consternation through the country. A fanatic monk of
Citeaux suddenly appeared in the villages, preaching to the people, and
announcing that the Holy Virgin, accompanied by a whole army of saints and
martyrs, had appeared to him, and commanded him to stir up the shepherds
and farm-labourers to the defence of the cross. To them only was his
discourse addressed; and his eloquence was such, that thousands flocked
around him, ready to follow wherever he should lead. The pastures and the
corn-fields were deserted, and the shepherds, or _pastoureaux_, as they
were termed, became at last so numerous as to amount to upwards of fifty
thousand,--Millot says one hundred thousand men.[20] The Queen Blanche,
who governed as regent during the absence of the king, encouraged at first
the armies of the _pastoureaux_; but they soon gave way to such vile
excesses that the peaceably disposed were driven to resistance. Robbery,
murder, and violation marked their path; and all good men, assisted by the
government, united in putting them down. They were finally dispersed, but
not before three thousand of them had been massacred. Many authors say
that the slaughter was still greater.

[20] _Elemens de l'Histoire de France_.

The ten years' truce concluded in 1264, and St. Louis was urged by two
powerful motives to undertake a second expedition for the relief of
Palestine. These were, fanaticism on the one hand, and a desire of
retrieving his military fame on the other, which had suffered more than
his parasites liked to remind him of. The pope, of course, encouraged his
design, and once more the chivalry of Europe began to bestir themselves.
In 1268, Edward, the heir of the English monarchy, announced his
determination to join the Crusade; and the pope (Clement IV.) wrote to the
prelates and clergy to aid the cause by their persuasions and their
revenues. In England, they agreed to contribute a tenth of their
possessions; and by a parliamentary order, a twentieth was taken from the
corn and movables of all the laity at Michaelmas.

In spite of the remonstrances of the few clear-headed statesmen who
surrounded him, urging the ruin that might in consequence fall upon his
then prosperous kingdom, Louis made every preparation for his departure.
The warlike nobility were nothing loath; and in the spring of 1270, the
king set sail with an army of sixty thousand men. He was driven by stress
of weather into Sardinia, and while there, a change i