and still further by their despair. They made proposals of peace; the Sclaves, on their part, promised to become converts to Christianity, and to respect Christian people.[289] They only made these promises to pacify their enemies; and when the latter laid down their arms, they returned to their idols and resumed their piracies.

Other Crusaders, to whom Christendom paid very little attention, prosecuted a more successful war on the banks of the Tagus. It was several centuries since Spain had been invaded by the Moors, and still two rival nations disputed empire and fought for territory in the names of Mahomet and Jesus Christ.[290] The Moors, often conquered by the Cid and his companions, had been driven from several provinces, and when the second crusade set out for the East, the Spaniards were besieging the city of Lisbon. The Christian army, small in numbers, was in daily expectation of reinforcements, when a fleet which was transporting to the East a great number of French Crusaders, entered the mouth of the Tagus. Alphonso, a prince of the house of Burgundy and grandson of King Robert, commanded the besieging army. He visited the Christian warriors, whom Heaven appeared to have sent to his assistance, and promised, as the reward of their co-operation, the conquest of a flourishing kingdom. He exhorted them to join him in combating those same Saracens whom they were going to seek in Asia through all the perils of the sea. “The God who had sent them would bless their army; noble pay and rich possessions would be the meed of their valour.” Nothing more was necessary to persuade warriors who had made a vow to fight with the infidels and who were eager for adventures. They abandoned their vessels and joined the besiegers. The Moors opposed them with determined pertinacity, but at the end of four months Lisbon was taken, and the garrison put to the sword. They afterwards besieged several other cities, which were wrested from the Saracens; Portugal submitted to the power of Alphonso, and he assumed the title of king. Amidst these conquests the Crusaders forgot the East, and, without incurring much danger, they founded a prosperous and splendid kingdom, which lasted much longer than that of Jerusalem.

We may judge by these crusades, undertaken at the same time, against nations of the north and others of the south, that the principle of holy wars began to assume a new character; Crusaders did not fight only for the possession of a sepulchre, but they took up arms to defend their religion wherever it might be attacked, and to make it triumphant among all nations that rejected its laws and refused its benefits. The diversity of interests which set the Crusaders in action, necessarily divided their forces, weakened their enthusiasm, and was sure to be injurious to the success of a holy war.

France, which then turned anxious looks towards Palestine, no longer demanded of God the deliverance of the holy places, but the return of a king over whose misfortunes they had wept. For a length of time, Suger, who was unable to sustain the royal authority, had endeavoured to recall his master by letters full of tenderness and devotion. Their interview, which proved an affecting spectacle for the French, alarmed the courtiers, who were desirous of awakening suspicions of the fidelity of the minister. A kingdom at peace and a flourishing people were the reply of Suger. The king praised his zeal, and bestowed upon him the title of Father of his Country. Suger enjoyed a great advantage, as he had been the only man of any consequence in Europe who had opposed the crusade. His wise foresight was everywhere the subject of praise, whilst all complaints were directed against St. Bernard. There was not a family in the kingdom that was not in mourning; and the same desolation reigned throughout Germany. So many widows and orphans had never been seen, and the glory of martyrdom, promised to all whose loss was regretted, had no power to dry their tears. The abbot of Clairvaux was accused of having sent Christians to die in the East, as if Europe had been without sepulchres; and the partisans of St. Bernard, who had seen his mission attested by his miracles, not knowing what to reply, were struck with stupor and astonishment. “God, in these latter days,” said they among themselves, “has neither spared his people nor his name; the children of the Church have been given over to death in the desert, or massacred by the sword, or devoured by hunger; the contempt of the Lord has fallen even upon princes; God has left them to wander in unknown ways, and all sorts of pains and afflictions have been strewed upon their paths.” So many evils resulting from a holy war, from a war undertaken in the name of God, confounded the Christians who had most applauded the crusade, and St. Bernard himself was astonished that God had been willing to judge the universe before the time, and without remembrance of his mercy. “What a disgrace is it for us,” said he in an apology addressed to the pope, “for us who went everywhere announcing peace and happiness! Have we conducted ourselves rashly? Have our courses been adopted from fantasy? Have we not followed the orders of the head of the Church and those of the Lord? Why has not God regarded our fasts? Why has he appeared to know nothing of our humiliations? With what patience is he now listening to the sacrilegious and blasphemous voices of the nations of Arabia, who accuse him of having led his people into the desert that they might perish! All the world knows,” added he, “that the judgments of the Lord are just; but this is so profound an abyss, that he may be called happy who is not disgraced by it.” St. Bernard was so thoroughly persuaded that the unfortunate issue of the crusade would furnish the wicked with an excuse for insulting the Deity, that he congratulated himself that so many of the maledictions of men fell upon him, making him as a buckler to the living God. In his apology, he attributes the want of success in the holy war to the disorders and crimes of the Christians; he compares the Crusaders to the Hebrews, to whom Moses had promised, in the name of Heaven, a land of blessedness, and who all perished on their journey, because they had done a thousand things against God.

St. Bernard might have been answered that he ought to have foreseen the excesses and disorders of an undisciplined multitude, and that the brigands called upon to take up the cross were not the people of God. It appears to us, at the present time, that the partisans of the abbot of Clairvaux might have found better reasons for the justification of the holy war. The second crusade, although unfortunate, procured several advantages for Europe. The peace which reigned in the West, caused states to flourish, and repaired, in some sort, the disasters of a distant war. It was held shameful to carry arms in Europe, whilst the Crusaders were contending with the Saracens in the East. Religion itself watched over Germany, which had been so long troubled by civil wars. Conrad, a weak monarch without character, who had lost his army in Asia, was more powerful on his return from Palestine than he had been before he quitted his dominions. The king of France also found his authority increased, from having been defended during his absence by the thunders of the Church and the eloquence of St. Bernard.[291] The crusade gave him a pretext for imposing taxes upon his people, and placed him at the head of a numerous army, where he accustomed the great vassals to consider him as their supreme head.

Still, if it is true that the divorce of Eleanor of Guienne was one of the consequences of the crusade, it must be admitted that the evils which resulted from this war were much greater for the French monarchy than any good it derived from it. The kingdom which then lost the province of Aquitaine, which fell into the hands of the English, was doomed to become the prey of the children that Eleanor had by her second marriage. A following age saw the descendants of these children crowned kings of France and England in the church of Notre Dame, at Paris, and the successors of Louis VII. found themselves almost reduced to seek an asylum in foreign lands.

Flattery undertook to console Louis the young, for the reverses he had experienced in Asia, and represented him, upon several medals,[292] as the conqueror of the East. He left Palestine with the project of returning thither; and in his journey to Rome, he promised the pope to place himself at the head of a new crusade.

And never did the Christian colonies stand in greater need of assistance. From the time the French quitted Palestine not a day passed without some new misfortune befalling the Christians established in Syria. A very short time after the siege of Damascus, Raymond of Poictiers lost his life in a battle against the Saracens, and his head was sent to the caliph of Bagdad. Josselin, after having lost the city of Edessa, himself fell into the hands of the infidels, and died in misery and despair in the prisons of Aleppo. Two emissaries of the Old Man of the Mountain assassinated Raymond II., count of Tripoli, under the walls of his capital, which was plunged into trouble and desolation. Two young Mussulman princes, of the family of Ortok, excited by their mother, believed that the moment was come to reconquer Jerusalem from the Christians. An army which they had assembled, came and pitched its camp on the Mount of Olives, and the holy city only owed its safety to the courage of some knights who induced the people to take arms. Noureddin had got possession of all the Christian cities of Mesopotamia, and several places in the principality of Antioch had opened their gates to him. Arrived on the shores of the sea, which he had never before seen, he bathed in its waves, as if to take possession of it; and, still accompanied by victory, he established the seat of his empire at Damascus, whence he menaced the city of Jerusalem.

The afflicting news of these occurrences created great sorrow among the Christians of the West, and the sovereign pontiff exhorted the faithful once again to take up the cross and arms; but neither the danger of the Christians beyond the sea, nor the exhortations of the pope, could change the opinion which the French had formed against distant wars. Louis VII. was obliged to renounce his intention of returning to the Holy Land. At this period a circumstance occurred which it is very difficult to give credit to. The abbot Suger, who had so strongly opposed the first expedition, formed the resolution of succouring Jerusalem; and in an assembly held at Chartres, exhorted the princes, barons, and bishops to enrol themselves under the banners of the holy war. As he was only answered by the silence of grief and astonishment, he formed the project of attempting an enterprise alone in which two monarchs had failed. Suger, at the age of seventy, resolved to raise an army, to maintain it at his own expense, and to lead it himself into Palestine. In accordance with the devotion of the time, he went to Tours, to visit the tomb of St. Martin, in order to obtain the protection of Heaven, and already ten thousand pilgrims had taken up arms, and were preparing to follow him into Asia, when death came to prevent the execution of his designs.

In his last moments Suger invoked the assistance and the prayers of St. Bernard, who sustained his courage, and exhorted him not to turn his thoughts from the heavenly Jerusalem, in which both of them hoped soon to meet; but in spite of the exhortations of his friend, the abbot of St. Denis regretted, when dying, not having been able to succour the holy city. St. Bernard was not long before he followed Suger to the tomb, bearing with him a deep regret at having preached an unfortunate war.

France lost in the same year two men who had greatly illustrated her, the one by talents and qualities useful to his country, the other by his eloquence and virtues dear to all Christians. At a time when general attention was given to the defence of the privileges of the Church, Suger defended the interests of royalty and the people; whilst eloquent preachers were animating the public zeal for holy wars which were always accompanied by disasters, the skilful minister of Louis VII. was preparing France, at a future day, to gather the salutary fruits of these great events. He was accused of having gone too deeply into the mundane affairs of his age; but politics never banished from his mind the precepts of the gospel. According to the judgment of his contemporaries, he lived at the court like a wise courtier, and in his cloister like a pious monk.[293] If there is in the church of France, wrote St. Bernard to Pope Eugenius, any vase of price which would embellish the palace of the King of kings, it is doubtless the venerable abbot Suger. As abbot of St. Denis, he, perhaps, enjoyed more wealth than any monk ought to possess, since we see he proposed to maintain an army, but he always employed his treasures in the service of his country and the Church, and never had the state been so rich as under his administration. His whole life was a long series of prosperity, and of actions worthy of being remembered. He reformed the monks of his order without incurring their hatred; he created the happiness of the people without proving their ingratitude; and served kings, and yet obtained their friendship. Fortune favoured all his undertakings, and that there should be nothing unprosperous in his life, and that he might be reproached with no fault, he died when he was about to conduct an army to the East.

Suger and St. Bernard, united by religion and friendship, had a very different destiny; the first, born in a low condition, gave himself to the disposal of fortune, who carried him up to the highest dignities; the second, born in a more elevated rank, hastened to descend from it, and was nothing but by his genius. St. Bernard rendered few services to the state, but he defended religion with indefatigable zeal; and as church then took precedence of country, he was greater than the abbot Suger in the eyes of his contemporaries. Whilst he lived, the eyes of all Europe were fixed upon the abbot of Clairvaux; he was as a light placed in the midst of Christendom, every word he preached had the holy authority of the religion he taught. He stifled all schisms, silenced all impostors, and by his labours, merited in his age the title of the last father of the Church, as richly as the great Bossuet merited it in his.

St. Bernard may be reproached with having too frequently issued from his retreat, and with not having always been, as he himself expresses it, the disciple of oaks and beeches. He had a hand in most of the political events of his time, and interfered in all the affairs of the Holy See. Christians often asked who was the head of the Church; popes and princes sometimes murmured against his authority; but it must never be forgotten that he unceasingly preached moderation to kings, humanity to the people, and poverty to the clergy.