divulged, all Christendom resolved with one accord to drive out the Jews from their territory to the very last. They became thus the object of universal execration. Some were driven out, some massacred by the sword, some thrown into the sea, or given up to different kinds of punishment. Others devoted themselves to voluntary deaths: so that, after the just vengeance executed upon them, very few could be seen in the Roman world.... These examples of justice were not calculated to inspire a feeling of security in the mind of Robert when he came back. He began by looking for his accomplices, of whom there were still a small number in Orleans; with them he lived familiarly. But he was denounced by a stranger, who had made the journey with him, and knew perfectly well the object of his mission. He is seized, scourged, and confesses his crime. The ministers of the king take him without the city, and there, in the sight of all the people, commit him to the flames. Nevertheless, the fugitive Jews began to reappear in the cities, and there is no doubt that, because some must always exist as a living testimony to their shame, and the crime by which they shed the blood of Christ, God permitted the animosity of the Christians to subside. However that may be by the divine will, Maria, mother of the Emir, prince of Babylon, a very Christian princess, ordered the church to be rebuilt with square and polished stones the same year.... And there might have been seen an innumerable crowd of Christians running in triumph to Jerusalem from all parts of the world, and contending with one another in their offerings for the restoration of the house of God.” Footnote 48: If there is any one fact in history which seems absolutely clear and certain, it is this, that _the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed by command of Hakem_. William of Tyre expressly describes the reconstruction of the church. Raoul, as shown above, tells how the news of the destruction was received. All the Arabic historians record the event. It was an unlucky day for the Jews when Robert went on his embassy, whatever that was, to the East. But a renewal of the religious spirit in the West was always attended by a persecution of the Jews. No story was too incredible to be believed of them, no violence and cruelty too much for them. When the Crusades began, almost the first to suffer were the hapless Jews, and we know how miserable was their situation so long as the Crusading spirit lasted. Even when this was dying out, when the Christians and the Saracens were often firm friends, the Jews alone shared none of the benefits of toleration. To be a descendant of that race by whom Christ was crucified, was to be subjected to the very wantonness of cruelty and persecution.