volume one

niSTOEY OF THE CRUSADES. 27
he had caused to be built. His heart was deposited in a
church at Metz, where was shown, for many ages after his
death, a mausoleum, which was called the tomb of Foulque,
count of Anjou.
At the same period, towards the middle of the eleventh
century, Eobert-le-Frison, count of Flanders, and Berenger
li., count of Barcelona, resolved likewise to expiate
then sins by the voyage to the Holy Land. The latter died
in Asia, not bemg able to support the rigorous penances he
had imposed upon himself. Kobert came back to his dominions,
where his pilgrimage caused him to find grace in the
eyes of the clergy, whom" he had wished to plunder. These
two princes had been preceded in their pilgrimage by
Frederick, count of Verdun.* Frederick was of the illusti-ious
familv which was one day to reckon among its heroes
Godfrey de Bouillon. On setting out for Asia, he renounced
earthly grandeur, and gave up his county to the bishop of
Yerdun. Eeturned into Europe, he resolved to terminate
his days in a monastery, and died prior of the abbey of St.
Wast, near Arras.
The weak and timid sex was not deterred by the difficulties
and the perils of a long voyage. Helena, born of a noble
family of Sweden, quitted her country, which was buried in
idolatry, and travelled on foot into the East. When, after
having visited the lioly places, she returned to her country,
she was sacrificed to the resentment of her relations and her
compatriots, and gathered, sa^^ an old legend, the palm of
martyrdom.t A few of the faithful, touched vrith her piety,
raisecl a chapel to her memory in the isle of Zealand, near
a fountain, which is still called the Fountain of St. Helena.
The Christians of the North for a long time went in pilgrimage
to this island, where tliey contemplated a grotto which
Helena had inhabited before her departure for Jerusalem.
Among the celebrated pilgrims of this age, we observe the
name of Eobert II., duke of Normandy, father of 'Winiam
the Conqueror. History accuses him of having caused his
* The pilgrimage of Frederick is related by Dom Calmet, vol. i. p. 1072,
of the " Civil History of Lorraine." It is to be found also in the " History
of the Bishops of Lorraine," vol. i, pp. 203—205.
t See the Life of St. Helena, in the seventh volume of the month of
July, pp. 332, 333, of the Bollandists.
3*