“Their lives Are based upon the fickle faith of men: Not measured out against fate’s mortal knives Like human gossamers; they perish when They fade, and are forgot in worldly ken.” Baldwin did not hesitate one moment to exchange his rich and luxurious principality of Edessa for the greater dignity, with all its thorns and cares, of the crown of Jerusalem. He made over his power to his cousin Baldwin Du Bourg, and himself, with a little army of four hundred knights and one thousand foot, started on his perilous journey, through a country swarming with enemies. He got on very smoothly, despite the paucity of his numbers, until he reached Beyrout. Five miles from that town was a narrow pass, with the sea on one side and rocks on the other, too difficult to force if it were held by even a hundred men. The trouble and anxiety into which the army was thrown are well told by Foulcher, the king’s chaplain, who was with him. The worthy chaplain was horribly frightened. “I would much rather,” he tells us, “have been at Chartres or Orleans.... Nowhere was there a place where we could find refuge, no way was open to us to escape death, no passage was left by which we could flee, no hope of safety remained if we stayed where we were. Solomon himself would not have known which way to turn, and even Samson would have been conquered. But God ... seeing the peril and distress into which we had fallen for His service, and through love of Him”—rather a daring assertion, considering that Baldwin had deserted the Crusade, and gone off filibustering entirely on his own account, and was now going to receive a crown for which he certainly had not fought—“was touched with pity, and granted in His mercy such an audacity of courage that our men put to flight those who were pursuing them.... Some threw themselves from the top of scarped rocks, others rushed to places which seemed to present a little chance of safety, others were caught and perished by the edge of the sword. You ought to have seen their ships flying through the waves, as if we could seize them with our hands; and themselves in their fright scaling the mountains and the rocks.” And no doubt it did the excellent chaplain good to see them running away, just after defeat and death appeared so imminent. In the morning Baldwin rode up to examine the pass, and found the enemy gone. So the little army passed in safety, and went on their way, laden with the spoils of the Turks. Arrived at Jerusalem, all the people, headed by the clergy, came out to meet the king, singing hymns and bearing tapers. Only the patriarch, Dagobert, chose to be absent and retired to Mount Zion, pretending to be in fear for his personal safety.