volume one

HISTOET OF THE CEUSADES. 45
Christianity of the holy relics preserved in Constantinople,
and conjured them to save so sacred an assemblage of
venerated objects from the profanation of the infidels. After
having set forth the splendour and the riches of his capital,
he exhorted the knights and barons to come and defend
them ; he offered them his treasures as the reward of their
valour, and painted in glowing colours the beauty of the
Greek women, whose love would repay the exploits of his
liberators. Thus, nothing was spared that could flatter the
passions, or arouse the enthusiasm of the warriors of the
West. The invasion of the Turks was, in the eyes of
Alexius, the greatest misfortune that the chief of a Christian
kingdom had to dread ; and to avert such a danger, everything
appeared to him just and allowable. He could support
the idea of losing his crown, but not the shame of seeing
his states subjected to the laws of Mahomet : if he was
doomed one day to lose his empire, he could console himself
for that loss, provided Grreece escaped the Mussulman yoke,
and became the prize of the Latms.
In compliance with the prayers of Alexius and the wishes of
the faithful, the sovereign pontiff convoked a council at Plaisance,
in order there to expose the dangers of the Grreek and
Latin Churches in the East. The preachings of Peter had so
prepared the minds and animated the zeal of the faithful,
that more than two hundred bishops and archbishops, four
thousand ecclesiastics, and thirty thousand of the laity obeyed
the invitation of the Holy See. The council was so numerous
that it was obhged to be held in a plain in the neighbourhood
of the city.
At this assembly all eyes were turned upon the ambassadors
of Alexius ; their presence in the midst of a Latin
council, announced sufficiently plainly the disastrous condition
of the East. AVTien they had exhorted the princes
and the wan^iors to save Constantinople and Jerusalem, Urban
supported their discourse and their prayers with all the
reasons w hich the interests of Christianity and the cause of
religion could furnish. The council of Plaisance, however,
came to no determination upon the war against the infidels.
The deliverance of the Holy Land was far from being the
only object of this council :
the declarations of the empress
Adelaide, who came to reveal her own shame, and that of