During these years Anjou interfered with him as little as Normandy; Fulk was overwhelmed with domestic and ecclesiastical troubles. His excommunication was at length removed in 1094;[536] two years later Pope Urban II., on his way to preach the Crusade in western Gaul, was received by the count at Angers and consecrated the abbey church of S. Nicolas, now at length brought to completion.[537] From Angers Urban passed to Tours and Le Mans; and among the many hearts stirred by his call to take the cross there can have been few more earnest than that of Elias of Maine. Robert of Normandy was already gone, leaving his dominions pledged to his brother the king of England. Elias prepared to follow him; but when his request to William Rufus for the protection due to a crusader’s lands during his absence was met by a declaration of the Red King’s resolve to regain all the territories which had been held by his father, the count of Maine saw that he must fight out his crusade not in Holy Land but at home. The struggle had scarcely begun when he was taken prisoner by Robert of Bellême, and sent in chains to the king at Rouen.[538] The people of Maine, whose political existence seemed bound up in their count, were utterly crushed by his loss. But there was another enemy to be faced. Aremburg, the only child of Elias, was betrothed to Fulk Rechin’s eldest son, Geoffrey,[539] whose youthful valour had won him the surname of “Martel the Second;” Geoffrey hurried to save the heritage of his bride, and Fulk was no less eager to seize the opportunity of asserting once more his rights to the overlordship of Maine.[540] The Cenomannians gladly welcomed the only help that was offered them; and while Geoffrey reinforced the garrison of Le Mans, Fulk tried to effect a diversion on the border.[541] But meanwhile Elias had guessed his design, and frustrated it by making terms with the Norman.[542] If Maine must needs bow to a foreign yoke, even William Rufus was at least a better master than Fulk Rechin. To William, therefore, Elias surrendered his county as the price of his own release;[543] and to William he offered his services with the trustful frankness of a heart to which malice was unknown. The offer was refused. Then, from its very ashes, the spirit of Cenomannian freedom rose up once more, and for the second time Elias hurled his defiance at the Red King. An Angevin count in William’s place would probably have flung the bold speaker straight back into the dungeon whence he had come; the haughty chivalry of the Norman only bade him begone and do his worst.[544] In the spring Elias fought his way back to Le Mans, where the people welcomed him with clamorous delight; William’s unexpected approach, however, soon compelled him to withdraw;[545] and Maine had to wait two more years for her deliverance. It came with the news of the Red King’s death in August 1100. Robert of Normandy was too indolent, Henry of England too