Similar scenes were repeated at the Second Crusade. Pope Eugenius III. issued a Bull, announcing that all who joined in the Holy War would be released from the interest which they owed to the Jewish money-lenders. St. Bernard seconded the Pope’s recruiting efforts. Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Clugny, exerted himself by might and main to inflame King Louis VII. of France and other noble Crusaders against the Jews: “Of what use is it,” wrote he to the king, “to go forth to seek the enemies of Christendom in distant lands, if the blasphemous Jews, who are much worse than the Saracens, are permitted in our very midst to scoff with impunity at Christ and the Sacrament?... Yet, I do not require you to put to death these accursed beings, because it is written ‘Do not slay them.’ God does not wish to annihilate them, but like Cain, the Fratricide, they must be made to suffer fearful torments, and continue reserved for greater ignominy, and to an existence more bitter than death.” In conformity with this charitable doctrine, the Jews of France were forced to yield their ill-gotten gains for the service of the cause of God. Far worse was their fate in Germany. Even the partial protection which the citizens of the Rhineland had afforded the persecuted people in the First Crusade was now withdrawn, and the undisciplined mob gave the reins to the gratification of its religious zeal and of its lust. St. Bernard endeavoured to curb the demon of fanaticism, which his own eloquence had raised, by admonishing the enthusiasts, with more earnestness than consistency, that “the Jews are not to be persecuted, not to be butchered.” But his well-meant efforts produced no other effect than to turn the fury of the mob against himself; for a rival monk, Rudolf, had been going up and down the Rhineland, everywhere preaching, with tears in his eyes, that all Jews who were found by the Crusaders should be slain as “murderers of our dear Lord”--an appeal far more acceptable to the brutal herd of besotted hinds to whom it was addressed. The persecution commenced at Trèves, in August, 1146, where a Jew was seized by the Crusaders, and, on refusing to be saved by baptism, was murdered and mutilated. Soon afterwards a Jewess at Speyer was tortured on the rack. Many others were waylaid and made to suffer for their constancy at Würsburg and elsewhere. From Germany the frenzy passed into France. At Carenton, Rameru, and Sully the Jews were hunted and massacred.