Scarcely had he taken a few days’ rest when messengers came to him on behalf of Baldwin III., king of Jerusalem, begging him to repair without delay to the Holy City. Louis was as eager to go thither as the king and people of Jerusalem were to see him there; but his speedy departure encountered unforeseen hinderances. Raymond, of Poitiers, at that time Prince of Antioch by his marriage with Constance, granddaughter of the great Bohemond of the first crusade, was uncle to the Queen of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was, says William of Tyre, “a lord of noble descent, of tall and elegant figure, the handsomest of the princes of the earth, a man of charming affability and conversation, open-handed and magnificent beyond measure,” and, moreover, ambitious and eager to extend his small dominion. He had at heart, beyond everything, the conquest of Aleppo and Caesarea. In this design the King of France and the crusaders who were still about him might be of real service; and he attempted to win them over. Louis answered that he would engage in no enterprise until he had visited the holy places. Raymond was impetuous, irritable, and as unreasonable in his desires as unfortunate in his undertakings. He had quickly acquired great influence over his niece, Queen Eleanor, and he had no difficulty in winning her over to his plans. “She,” says William of Tyre, “was a very inconsiderate woman, caring little for royal dignity or conjugal fidelity; she took great pleasure in the court of Antioch, where she also conferred much pleasure, even upon Mussulmans, whom, as some chronicles say, she did not repulse; and, when the king, her husband, spoke to her of approaching departure, she emphatically refused, and, to justify her opposition, she declared that they could no longer live together, as there was, she asserted, a prohibited degree of consanguinity between them.” Louis, “who loved her with an almost excessive love,” says William of Nangis, was at the same time angered and grieved. He was austere in morals, easily jealous, and religiously scrupulous, and for a moment he was on the point of separating from his wife; but the counsels of his chief barons dissuaded him, and, thereupon, taking a sudden resolution, he set out from Antioch secretly, by night, carrying off the queen almost by force. “They both hid their wrath as much as possible,” says the chronicler; “but at heart they had ever this outrage.” We shall see, before long, what were the consequences. No history can offer so striking an example of the importance of well-assorted unions amongst the highest as well as the lowest, and of the prolonged woes which may be brought upon a nation by the domestic evils of royalty.