the standard of the cross to the relief of the Holy Land; and yet how
trifling is the sum of these accumulated evils, if compared with the
single act of the sacrilege of Hakem, which had been so patiently
endured by the Latin Christians! A slighter provocation inflamed the
more irascible temper of their descendants: a new spirit had arisen of
religious chivalry and papal dominion; a nerve was touched of exquisite
feeling; and the sensation vibrated to the heart of Europe.

Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.--Part I.

Origin And Numbers Of The First Crusade.--Characters Of The
Latin Princes.--Their March To Constantinople.--Policy Of
The Greek Emperor Alexius.--Conquest Of Nice, Antioch, And
Jerusalem, By The Franks.--Deliverance Of The Holy
Sepulchre.--Godfrey Of Bouillon, First King Of Jerusalem.--
Institutions Of The French Or Latin Kingdom.

About twenty years after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Turks, the
holy sepulchre was visited by a hermit of the name of Peter, a native
of Amiens, in the province of Picardy in France. His resentment and
sympathy were excited by his own injuries and the oppression of the
Christian name; he mingled his tears with those of the patriarch, and
earnestly inquired, if no hopes of relief could be entertained from the
Greek emperors of the East. The patriarch exposed the vices and weakness
of the successors of Constantine. "I will rouse," exclaimed the hermit,
"the martial nations of Europe in your cause;" and Europe was obedient
to the call of the hermit. The astonished patriarch dismissed him with
epistles of credit and complaint; and no sooner did he land at Bari,
than Peter hastened to kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff. His stature
was small, his appearance contemptible; but his eye was keen and lively;
and he possessed that vehemence of speech, which seldom fails to impart
the persuasion of the soul. He was born of a gentleman's family, (for we
must now adopt a modern idiom,) and his military service was under the
neighboring counts of Boulogne, the heroes of the first crusade. But he
soon relinquished the sword and the world; and if it be true, that his
wife, however noble, was aged and ugly, he might withdraw, with the less
reluctance, from her bed to a convent, and at length to a hermitage.
* In this austere solitude, his body was emaciated, his fancy was
inflamed; whatever he wished, he believed; whatever he believed, he
saw in dreams an