volume one

9
HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. 163
number of soldiers ; their weakened arms could scarcely liffc
tlie lance or the sword ; they had neither strength to defend
their own lives nor to bury their dead. In the midst of such
frightful misery, not a tear was seen, not a sob was heard
the silence was as complete in Antioch as if the city had
been buried in the most profound night, as if not one liying
person was left in it. The Crusaders had not even the
courage of despair left. The last feeling of nature, the love
of life, was becomiDg daily extinct in their hearts ; they
feared to meet each other in the public places, and concealed
themselves in the interior of the houses, which they looked
upon as their tombs.
The towers and the ramparts remained almost without
defence. Bohemond, who had taken the command of the
place, sought in vain by his speeches to raise the courage of
the Crusaders ; in vain the trumpets and the serjeants-atarms
called them to the combat. Whilst the Mussulmans
shut up in the citadel, and those who besieged the city, every
day renewed their attacks, the Christian warriors remained
immovable in their dwellings. In order to drive them from
their retreats, Bohemond was obliged to give several quarters
of the city up to the flames. Baoul de Caen deplores, in
pompous verses, the conflagration and the ruiu of churches
and palaces, huilt tvith the cedars of Mount Lebanon, and in
which shone the marble of Mount Atlas, the crystal of Tyre,
the brass of Cyprus, the lead of Amathontis, and the iron of
England. The barons who could no longer enforce the
obedience of their soldiers, had not strength to ofi'er them an
example. Then they bitterly remembered their families,
their castles, their wealth, all which they had quitted for this
unfortunate war ; they could not comprehend the reverses
of the Christian army, and little was wanting, says William
of Tyre, to make them accuse God of ingratitude, for having
refused so many sacrifices made to the glory of his name.
Matthew of Edessa relates that the Christian leaders
offered to give up the city to Kerbogha, upon the single
condition that he would allow them and their soldiers to
return to their own countries, taking with them their baggage.
As the Saracen general rejected their proposal,
several of them, actuated by despair, formed the project of
abandoning the army, and flying by night towards the coast,
Vol. I.—
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