volume one

HISTOJIY OE THE CIJUSADES. 415
but thinking men could perceive much more
the Christians ;
certain signs of the approaching fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
Mossoul, Aleppo, and all the Mussulman cities of
Sp'ia and Mesopotamia, had submitted to the power of Saladin.
The son of Ayoub had triumphed over the emirs and
the scattered family of Noureddin. All the treasures of
Egypt, all the forces of Asia, were in liis hands ; there remained
only one conquest for him to make, and fortune,
which had levelled all obstacles before him, soon furnished
him with a pretext and an opportunity of giving the last
blow to the power of the Christians.
The truce made with the king of Jerusalem was broken
at the same time by both Christians and Mussulmans.
Eenaud de Chatillon continued his incursions upon the
territories of the infidels, and only replied to the complaints
of Saladin by new violations of treaties. A Mussulman
army, which the sultan of Damascus had sent to the assistance
of the count of Tripoli, advanced into the country of
Galilee, whither five hundred knights of the Temple and
St. John hastened to defend the Christian territory, and
give battle to the Saracens. They were speedily overwhelmed
by numbers, and almost all perished on the field of
battle. Old chronicles, whilst celebrating the bravery of
the Christian knights, relate prodigies which we have now
great difficulty in believing. These indomitable heroes,
after having exhausted their arrows, plucked from their own
bodies such as had pierced tViem, and launched them back
upon the enemy ;
their own blood,
pressed by fatigue and heat, they drank
and revived their strength by the very
means which must weaken it ; at length, after having broken
their lances and swords, they rushed upon their enemies,
fought body to body, rolling in the dust with the Mussulman
warriors, and died threatening their conquerors. Above all
the rest, nothing could equal the heroic valour of Jacques
de Maille, a knight of the Temple. IMounted on a white
horse, he remained alone in the field of battle, and fought
on, surrounded by heaps of slain. Although hemmed in on
all sides, he refused to surrender. The horse which he rode,
worn out with fatigue and exhausted by wounds, sunk under
him, and dragged him Avith him ; but the intrepid knight
arose, lance in hand, covered with blood and dust, and