Various matters of Church and social discipline were first considered and determined. The purposed delay in reaching the real object of the Council seemed to whet the appetites for the consideration of the wrongs of the East. Enthusiasm grew to fanaticism, and a grand and universal impatience of other topics finally brought the greater matter before the body.
Artful Delay
The opening of the subject was had in the great square before the cathedral. A throne had been prepared there for the pope, who approached it followed by his cardinals and accompanied by Peter the Hermit in the garb now known to the Christian world everywhere.
Describes Sufferings of Christians
Peter was put forward to speak first. His countenance was cast down with humiliation, and his voice expressed his inward agony as he told what he had seen of the sufferings of Christians at the scene of the world's redemption. He told how they had been chained, beaten, harnessed like brutes; how their bread had been taken away; how they had been compelled to pay from the poverty of the
pilgrim's wallet for approach to the sacred shrines; how Christian ministers had, like their Lord, known the rod, and met their death.
It is not needful to suppose that the growth of Peter's emotion, as he told this tale of horrors, was simulated. In the cooler blood of to-day the narrative stirs a sluggish heart. He ceased to speak because choked with sobs.
Urban's Great Speech
The speech of Urban, who followed Peter, was one of the greatest ever spoken in its effect on the history of the world. Delivered undoubtedly in French, it survives only in ecclesiastical Latin. He was in France. He wished to stir the French. He could not have moved them through an interpreter as he moved them in his own tongue and theirs. He began in the language of compliment.
Urban Compliments Franks