[273] We quote here the words of Belle Forest, which we should not use if they were not translations from contemporary chronicles. We will only repeat a single passage, which is taken from the chronicle of Raoul:—De dicette: Per totam Galliam fit descriptio generalis; non sexus, non ordo, non dignitas quempiam excusavit, quin auxilium regi conferret; cujus iter multis imprecationibus persequebatur.
[274] Montfaucon speaks of these pictures in Les Monuments de la Monarchie Française, vol. i.
[275] Otto of Frisingen, an eye-witness, describes this misfortune at great length.
[276] Odo de Deuil gives an account of this deliberation, and reports the speech of the bishop of Langres, on whom he bestows the greatest praise.
[277] Otto of Frisingen, an ocular witness, gives none of the details of the rout of the Germans, saying as his excuse that he had nothing agreeable to relate. The Gesta Ludovici and William of Tyre supply the silence of Otto of Frisingen.
[278] Nicetas, in his account, confounds the army of the French with that of the Germans, who did not fight on the banks of the Meander; all which Louis did he attributes to Conrad. The German historians have followed him, and state the victory near the Meander to have been gained by the sovereign of their own nation.
[279] The Crusaders had then a march of forty days before them to arrive at Antioch by land. They might have reached it in three days by sea.
[280] Odo de Deuil is the only writer who speaks of these events; but his account appears to us full of obscurity in some parts.
[281] The 19th of March, 1148.
[282] See the translation of William of Tyre, book xiii. ch. 21.