volume one

356
niSTOKT OF tue ceusades.
alone on the field of battle, and took refuge upon a rock,
whence he braved the attack of the infidels who piursued
him. "U^ith his back against a tree, he singly resisted the
efl'orts of several Saracens, who, taking him for a simple
soldier, at length left liim, to secure their share of the pillage.
Although the night began to fall, the king expected
to be attacked again, when the voices of some Prenchmen
who had escaped the carnage, gave him the agreeable information
that the Turks had retired. He mounted a stray
horse, and, after a thousand perils, rejoined liis vanguard,
where all were lamenting his death.
After tliis defeat, in which the king had been exposed to
such dangers, the report of his death was not only spread
throughout the East, but reached Europe, where it filled the
Christians, particularly the French, with grief and terror.
"William of T^'re, whilst relating the disastrous defeat of the
Crusaders, expresses astonishment that God, always full of
mercv, should have allowed so manv illustrious warriors
armed in his cause, to perish so miserably. The Crusaders
who formed the vanguard of the army, whilst deploring the
death of their brethren, raised their voices against Geoffrey
de Eancon, and demanded that the loss of so much blood
shotild be visited tipon him. The king, however, had no';
sufficient firmness to punish an irreparable fault, and only
so far yielded to tlie wishes of the barons and the soldiers
as to give them as a leader an old warrior named Gilbert,
whose skill and bravery were the boast of the whole army.
Gilbert shared the command with Evrard des Barres, grand
master of the Templars, who had come, with a great number
of his knights, to meet the Christian armv. Under these
two leaders, whom the king himsell obeyed, the Cinisaders
continued their march, and avenged their defeat several times
upon the Mussulmans.
On their arrival in Pisidia the French had almost everywhere
to defend themselves against the perfidy of the Greeks
but winter was even a more
and the attacks of the Turks ;
dangerous enerav than these to the Christian armv. Torrents
of rain fell everv dav : cold and humiditv enervated
the powers of the soldiers ; and the greater part of the
horses, being destitute of forage, perished, and only served
to feed the anny, which was without provisions. The clothes