“Tell me,” said Don Quixote, “have you ever seen a more valorous knight than I upon the whole face of the known earth?”
No sooner was the breath out of Godfrey’s body, than, according to usual custom, the Christians began to quarrel as to who should succeed him. Count Garnier de Gray, a cousin of Godfrey’s, took possession promptly of the Tower of David and other fortified places, and refused to give them up to the patriarch, Dagobert, who claimed them as having been ceded to him by the late king. Unfortunately, Count Garnier died suddenly at this juncture, and his death was of course interpreted by the churchmen as a punishment for his contumacy. Dagobert wrote immediately—the letter is preserved—to Bohemond, urging him to assert his claims. Hardly was the epistle sent off, when the news came that Bohemond was a prisoner. There was, therefore, nothing to prevent Baldwin from stepping quietly into the throne.
Baldwin, the brother of Godfrey, had been originally destined for the Church, and received a liberal education. When he abandoned the robe for the sword is not certain, nor, indeed, do we know anything at all about him until we see him in the Crusade following his brother. He was a man of grave and majestic bearing. Taller by a head than other men, he was also of great strength, extremely active, and well skilled in all the arts of chivalry. His beard and hair were black, his nose aquiline, and the upper lip slightly projecting. He was fond of personal splendour and display. When he rode out in the town of Edessa a golden buckler, with the device of an eagle, was borne before him, and two horsemen rode in front blowing trumpets. Following the Oriental custom, he had allowed his beard to grow, and took his meals seated on carpets. He was not, like his brother, personally pious, nor was he by any means priestridden. His early education had been sufficient to deprive him of any great respect for the cloth, and the facility with which he fell into Oriental customs proves that his Christianity sat lightly enough upon him. As yet, however, there were no declared infidels in the East. His morals were dissolute, but he knew how to prevent scandals arising, and none but those who were immediately about him knew what was the private life of their grave and solemn king. At the same time he does not appear to have been a hypocrite, or to have claimed any merit at all for piety. The figure of Godfrey is clouded with legends and miraculous stories. We hardly seem to see, through the mist of years, the features of the short-lived David of the new kingdom. But that of Baldwin, the new Solomon of Jerusalem, stands out clear and distinct. This king, calm, cold of speech, self-reliant, like Saul, a head taller than anybody else, who will not be seen abroad without a mantle upon his shoulders, who lets his beard grow, and looks out upon the world with those keen bright eyes of his, and that strong projecting upper lip, is indeed a man, and not a shadow of history. He is a clerk, and is not to be terrified, knowing too much of the Church, into giving up his own to the Church, as Godfrey did. His, too, is the sharp, clear-cut, aquiline nose of the general, as well as the strong arm of a soldier, and the Turks will not probably greatly prevail against him. And with Godfrey, as we have said before, vanish for ever those shadowy figures of saints and dead bishops who were wont to fight with the army. King Baldwin believed in no saints’ help, either in battle or in the world, and did not look for any. Jerusalem, henceforth, has to get along without many miracles. For the appearance of saints and other ghostly auxiliaries is like the appearance of fairies—they come not, when men believe in them no more:
“Their lives
Are based upon the fickle faith of men:
Not measured out against fate’s mortal knives
Like human gossamers; they perish when
They fade, and are forgot in worldly ken.”
Baldwin did not hesitate one moment to exchange his rich and luxurious principality of Edessa for the greater dignity, with all its thorns and cares, of the crown of Jerusalem. He made over his power to his cousin Baldwin Du Bourg, and himself, with a little army of four hundred knights and one thousand foot, started on his perilous journey, through a country swarming with enemies. He got on very smoothly, despite the paucity of his numbers, until he reached Beyrout. Five miles from that town was a narrow pass, with the sea on one side and rocks on the other, too difficult to force if it were held by even a hundred men. The trouble and anxiety into which the army was thrown are well told by Foulcher, the king’s chaplain, who was with him. The worthy chaplain was horribly frightened. “I would much rather,” he tells us, “have been at Chartres or Orleans.... Nowhere was there a place where we could find refuge, no way was open to us to escape death, no passage was left by which we could flee, no hope of safety remained if we stayed where we were. Solomon himself would not have known which way to turn, and even Samson would have been conquered. But God ... seeing the peril and distress into which we had fallen for His service, and through love of Him”—rather a daring assertion, considering that Baldwin had deserted the Crusade, and gone off filibustering entirely on his own account, and was now going to receive a crown for which he certainly had not fought—“was touched with pity, and granted in His mercy such an audacity of courage that our men put to flight those who were pursuing them.... Some threw themselves from the top of scarped rocks, others rushed to places which seemed to present a little chance of safety, others were caught and perished by the edge of the sword. You ought to have seen their ships flying through the waves, as if we could seize them with our hands; and themselves in their fright scaling the mountains and the rocks.” And no doubt it did the excellent chaplain good to see them running away, just after defeat and death appeared so imminent.
In the morning Baldwin rode up to examine the pass, and found the enemy gone. So the little army passed in safety, and went on their way, laden with the spoils of the Turks.