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. [Elemens de l'Histoire de France.] 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.

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 moveables of all the laity at Michaelmas.

In spite of the remonstrances of the few clearheaded 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 loth, 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 in
his plans took place. Instead of proceeding to Acre, as he originally
intended, he shaped his course fo