The unhappy pilgrims, who remained cooped up beneath the walls, which they were not permitted to enter, on the one hand, and the Turkish army that watched them with unceasing vigilance, on the other, died, and were slaughtered by thousands. Some strove to force their passage to Antioch by land, and fell beneath the Moslem scimitar. Some cast themselves upon the compassion of the treacherous Greeks, and were more brutally treated than even by their infidel enemies. So miserable at length became their condition, that the Turks themselves ceased to attack them, brought them provisions and pieces of money, and showed them that compassion which their fellow-christians refused. Thus, in the end, several hundreds attached themselves[591] to their generous enemies, and were tempted to embrace the Moslem creed. The rest either became slaves to the Greeks, or died of pestilence and famine.
In the mean while, Louis and his knights[592] arrived at Antioch, where they were received with the appearance of splendid hospitality by Raimond, the prince of that city, who was uncle of Eleonor, the wife of the French monarch. His hospitality, however, was of an interested nature: Antioch and Tripoli hang upon the skirts of the kingdom of Jerusalem as detached principalities, whose connexion with the chief country was vague and insecure. No sooner, therefore, did the news of the coming of the King of France reach the princes of those cities, than they instantly laid out a thousand plans for engaging Louis in extending the limits of their territories, before permitting him to proceed to Jerusalem. The Prince of Antioch assuredly had the greatest claim upon the king, by his relationship to the queen;[593] and he took every means of working on the husband, by ingratiating himself with the wife. Eleonor was a woman of strong and violent passions,[594] and of debauched and libertine manners, and she made no scruple of intriguing and caballing with her uncle to bend the king to his wishes. The Archbishop of Tyre, who was but little given to repeat a scandal, dwells with a tone of certainty upon the immoral life of the Queen of France, and says, she had even consented that her uncle should carry her off, after Louis had formally refused to second his efforts against Cesarea.
However that may be, her conduct was a disgrace to the crusade; and Louis, in his letters to Suger, openly complained of her infidelity.
The king resisted all entreaties and all threats, and, equally rejecting the suit of the Count of Tripoli,[595] he proceeded to Jerusalem, where the emperor Conrad, having passed by sea from Constantinople, had arrived before him. Here the whole of the princes were called to council; and it was determined that, instead of endeavouring to retake Edessa, which had been the original object of the crusade, the troops of Jerusalem, joined to all that remained of the pilgrim armies, should attempt the siege of Damascus. The monarchs immediately took the field, supported by the knights of the Temple and St. John, who, in point of courage, equalled the Chivalry of any country, and in discipline excelled them all. Nourhaddin and Saphaddin, the two sons of the famous Zenghi, threw what men they could suddenly collect into Damascus, and hastened in person to raise as large a force as possible to attack the Christian army. The crusaders advanced to the city, drove in the Turkish outposts[596] that opposed them, and laid siege to the fortifications, which in a short time were so completely ruined, that Damascus could hold out no longer. And yet Damascus did not fall. Dissension, that destroying angel of great enterprises, was busy in the Christian camp. The possession of the still unconquered town[597] was disputed among the leaders. Days and weeks passed in contests, and at length, when it was determined that the prize should be given to the Count of Flanders, who had twice visited the Holy Land, the decision caused so much dissatisfaction, that all murmured and none acted. Each one suspected his companion; dark reports and scandalous charges were mutually spread and countenanced; the Templars were accused of having received a bribe from the infidels; the European monarchs[598] were supposed to aim at the subjugation of Jerusalem; the conquerors were conquered by their doubts of each other; and, retiring from the spot where they had all but triumphed, they attempted to storm the other side of the city, where the walls were as firm as a rock of adamant.
Repenting of their folly, they soon were willing to return to their former ground, but the fortifications had been repaired, the town had received fresh supplies, and Saphaddin, emir of Mousul, was marching to its relief. Only one plan was to be pursued. The siege was abandoned, and the leaders,[599] discontented with themselves and with each other, retreated gloomily to Jerusalem.
The Emperor of Germany set out immediately for Europe; but Louis, who still hoped to find some opportunity of redeeming his military fame, lingered for several months; while Eleonor continued to sully scenes, whose memory is composed of all that is holy, with her impure amours. At length the pressing entreaties of Suger induced the French monarch to return to his native land. There he found the authority he had confided to that great and excellent minister had been employed to the infinite benefit of his dominions—he found his finances increased and order established in every department of the state;[600]—and he found, also, that the minister was not only willing, but eager, to yield the reins of government to the hand from which he had received them.—During the absence of the king, his brother, Robert of Dreux, who returned before him, had endeavoured to thwart the noble Abbot of St. Denis, and even to snatch the regency from him; but Suger boldly called together a general assembly of the nobility of France, and intrusted his cause to their decision. The court met at Soissons, and unanimously supported the minister against his royal opponent; after which he ruled, indeed, in peace; but Robert strove by every means to poison the mind of the king against him; and it can be little doubted, that Louis, on his departure from Palestine, viewed the conduct of Suger with a very jealous eye.
The effects of his government, however, and the frankness with which he resigned it, at once did away all suspicions. The expedition was now over, but yet one effort more was to be made, before we can consider the second crusade as absolutely terminated.
Suger had opposed the journey of the king to the Holy Land, but he was not in the least wanting in zeal or compassionate enthusiasm in favour of his brethren of the east.[601] Any thing but the absence of a monarch from his unquiet dominions he would have considered as a small sacrifice towards the support of the kingdom of Jerusalem; and now, at seventy years, he proposed to raise an army at his own expense, and to finish his days in Palestine.—His preparations were carried on with an ardour, an activity, an intelligence, which would have been wonderful even in a man at his prime; but, in the midst of his designs, he was seized with a slow fever, which soon showed him that his end was near. He saw the approach of death with firmness; and, during the four months that preceded his decease, he failed not from the bed of sickness to continue all his orders for the expedition, which could no longer bring living glory to himself. He named the chief whom he thought most worthy to lead it; he bestowed upon him all the treasures he had collected for the purpose; he gave him full instructions for his conduct, and he made him swear upon the Cross to fulfil his intentions. Having done this, the Abbot of St. Denis waited calmly the approach of that hour which was to separate him from the living; and died, leaving no one like him in Europe.
With his life appears to have ended the second crusade, which, with fewer obstacles and greater facilities than the first, produced little but disgrace and sorrow to all by whom it was accompanied.[602]