ok to flight. There
was at one point of the city ramparts a ravine which had to be filled up
to make an approach; and the count of Toulouse had proclamation made that
be would give a denier to every one who would go and throw three stones
into it. In three days the ravine was filled up. After four weeks of
labor and preparation, the council of princes fixed a day for delivering
the assault; but as there had been quarrels between several of the
chiefs, and, notably, between the count of Toulouse and Tancred, it was
resolved that before the grand attack they should all be reconciled at a
general supplication, with solemn ceremonies, for divine aid. After a
strict fast, all the crusaders went forth armed from their quarters, and
preceded by their priests, bare-footed and chanting psalms, they moved,
in slow procession, round Jerusalem, halting at all places hallowed by
some fact in sacred history, listening to the discourses of their
priests, and raising eyes full of wrath at hearing the scoffs addressed
to them by the Saracens, and seeing the insults heaped upon certain
crosses they had set up and upon all the symbols of the Christian faith.
"Ye see," cried Peter the Hermit; "ye hear the threats and blasphemies of
the enemies of God. Now this I swear to you by your faith; this I swear
to you by the arms ye carry: to-day these infidels be still full of pride
and insolence, but to-morrow they shall be frozen with fear; those
mosques, which tower over Christian ruins, shall serve for temples to the
true God, and Jerusalem shall hear no longer aught but the praises of the
Lord." The shouts of the whole Christian army responded to the hopes of
the apostle of the crusade; and the crusaders returned to their quarters
repeating the words of the prophet Isaiah: "So shall they fear the name
of the Lord from the West, and His glory from the rising of the sun."

On the 14th of July, 1099, at daybreak, the assault began at divers
points; and next day, Friday, the 15th of July, at three in the
afternoon, exactly at the hour at which, according to Holy Writ, Jesus
Christ had yielded up the ghost, saying, "Father, into Thy hands I
commend My spirit," Jerusalem was completely in the hands of the
crusaders. We have no heart to dwell on the massacres which accompanied
the victory so clearly purchased by the conquerors. The historians,
Latin or Oriental, set down at seventy thousand the number of Mussulmans
massacred on the ramparts,