the pope entered into an alliance with the enemies of
Christendom against the emperor, if the latter proved troublesome. A.D.
1246 the Sultan of Egypt (Malek as Saleh Ejul) taught Innocent IV., the
speaker of all Christendom, the judge of the Christian peoples, the
following lesson: "It is not befitting to us," he wrote to him, "that we
should make a treaty with the Christians without the counsel and consent
of the emperor. And we have written to our ambassador at the court of
the emperor, informing him of what has been proposed to us by the Pope's
nuncio, including your message and suggestions."

The most pathetic symptom of the restlessness of the age was the
Children's Crusade in 1212, which, even at its actual occurrence, caused
helpless amazement. The reports of two German chroniclers are
sufficiently interesting to be quoted verbally: "In the same year
happened a very strange thing, a thing which was all the more strange
because it was unheard of since the creation of the world. At Easter and
Whitsuntide many thousands of boys from Franconia and Teutonia, from six
years upwards, took the Cross without any external inducement or
preaching, and against the wish of their parents and relations, who
sought to restrain them. Some left the plough which they had been
guiding, others abandoned their flocks, or any other task which they had
been set to do, banded together, and with hoisted banner began to march
to Jerusalem, in batches of twenty, fifty and a hundred. Many people
enquired of them at whose counsel and admonishment they were undertaking
this journey, (for it was not many years ago that many kings, a great
number of princes and countless people had travelled to the Holy Land,
strongly armed, and had returned home without having accomplished their
desire,) telling them that in their tender years they had not yet
sufficient strength to achieve anything, and that therefore this thing
was foolish and undertaken without due consideration; the children
answered briefly that they were obeying God's will, and would willingly
and gladly suffer all the trials He would send them. And they went their
way, some turning back at Mayence, others at Piacenza, and others at
Rome; a small number arrived at Marseilles, but whether they crossed the
sea or not, and what happened to them, no one knows; only that much is
certain, that of all the thousands who went forth, only very few
returned." Another chronicler wrote: "And at this