The Greeks of Alexander’s expedition did not go into Asia to introduce new laws, or change the manners and religion of the people; they even adopted something of the costumes and usages of the Persians, which very much facilitated their conquests.[214] In the crusades, on the contrary, we behold two religions armed one against the other, which redoubled the hatred of the combatants, and forbade all approximation. As soon as the standard of Mahomet floated over a city, the Christians fled from it; whilst the cross of the Christians had the same effect upon the Mussulmans. As the greater part of the Mussulman cities which fell into the hands of the Christians were deserted, the latter were obliged to people the provinces they conquered, and exhaust their armies, to found, in some sort, colonies wherever their arms triumphed. If it be allowed that no wars are more sanguinary than religious wars, there are certainly none in which it is more difficult for a conqueror to extend or preserve his conquests. This is a very important observation, if we would appreciate the results of this crusade.
On all occasions where bravery alone was required, nothing can be comparable to the exploits of the Crusaders. When reduced to a small number of combatants, they triumphed no less over their enemies than when they consisted of vast armies. Forty thousand Christians obtained possession of Jerusalem, defended by a garrison of sixty thousand Saracens. There remained scarcely twenty thousand men under their standards, when they had to contend with all the forces of the East in the plains of Ascalon. If Alexander performed greater things, and particularly if he conquered a greater number of nations, it was because he commanded a disciplined army, of which he was the absolute leader. All his military and political operations were directed by one same mind and one same will. It was not thus in the army of the Crusaders, which was composed of many nations, and held within itself the fatal germs of license and disorder. The feudal anarchy with which Europe was then distracted followed the defenders of the cross into Asia, and that turbulent spirit of the knights, which constantly led them to have recourse to arms, was precisely that which checked and bounded their conquests.
When we think of their ever reviving discords, of the calamities which were the consequences of them, of that excess of bravery that made them commit so many faults, of that want of foresight which they almost always evinced on the eve of great dangers, one thing alone surprises us, and that is, that they did not entirely fail in their enterprise.
Philosophy may, with some justice, oppose its reasonings to the marvels of this war; but she will find in it an abundant source of profound and new observations. In it she will see man with his inexplicable contrasts; in it she will meet with the passions, with all that characterizes them, with all they possess that most plainly exhibits the human heart and mind. Reason, without doubt, must deplore the disorders, the excesses, and the delirium of the Crusaders; but such is human weakness, that we always interest ourselves in great events wherein man is fully developed.
The imagination of the most indifferent must be struck with the instances of heroism which the history of the crusades abounds in. If many of the scenes of this great epoch excite our indignation or our pity, how many of the events fill us with admiration and surprise! How many names, rendered illustrious by this war, are still the pride of families and nations! That which is perhaps most positive in the results of the first crusade, is the glory of our fathers,—that glory which is also a real good for a country; for great remembrances found the existence of nations as well as families, and are the most noble sources of patriotism.
In remotest antiquity, one of those passions which sometimes act upon a whole people, precipitated Greece upon Asia. This war, famous and rich in exploits, inflamed the imagination of the Greeks, and was for a great length of time celebrated in their temples and upon their stage. If great national remembrances inspire us with the same enthusiasm, if we entertain as strong a respect as the ancients for the memory of our ancestors, the conquest of the Holy Land must be for us as glorious and memorable an epoch as the war of Troy was for the people of Greece. These two wars, however different in their motives, present almost the same results to the enlightened observer; both offer grand lessons to policy and illustrious models to valour; both founded new states, new colonies, and established relations between distant nations. Both had a marked influence upon the civilization of the ages that followed them: both, in short, developed great passions and fine characters, and thus furnished the happiest subjects for the epic muse, who delights only in celebrating prodigies and wonders.
When comparing these two memorable wars, and the poetical masterpieces that have celebrated them, we cannot but think that the subject of the “Jerusalem Delivered” is more wonderful than that of the “Iliad.” We may still further say, that the heroes of Tasso are more interesting than those of Homer, and their exploits less fabulous. The cause which armed the Greeks was much less important than that which actuated the Christians. The latter, in some sort, took up arms for the assistance of misfortune and oppressed weakness. They went to defend a religion able to make them sensible of ills that were endured far from them, and to make them find brothers in regions unknown to them. This character of sociability is not to be found in any belief of the ancients.
The Crusaders exhibited another spectacle with which antiquity was unacquainted—the union of religious humility with the love of glory. History shows us constantly these haughty heroes, the terror of Asia and the Mussulmans, bending their victorious brows to the dust, and marching from conquest to conquest, covered with the sack of penitence. The priests, who exhorted them in battle, only raised their courage by reproaching them with their sins. When they met with reverses, a thousand voices were raised among them to accuse their own misconduct; and when they were victorious, it was God alone that gave them the victory, and religion forbade their claiming glory from it.[215]
The historian may be permitted to think that this difference between the heroes of the “Iliad” and those of the holy war is not sufficiently marked in the poem of “Jerusalem Delivered.”[216] Another reproach may likewise be addressed to the bard of Rinaldo and Godfrey; the ideas of magic and gallantry which he has too freely lavished upon his poem are not in accordance with the truth of history. Magic, which is nothing but a sort of degenerated superstition, and which only deals with small things, was but little known to the Crusaders. Their superstition, however gross, had something noble and grand in it, which associated them sufficiently with the spirit of the epopée, without the poet having anything to alter; their character and manners were grave and austere, and exceedingly well suited to the dignity of a religious epic. It was not till long after the first crusade that magic formed any part of the superstition of the Franks, or that their warlike manners abandoned the prominently epic character which distinguished them, to adopt the romantic character which they have preserved in all books of chivalry. It appears to us that we discover in Tasso much more of the manners of the times in which he lived than of those of the end of the eleventh century, the period of the events which form the subject of his poem.
But it does not enter into the plan or the object of this work to carry such observations further.[217] After having spoken of the heroic deeds and of all that was wonderful in the first crusade, I will turn my attention to the immediate effects it produced upon Europe and Asia. We are sufficiently well acquainted with the evils by which it was followed; great disasters are the familiar subjects of history, but the slow and almost insensible progress of the good that may result from a great revolution, is much less easily perceived.