“Signor, saciez, ki or ne s’en ira En cele terre, u Diex fu mors et vis, Et ki la crois d’outre mer ni prendra À paines mais ira en paradis.” _Thibault de Champagne._ We are not writing a history of the Crusades, and must hasten over all those episodes in the long struggle of three hundred years which do not immediately concern the Holy City. It is with regret that one turns from the glowing pages of Vinsauf, Villehardouin, and Joinville, with the thought that they have little to do with our subject, and that we must perforce leave them for other pastures, not so fair.[72] But a few words to show the progress of events, if it is only to make us understand the story of Saladin, are indispensable. Footnote 72: Why has no English historian treated of the Crusades? Besides the scattered notices in Milman there is only the work of Knightley, meritorious in its way, but as dry as sawdust; spoiled, too, by the accident that it was written for the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, and the author seems always horribly afraid of saying something which might offend the Committee. The news of the fall of Jerusalem was received in Europe with a thrill of horror and indignation. From every pulpit, preachers thundered in the ears of the stupefied people the intelligence that the city for which so much had been risked and spent was fallen, and that it was the judgment of God upon the sins of the world. Terrified and conscience-stricken, all Europe repented and reformed. Luxury was abandoned, mortifications and self-denial were practised; every sinner looked on the fall of the city as partly caused by himself; nothing but prayers and lamentation were heard through all the cities of Western Europe. And then when Pope Gregory sent his circular letter exhorting the faithful to take up arms for the recovery of Jerusalem, and when William of Tyre, eloquent, noble in appearance, illustrious for learning and for virtues, came to Europe to pray for help in the name of Christianity, kings forgot their quarrels, nobles their ambitions, and it seemed as if, once more, the cry of “Dieu le veut” would burst spontaneously from the whole of Western Europe. It might have done had there been a man with the energy and eloquence of Peter the Hermit. But the moment of enthusiasm was allowed to pass, and Philip Augustus after taking the Cross, delayed his Crusade, while he renewed his quarrel with Henry the Second.