volume one

HISTORY or THE CEtJSADES. 183
of the multitude. The soldiers who guarded the ramparts
of Antioch saw during the night a luminous mass, which
appeared to be fixed in an elevated point of the heavens. It
seemed as if all the stars, according to the expression of
Albert d'Aix, Avere united in a space scarcely more extensive
than a garden of three acres. " These stars," says the same
historian, " shed the most brilliant light,* and shone like
coals in a furnacey They appeared for a long time as if
suspended over the city of Antioch ; but the circle which
seemed to contain them being broken, they dispersed in the
air. At the sight of this prodigy, the guards and sentinels
uttered loud cries, and ran to awaken the citizens of Antioch.
All the pilgrims issued from their houses, and found in this
phenomenon a manifest sign of the will of Heaven. Some
believed they saw in the united stars an image of the Saracens,
who were assembled at Jerusalem, and who would be
dispersed at the approach of the Christians ;
others, equally
full of hope, saw in them the Christian warriors uniting
their victorious forces, and then spreading themselves over
the earth to conquer the cities ravished from the empire of
Christ ; but many of the pilgrims did not abandon themselves
to these consolatory illusions. In a city where the
people had much to suffer, and had dwelt during many
months amidst death and its funeral rites, the future naturally
presented itself under the most sad and disheartening
colours. All who suffered, and had lost the hope of ever seeing
Jerusalem, saw nothing in the phenomenon presented to
their eyes but an alarming symbol of the multitude of pilgrims,
which was every day diminishing, and which promised
soon to be entirely dispersed, like the luminous clouds which
they had seen in the heavens. " Things, however," says
Albert d'Aix, " turned out much better than was expected ;
for, a short time afterwards, the princes, on their return to
Antioch, took the field, and brought under their dominion
several cities of Upper Syria."
The most important of their expeditions was the siege
and capture of Maarah, situated between Hamath and
Aleppo. Raymond was the first to sit himself down before
* Globes of fire, or ignited globes, as naturalists call them, might have
produced this appearance.