volume one

HISTOllY or THE CRUSADES. 305
of means were employed to inflame their imaginations and
heighten their courage ; during their sleep, which was provoked
by intoxicating drinks, they wore transported into
delicious gardens, and awoke surrounded by the seductions
of voluptuousness. It was there that the Old Man of the
Mountains, by showing them the image of the joys of Paradise,
inspired them with a blind obedience. In the midst of
illusions which fascinated them, their n^aster could order
them to cast themselves from the height of a tower, to precipitate
themselves into flames, or to pierce themselves with
mortal wounds. When the Old Man of the Mountains had
pointed out to them any one he wished to punish, they went,
armed with a poniard, indifterently, to seek him in palaces or
camps, and were impeded by neither obstacles nor dangers.
Princes often intrusted the charge of their revenge to the
chief of the Ismaelians, and looked to him for the death of
their rivals or enemies. Powerful monarchs were his tributaries.
The fears which he inspired, and the murders committed
by his orders, heaped up his treasures. Surrounded
by his intrepid soldiery, he sent death into distant regions
the terror of his name was spread everywhere, whilst he
himself had nothing to fear from his enemies.
* The Ismaelians, as implacable sectarians, entertained a
profound aversion for the Turks of Syria. Many of them
were in the pay of the emirs and the sultans of that nation
; but they sold their services at a very high price, and
often took an active part in the bloody revolutions which
precipitated from thrones the Mussulman dynasties of the
East. They had less hatred for the Christians, because the
latter fought against the Turks ; nay, sometimes they became
useful auxiliaries to the Pranks. When Baldwin du Bourg
was liberated, they proposed to deliver up Damascus to him,
a great number of their Avarriors being in that city ; but the
plot being discovered, they miscarried in their enterprise,
and six thousand Ismaelians were slaughtered by the
Mussulmans.*
* Our learned Orientalists have furnished us with some very useful
and profound works on the Ismaehans ;
at their head is M. de Sacy, who
has made us acquainted with the doctrine and many of the usages of this
singular people. M. Jourdain has on this subject supplied us with a very
interesting memoir.
;