volume one

HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. 275
tumultuously deliberating, deputies from Antioch came to
announce that their prince had been surprised in an expedition
against the Turks, and was held prisoner by the
infidels. This ne^YS spread consternation and grief among
the Christians, and made them more sensible of the necessity
for calling Baldwin to the throne, Avith whose valour they
were so well acquainted.
Baldwin,* to whom deputies had been sent, shed tears on
learning: the death of Godfrey, but soon consoled himself
with the hope of obtaining a crown. The county of Edessa
had become richer and more extensive than the mean kingdom
of Jerusalem, several cities of which still belonged to
the Saracens ; but such was the active and enterprising
spirit of Baldwin, that the prospect of a kingdom to be
conquered appeared to him preferable to a country of which
he was in peacefid possession. After having given up the
county of Edessa to his cousin Baldwin du Bourg, he began
his march with four hundred horsemen and a thousand foot.
The emirs of Emessa and Damascus, informed of his intended
march, laid wait for him in the narrow and difficult roads
near the coast of the Sea of Phoenicia. Baldwin feigned to
fly before the army of the infidels, and having drawn them
into an open country, routed them, making a great many
prisoners, whom he carried to Jerusalem.f The knights,
the barons, and a portion of the clergy came out to meet
the conqueror. Baldwin made his triumphant entrance into
the city in the midst of the acclamations of the whole Chris-
tian population, who flocked eagerly to see the brother of
Godfrey. But whilst the inhabitants thus manifested their
joy, the patriarch, with some of his partisans, protested
against the election of the new king, and, feigning to believe
that he was in safety nowhere but close to the tomb of
Christ, retired in silence to Mount Sion, as if to seek an
asylum there. Baldwin did not think it worth while to
disturb the retreat of the patriarch, and, satisfied with having
* Dolens aliquantulum de fratris morte et plus gaudens de hsereditate.
—Fulch. Cam. lib. x. cap. 22.
t The Christians were in so much danger in this expedition, that
Fouh'her de Chartres exclaims in his history, " I would rather have been
at Chartres or Orleans,"— "Ego quidem vel Carnoti vel Aureliania
mallem esse quam ibi."— Lib. x. cap. 22.