[206] William IX. is the first troubadour known. He was a valorous and courteous knight, but a great deceiver of ladies. He bade adieu in a song to the Limousin, to Poitou, to chivalry, which he had loved so much, and to mundane vanities, which he describes as coloured habits and beautiful hose. On his return he sang the fatigues, the dangers, and the misfortunes of this expedition, in a poem which is lost. His usual gaiety pervaded it, according to Oderic Vital, in spite of the sadness of the subject.—See the History of the Troubadours, by Millet, tom. i.
[207] Guichenon, in his History of the House of Savoy, expresses himself thus: “William Paradin relates that this prince ’Humbert, second count of Savoy) went to the Holy Land in the crusade which was determined on at the council of Clermont, under Godfrey of Bouillon,” which the greater part of the historians have confirmed after him ’such as Pingon, Vanderb, Dogliani, Chiesa, Balderan, Buttel, and Henning). Papyrus Masson has rejected this, because neither the manuscript chronicle, nor the authors of the crusades, who name many lords of less consequence, have mentioned him. Botero has said nothing of him. “Nevertheless we cannot doubt this voyage; for about that time this prince gave the monks of the Bourget in Savoy a property called Gutin, for the health of his soul, of that of count Amé, his father, and of his ancestors. This donation, dated at d’Yenne in Savoy ’and not Jena in Thuringia, as is said in the Art of Verifying Dates), imports that the count bestowed this liberality to obtain from God a fortunate establishment ’consulat) in his voyage beyond sea. Now this word consulat then signified a principality, government, or sovereignty. Oderic Vital gives to Roger, count of Sicily, the title of consul of Sicily.” Guichenon adds here many other examples of the same kind. That which created doubts of the voyage of Humbert is the silence of the historians of the first crusade, as well as all the acts of this prince that have been preserved, and which prove that he was in Europe in the year 1100; but all these doubts vanish, when we know that he went in the second expedition.
[208] The details of this last expedition are found scattered in the works of several historians. They who afford the most information are Albert d’Aix, Oderic Vital, Foulcher de Chartres, Chronicon Uspergensis, Alberici Chronicon, &c. &c.
[209] For these various positions, see the Map and the explanatory Memoir.
[210] The body of the duke of Burgundy was brought back to France, and buried at Citeaux. Urban Planchier says in his history, that they observed the anniversary of the death of this prince on the Friday before Passion Sunday. After the death of her husband, Mahaul, the wife of Eude, and mother of Florine, retired to the abbey of Fontevrault.
[211] It has been said that Arpin, on setting out for the crusade, sold the county of Berri to Philip, king of France, for the sum of 60,000 crowns. This is the way in which the fact is related in the History of Berri: “King Philip redeemed his city of Bourges, which Henry his father had engaged for 60,000 crowns, from Arpin. Thus Bourges returned to its natural prince.”—History of Berri, by Chaumeau, p. 97.
[212] Ancient historians contain many other details concerning this expedition that we have not thought it necessary to notice. This expedition presents nothing but scenes of carnage and reverses, without glory or results. We shall be obliged to return to it hereafter.
[213] Alexander, say the Greek historians, had thirty thousand infantry and five thousand horse. A single historian, Anaximenes, makes the Macedonian army amount to forty-eight thousand men.
[214] The Turks, thirty years before the taking of Jerusalem by the Christians, had scarcely met with any resistance to their invasions of some of the richest provinces of Asia, because the Mussulman religion, which they had recently embraced, was that of the countries against which they directed their arms. If the Tartars at different epochs have invaded several countries of the globe, and have maintained themselves in them, it was because on issuing from their deserts they had almost no religion, and were thus disposed to adopt any advantageous faith they might meet with in their passage. It will be objected to me that the Arabians, in the first ages of the Hegira, invaded a great part of Asia and Africa, where they found other religions than their own long established; but it may be answered that these religions were sinking to decay. When the Mussulmans presented themselves in Europe, where the Christian religion was better established than in the East, this religion offered an insurmountable barrier to their progress.
[215] Daimbert, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Raymond de St. Gilles, when writing to the pope and the faithful of the West, say that the victory of Dorylæum had filled the pilgrims with pride, and that God, to punish them, opposed Antioch to them, which delayed them nine months.