volume one

80 HISTORY or THE CETJSADES.
people against the oppressions of the nobles and the clergy,
was so feeble, that we are at the present time astonished
that it did not fall, so numerous were the difficulties and the
enemies that surrounded it on all sides. As the monarch
was exposed to the censures of the Church, it was an easy
matter to lead his subjects to disobedience, and to legitimatize
any sort of revolt, by gi^Tug it the colour of a sacred
pretext.
The crusade removed far from Europe all who could have
taken advantage of the unhappy situation in which the
kingdom was placed ; it saved the country from a ci^'il war,
and prevented such sanguinary discords as had broken out
in Germany under the reign of Henry and the pontificate of
G-regory.
Such were the considerations which might present them-
selves to the most enlightened men, and which must strike
us more strongly than they would the contemporaries of
Philip.* It would be difficult to believe that any one of the
counsellors of the king of France perceived, in all their
extent, these salutary results of the crusade, which were
recognized long after, and which have only been properly
appreciated in the age in which we live. On the other hand,
they had no conception that a war in which all the most
dangerous passions should be brought into action would be
accompanied by great misfortunes and calamitous disorders.
Ambition, license, the spirit of enthusiasm, all so much to
be dreaded by the country', might also bring about the ruin
of armies. Xot one of the enemies of Philip, not one of
those who remained at home, made this reflection. Everybody,
as we have already said, they who were of the party of
the Holv See and thev who adhered to rovalty, allowed themselves
to be carried along by the current of events, without
* Nothing is more common than to attribute the combinations of a
profound policy to remote ages. If certain persons are to be believed,
the men of the eleventh century were sages, and we are barbarians. I
feel it just to report the opinion of Montesquieu on this subject : "To
transport all the ideas of the age in which we live into remote periods is
the most abundant source of error. To those people who wish to render
all ancient ages modem, I will repeat what the priests of Egypt said to
Solon, ' Oh Athenians ! you are but children.* "—Esprit des Lois, liv.
XXX. c. 18.