[65] We have taken these particulars of Raymond Lulli from the Spanish dissertations upon the crusades, which we have already quoted in the preceding book.
[66] See what Sanuti himself relates in his book, from which we shall take many extracts.
[67] It appears almost incomprehensible that our author should, in these reflections, omit that which must strike every one else as the principal cause of the change he affects to lament. In the days of Peter the Hermit, a crusade was a golden day-dream, in which ambition and cupidity indulged as strongly as piety or superstition. But experience had not only proved it to be “a baseless fabric,” but a cruel and a bitter scourge to all who had embarked in one. The first Crusaders were visionary—later ones must have been mad.—Trans.
[68] Et venoist à tous seigneurs moult grande plaisance, et spécialement à ceux qui vouloient le temps dispenser en armes, et qui adonc ne le tuvoient mie bien raisonnablement employer ailleurs.—Froissart.
[69] The eternal production of the Holy Ghost, which proceeds from the Father and the Son.—Trans.
[70] Our readers will observe by this, that the crescent, which has generally, but falsely, been taken as the standard of all Saracens, belongs to the Ottomans: it has never been mentioned in this history before.—Trans.
[71] The character of Constantine was worthy of being celebrated by the epic muse. One of our most distinguished statesmen has undertaken this glorious task.—See the poem of The Last Constantine, by M. de Vaublanc. [We wonder our author is not here struck by the very palpable reflection, that empires, kingdoms, and other institutions, which have richly merited their fall, frequently expire under the immediate rule of men who have not been instrumental in bringing about their ruin—they are but the last step of a headlong declivity,—if they are of adamant they must yield. The history of his own country and of ours might have supplied him with hints for such a reflection.—Trans.]
[72] For the siege of Constantinople, the very detailed account of Gibbon, and the rapid but complete picture of M. Salabury, in his History of the Turkish Empire, may be consulted.
[73] Olivier de la Marche, after giving a description of the festival and of the divers spectacles offered to the eyes of the guests, adds: “Such were the dainty mundane dishes of this festival, of which I will leave others to speak, to give an account of a pitiable portion of it, which appears to me of more consequence than the others,” &c.
[74] Olivier de la Marche says, that the duke of Burgundy had already undertaken, three years before, to make a crusade against the Turks, in an assembly held at Mons.