volume one

HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. 385
a Christian historian,* was affected by the sorrow of the
Franks. Some of his emirs advising him to take advantage
of this melancholy occasion to enter Palestine, " Grod forbid,"
replied he, " that I should disturb the proper grief of a
people who are weeping for the loss of so good a king, or
lix upon such an opportunity to attack a kingdom which I
have no reason to fear." Hemarkable vrords, which at once
denote two great men, and which further shovv' what a
serious loss the Christians had sustained.
As soon as the funeral ceremonies of Baldwin III. were
over, warm debates arose upon the choice of a successor.
The greater part of the barons and knights attached to the
memory of Baldwin proposed to call to the throne his
brother Amaury, count of Jaft'a and Ascalon. This party
was the most reasonable and the most conformable to the
laws and interests of the kiugdom ; but the brother of
Bakb\vin, by tlie haughtiness of his deportment, had made
himself many enemies among the people, the clergy, and
the army, lie was reproached with an ambition and an
avarice fatal to the interests of the Christians ; and he was
accused of not being restrained by honour, justice, or even
the precepts of religion,t in the execution of his projects.
His partisans extolled his active and enterprisiug character,
his bravery so often proved, and his great skill in war.
Among the nobles of the kingdom who opposed his succession,
and attributed to him ambitious views much to be
dreaded, were several who themselves nourished aspiring
projects, and allowed themselves to be seduced by the hope
of ascending the throne. The conflicting parties were on
the point of taking up arms to sustain their pretensions
or their hopes, when the grand master of the Hospitallers
exhorted the barons and knights to preserve the
peace and the laws of the kiugdom by crowning young
Amaury. " The cro^\'n," said he to them, " which you
refuse to place upon the head of a Christian prince will soon
be upon that of JVoureddin or of the caliph of Egypt. It
this misfortune should happen, you will become the slaves
* Robert of the Mount.
^ t William of Tyre says that he was once much scandalized by a question
Amaury put to him concerning the next woild.