For ourselves, the disastrous war against the Albigeois does not enter into the plan of this history, and if we have spoken of it here, it was only the better to describe the situation of France at this period, and the obstacles which then opposed themselves to all enterprises beyond sea. Amidst these constantly increasing obstacles, Innocent III. was deeply afflicted at not being able to send succours to the Christians of Palestine, his regret being the greater from the circumstance that at the very time the Albigeois and the count of Thoulouse were subjected to this frightful crusade, the Saracens were becoming more formidable in Spain. The king of Castile, threatened by an innumerable army, had just called upon all Frenchmen able to bear arms to come to his assistance. The pope himself had written to all the bishops of France, recommending them to exhort the faithful of their dioceses to assist in a great battle which was to be fought between the Spaniards and the Moors, about the octave of Pentecost (1212). Innocent promised the warriors who would repair to Spain, the usual indulgences of holy wars; and a solemn procession was made at Rome, to implore of God the destruction of the Moors and Saracens. The archbishops of Narbonne and Bordeaux, the bishop of Nantes, and a great number of French nobles, crossed the Pyrenees, followed by two thousand knights with their squires and serjeants-at-arms. The Christian army met the Moors in the plains of Las Navas de Tolosa, and fought a battle, in which more than two hundred thousand infidels lost either their lives or their liberty. The conquerors, loaded with spoils and surrounded by the dead, sang the _Te Deum_ on the field of battle: the standard of the leader of the Almoades was sent to Rome as a trophy of the victory granted to the prayers of the Christian Church.
On learning the issue of the battle of Tolosa, the sovereign pontiff, amidst the assembled inhabitants of Rome, offered up thanks to God for having scattered the enemies of his people, and at the same time prayed that Heaven in its mercy would, in the end, deliver the Christians of Syria as it had just delivered the Christians of Spain.
The head of the Church renewed his exhortations to the faithful for the defence of the kingdom of Jesus Christ; but amidst the troubles and civil wars that he himself had excited, he could gain no attention to the complaints of Jerusalem, and shed tears of despair at the indifference of the nations of the West. About this period such a circumstance was beheld as had never occurred even in times so abounding in prodigies and extraordinary events. Fifty thousand children, in France and Germany, braving paternal authority, gathered together and pervaded both cities and countries, singing these words:—“Lord Jesus, restore to us your holy cross!” When they were asked whither they were going, or what they intended to do, they replied, “We are going to Jerusalem, to deliver the sepulchre of our Saviour.” Some ecclesiastics, blinded by false zeal, had preached this crusade; most of the faithful saw nothing in it but the inspiration of Heaven, and thought that Jesus Christ, to show his divine power, and to confound the pride of the greatest captains, and of the wise and powerful of the earth, had placed his cause in the hands of simple and timid infancy.