e of that city. Murder
was mercy, rape tenderness, simple plunder the mere assertion of the
conqueror's right. Children were seized by their legs, some of them
plucked from their mother's breasts, and dashed against the walls, or
whirled from the battlements. Others were obliged to leap from the
walls; some tortured, roasted by slow fires. They ripped up prisoners to
see if they had swallowed gold. Of 70,000 Saracens there were not left
enough to bury the dead; poor Christians were hired to perform the
office. Everyone surprised in the Temple was slaughtered, till the reek
from the dead drove away the slayers. The Jews were burned alive in
their synagogue."[178]

The most remarkable of all the crusades, and the one that best shows
the character of the epidemic, was the children's crusade of 1212. It
was said that the sins of the crusaders had caused their failure, and
priests went about France and Germany calling upon the children to do
what the sins of their fathers had prevented them accomplishing. The
children were told that the sea would dry up to give them passage, and
the infidels be stricken by the Lord on their approach. A peasant lad,
Stephen of Cloyes, received the usual vision, and was ordered to lead
the crusade. Commencing with the children around Paris, he collected
some 30,000 followers, and without money or food commenced the march. At
the same time an army of children, 40,000 strong, was gathered together
at Cologne. The result of the crusade may be told in a few words. About
6000 of the French contingent, having reached Marseilles, were offered a
passage by some shipowners. Several of the ships foundered, others
reached shore, and the boys were sold into slavery. The girls were
reserved for a more sinister fate. Thousands of the children died in
attempting a march over the Alps. A mere remnant succeeded in reaching
home, ruined in both mind and body. Well might Fuller say: "This crusade
was done by the instinct of the devil, who, as it were, desired a
cordial of children's blood, to comfort his weak stomach, long cloyed
with murdering of men."[179]

On both the social and the religious side the consequences were
important. For the first time large bodies of men, taught to regard all
those who were outside Christendom as beneath consideration, came into
contact with a people possessing an art, an industry, a culture far
superior to their own. As Draper says: "Even down to the meanest camp
follower, ev