in October 1830, it became a standing joke
against the patriots, that they shaved their faces clean immediately; and
the wits of the Dutch army asserted that they had gathered moustaches
enough from the denuded lips of the Belgians to stuff mattresses for all
the sick and wounded in their hospital.

The last folly of this kind is still more recent. In the German
newspapers, of August 1838, appeared an ordonnance, signed by the king of
Bavaria, forbidding civilians, on any pretence whatever, to wear
moustaches, and commanding the police and other authorities to arrest, and
cause to be shaved, the offending parties. "Strange to say," adds _Le
Droit_, the journal from which this account is taken, "moustaches
disappeared immediately, like leaves from the trees in autumn; every body
made haste to obey the royal order, and not one person was arrested."

The king of Bavaria, a rhymester of some celebrity, has taken a good many
poetical licences in his time. His licence in this matter appears neither
poetical nor reasonable. It is to be hoped that he will not take it into
his royal head to make his subjects shave theirs; nothing but that is
wanting to complete their degradation.

[Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY.[77]]

[77] The above engraving, shewing two soldiers of William the
Conqueror's army, is taken from the celebrated Bayeux
Tapestry.--See _ante_, p. 297.

END OF VOL. I.

[Illustration: POPE URBAN PREACHING THE CRUSADES.]

MEMOIRS

OF

EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS.

VOLUME II.

[Illustration: VIEW IN THE THE HARZ MOUNTAINS.]

LONDON:

OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY,

227 STRAND.

1852.

MEMOIRS

OF

EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS

AND THE

MADNESS OF CROWDS.

BY CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D.

AUTHOR OF "EGERIA," "THE SALAMANDRINE," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS.

VOL. II.

N'en deplaise a ces fous nommes sages de Grece,
En ce monde il n'est point de parfaite sagesse;
Tous les hommes sont fous, et malgre tous leurs soins
Ne different entre eux que du plus ou du moins.
BOILEAU.

LONDON:

OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY,

227 STRAND.

1852.

CONTENTS.

THE CRUSADES.

Different accounts of the Crusaders derived from History and
Romance--Pilgrimages to the Holy Land first undertaken by converted Jews
and the very credulous