[Illustration: Richard’s Farewell to the Holy Land----10]
Nevertheless, repeated efforts and glory, and even victories, were not then, and were not to be still later, unknown amongst the Christians in their struggle against the Mussulmans for the possession of the Holy Land. In the space of a hundred and seventy-one years from the coronation of Godfrey de Bouillon as king of Jerusalem, in 1099, to the death of St. Louis, wearing the cross before Tunis, in 1270, seven grand crusades were undertaken with the same design by the greatest sovereigns of Christian Europe; the Kings of France and England, the Emperors of Germany, the King of Denmark, and princes of Italy successively engaged therein. And they all failed. It were neither right nor desirable to make long pause over the recital of their attempts and their reverses, for it is the history of France, and not a general history of the crusades, which is here related; but it was in France, by the French people, and under French chiefs, that the crusades were begun; and it was with St. Louis, dying before Tunis beneath the banner of the cross, that they came to an end. They received in the history of Europe the glorious name of _Gesta Dei per Francos_ (God’s works by French hands); and they have a right to keep, in the history of France, the place they really occupied.
During a reign of twenty-nine years, Louis VI., called the Fat, son of Philip I., did not trouble himself about the East or the crusades, at that time in all their fame and renown. Being rather a man of sense than an enthusiast in the cause either of piety or glory, he gave all his attention to the establishment of some order, justice, and royal authority in his as yet far from extensive kingdom. A tragic incident, however, gave the crusade chief place in the thoughts and life of his son, Louis VII., called the Young, who succeeded him in 1137. He got himself rashly embroiled, in 1142, in a quarrel with Pope Innocent II., on the subject of the election of the Archbishop of Bourges. The pope and the king had each a different candidate for the see. “The king is a child,” said the pope; “he must get schooling, and be kept from learning bad habits.”
“Never, so long as I live,” said the king, “shall Peter de la Chatre (the pope’s candidate) enter the city of Bourges.” The chapter of Bourges, thinking as the pope thought, elected Peter de la Chatre; and Theobald II., Count of Champagne, took sides for the archbishop elect. Mind your own business,” said the king to him; “your dominions are large enough to occupy you; and leave me to govern my own as I have a mind.” Theobald persisted in backing the elect of pope and chapter. The pope excommunicated the king. The king declared war against the Count of Champagne; and went and besieged Vitry. Nearly all the town was built of wood, and the besiegers set fire to it. The besieged fled for refuge to a church, in which they were invested; and the fire reached the church, which was entirely consumed, together with the thirteen hundred inhabitants, men, women, and children, who had retreated thither. This disaster made a great stir. St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux and the leading ecclesiastical authority of the age, took the part of Count Theobald. King Louis felt a lively sorrow, and sincere repentance. Soon afterwards it became known in the West that the affairs of the Christians were going ill in the East; that the town of Edessa had been re-taken by the Turks, and all its inhabitants massacred. The kingdom of Jerusalem, too, was in danger. Great was the emotion in Europe; and the cry of the crusade was heard once more. Louis the Young, to appease his troubled conscience, and to get reconciled with the pope, to say nothing of sympathy for the national movement, assembled the grandees, laic and ecclesiastical, of the kingdom, to deliberate upon the matter.