volume one

XX rs'TEODrcTioy.
exhaust eitlier their perseverance or their resignation. After
four years of fatigue, of miseries, and of victories, Jeru-
but as their conquests are
salem is taken by the Crusaders ;
not the work of wisdom and prudence, but the fruit of blind
enthusiasm and ill-directed heroism, they create nothing but
a transient power.
The banner of the cross soon passes from the hands of
Godfrey de Bouillon into those of his weak and imbecile
successors. Jerusalem, now a Christian city, is obHged
again to apply for succour to the West. At the voice of
St. Bernard, the Christians take arms. Conducted by an
emperor of Grermany and a king of France, they fly to the
defence of the Holy Land ; but they have no longer great
captains among them ; they have none of the magnanimity
or heroic resignation of their fathers. Asia, which beholds
their coming without terror, already presents a new spec-
tacle. The disciples of Mahomet awaken from their apathy ;
they are at once seized with a frenzy equal to that which
had armed their enemies ; they oppose enthusiasm to enthusiasm,
fanaticism to fanaticism, and in their turn burn with
a desire to shed their blood in a religious war.
The spirit of discord which had destroyed their power is
no longer felt but among the Cln-istians. Luxury and the
manners of the East weaken the courage of the defenders
of the cross, and make them forget the object even of the
holv war. Jerusalem, which had cost the Cioisaders so
much blood, falls again into the power of the infidels, and
becomes the conquest of a wise and warlike piince, who had
united under his banner the forces of Syria and Egypt.
The genius and fortune of Saladin inflict a mortal blow
upon the iU-assured power of the Christians in the East.
In vain an emperor of the "West, and two kings celebrated
for their bravery, place themselves at the head of the whole
powers of their states to deliver Palestine ; these new armies
of Crusaders meet everywhere with brave enemies and
invincible barriers, and all their united eflbrts produce
nothing but illustrious disasters. The kingdom of Jerusalem,
for whose ruius they contend, is no longer anything
but a vain name ; soon even the captivity and the miseries
of the holy city cease to inspire the sentiments of piety and
enthusiasm that they had given birth to among the Chris-