The troubadours again took down their harps, and the voice of song echoing through castle and hall aroused the enthusiasm of youth, and awoke the slumbering energies of age. The pontiff himself declared his intention of visiting the Holy Land, and the warriors said one to another, "Let us spread our sacred banners and pass the seas; let us impress upon our bodies the sign of the cross; let us restore Christ to his inheritance, and by our deeds of arms merit the admiration of men, and the approbation of Heaven." This crusade is divided into three parts. The expedition of Andrew II. King of Hungary; the war in Egypt, led by the Pope's legate and King Jean; and the campaign of the Emperor Frederic II., the first two divisions with their multiplied and sanguinary events, shaping the destiny and affecting the fortunes of Violante, the infant daughter of John de Brienne and Mary, King and Queen of Jerusalem. Not long after Philip Augustus furnished from his dominions so wise and noble a knight to protect the rights of Mary and Jerusalem, he was called upon to exercise again his royal prerogative of match-maker and king-maker by deputies from Constantinople. The first Latin sovereign of the Greek Empire, Baldwin of Flanders, left his crown to his brother Henry. This prince dying without children, the next heir was his sister Yolande, widow of a French noble, and mother-in-law to Andrew II. King of Hungary. But the sceptre of empire in Constantinople, as well as in Jerusalem, could be swayed only by the firm hand of a warrior, and the deputies besought Philip Augustus to provide at once a husband for Yolande, and an emperor for the throne of the Cæsars. The choice fell upon Peter Courtenay, cousin of the French king. The bridegroom--monarch elect, was conducted by a noble retinue to the Court of Hungary, where the marriage ceremony was performed by the successor of Innocent, Pope Honorius III. King Andrew then, in setting off for the crusade, accompanied the bridal party, dignified by the presence of the sovereign pontiff to the gates of Constantinople, where he witnessed the august ceremony of investing the monarch with the imperial purple, and saw the pope place the diadem of the East upon the head of his royal father-in-law. From Constantinople the Hungarian leader sailed for Cyprus, where he was admitted to an audience, with Hugh and Alice, king and queen of that island and thence with favorable winds passed over the Levant, and landed in safety at Acre. This city was at that time the metropolis of the Holy Land, and in the palace formerly occupied by the queens Berengaria and Joanna, the stern western warriors knelt and did homage to Violante, the young Princess of Palestine. Saphadin had retired from the constant toils of royalty, and blessed with the respect of his people, and the sweet affection of Elsiebede, resided in security at Damascus.