volume one

HTSTOET OF THE CRUSADES. 371
have great weight, accuses the barons of S}Tia;* but surely
all must blame the ignorance and incapacity of the other
chiefs of the crusade, who followed advice without examining
it, and proved themselves incapable of remedying an evil
they had not foreseen.
After so unfortunate an attempt, it was natural to despair
of the success of this war. In the council of leaders the
siege of Ascalon was proposed, but men's minds were soured,
and their courage v»as depressed. The king of France and
the emperor of Germany thought of returning into Europe,
bearing back no other glory than that of having, the one
defended his o\^ti life against some soldiers on a rock in
Pamphylia, and the other of having cleft a giant in two
under the walls of Damascus. " From that day," says William
of Tyre, " the condition and state of the Oriental Latins
began continually to proceed from bad to worse." The Mussulmans
learnt no longer to dread the warriors and princes of
the West. Full of confidence in their arms, they who had
only thought of defending themselves, formed the project of
attacking the Franks, and were excited to their enterprise
by the hopes of sharing the spoils of an enemy who had
invaded several of their provinces. Whilst the infidels thus
regained their daring and their pride, and united against
their enemies, discouragement took possession of the Christians,
and the division which prevailed so fataUy among
them weakened every day their spirit and their power. " The
Franks who returned into Europe" (we leave William of
T}Te to speak) " could not forget the perfidies of the Oriental
princes, and not only showed themselves more careless and
tardy concerning the aftairs of the kingdom of Jerusalem,
but discouraged all those equally who had not been the
voyage with them, so that they who heard speak of this
crusade never after undertook the road of this peregrination
with so much good-will or so much fervour."
This crusade was much more unfortunate than the first
no kind of glory mitigated or set oft' the reverses of the
Christians. The leaders committed the same faults that
Godfrey and his companions had committed ; they neglected,
as they had done, to found a colony in Asia Minor, and to
* William of Tj/re, b. xvii. chap. 6.
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