“The prince, who had tried the temper of the king several times privately, and not found what he wanted, came one day to him before his barons and made his requests to the best of his power. Many reasons he showed that if he would agree, he would do his soul much good, and would win the applause of his age; Christendom would be so benefited by this thing. The king took counsel, and then he answered that he was vowed to the Sepulchre, and had taken the cross particularly to go there; that, since he had left his country, he had met with many hindrances, and that he had no wish to begin any wars until he had perfected his pilgrimage.”[120]
This refusal so exasperated Prince Raymond that he threw off all disguise, and became the avowed lover of the queen, who detested her husband. Louis, shortly afterward, escaped by night from Antioch, taking Eleanor with him by force, and thus the only hope for the recovery of Edessa was lost.
For the emotionalist everything yielded to the transcendent importance of propitiatory rites; therefore Louis ascended Calvary, kissed the stones, intoned the chants, received the benediction, and lost Palestine. Thus, by the middle of the twelfth century, the idealist had begun to flag in the struggle for life.
An attempt, indeed, was afterwards made upon Damascus, but it only served to expose the weakness of the men who relied on magic. By the time the advance began, confidence had been restored among the Saracens, the attack was repulsed, and Nour-ed-Din had only to move from the north to throw the crusaders back upon Jerusalem, covered with ridicule. Nothing conveys so vivid an idea of the shock these reverses gave believers, as the words in which Saint Bernard defended his prophecies.
“Do they not say among the pagans, where is their God? Nor is it wonderful. The sons of the Church, who are known by the name of Christians, are laid low in the desert, destroyed by the sword, or consumed by famine. The Lord hath poured contempt upon princes, and hath caused them to wander in the wilderness, where there is no way. Grief and misfortune have followed their steps, fear and confusion have been in the palaces of the kings themselves. How have the feet strayed of those promising peace and blessings. We have said peace and there is no peace, we have promised good fortune and behold tribulation, as if we had acted in this matter with rashness and levity.... Yet if one of two things must be, I prefer to have men murmur against me rather than God. It is good if I am worthy to be used as a shield. I take willingly the slanders of detractors, and the poisoned stings of blasphemers, that they may not reach him. I do not shrink from loss of glory that his may not be attacked, who gives it to me to be glorified in the words of the Psalmist: ‘Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face.’”[121]
According to the account of William of Tyre, both sides felt the end to be near. After the failure of Louis the Pious, Prince Raymond was the first to go down before the storm he had too late seen gathering. Nour-ed-Din fell upon his country with fire and sword, defeated him, cut off his head and right arm, and sent them to Bagdad as trophies. The wretched Joscelin died in a dungeon at Aleppo, while Nour-ed-Din entered Damascus, and thus consolidated the Syrian cities of the plain. Thenceforward the decentralized Franks lay helpless in the grasp of their compact adversary, and all that was imaginative in the Middle Ages received its death-wound at Tiberias. That action was the beginning of the decay of fetish-worship.
The crusaders believed they had found the cross on which Christ died at Jerusalem. They venerated it as a charm no less powerful than the Sepulchre itself, and having this advantage over the tomb, that it was portable. They thought it invincible, and used it not only as a weapon against living enemies, but as a means of controlling nature. A remarkable example of the magical properties of this relic was given in the retreat from Bosra.
Baldwin III. was crowned in 1144, when only thirteen. The kingdom was then at peace with Damascus, in whose territory Bosra lay; but, notwithstanding, the child’s advisers eagerly listened to the offer of the emir in command to betray the town, and hastened forward the departure of an expedition, in spite of the protests of the envoys from Damascus. On the march the troops suffered severely from heat and thirst, and on their arrival were appalled to find a loyal garrison. A siege was out of the question, and a regular retreat so hazardous that the barons besought the king to fly and save the cross; but the boy refused, and stayed with his men to fight to the last. The outlook was terrible, for the vegetation was dry, and when the march began—
“The Turks threw Greek fire everywhere, so that it seemed as if the whole country burned. The high flames and thick smoke blinded our men. Then were they so beset they knew not what to do. But when there is great need, and men’s help fails, then should one seek aid of our Lord, and cry to him to care for us; so did our Christians then; for they called the Archbishop Robert of Nazareth, who carried the true cross before them, and begged him that he would pray our Lord, who to save them had suffered death upon that cross, that he would bring them from this peril; for they could not endure it, nor did they look for other help than his. Truly, they were there all black and scorched, like smiths, from the fire and smoke. The archbishop dismounted and kneeled down, and prayed our Lord with many tears that he would have mercy on his people; then he arose and held the true cross toward the fire which the wind brought strongly against them. Our Lord by his great mercy regarded his people in the great peril which they suffered; for the wind changed straightway and blew the fire and smoke into the faces of the enemy who had lighted it, so that they were forced to scatter over the country and fly. Our men, when they saw this, wept for joy, for they perceived that our Lord had not forgotten them.”