Half a century passed away, during which Christendom sent forth expedition after expedition to defend the Holy Land and to consolidate its conquest; but with little success, for the Saracens never desisted from their attacks on the Crusaders, and persistently disputed with them the possession of Palestine. Moreover, the ardour of the pilgrims gradually diminished, the zeal for the Crusades commenced to slacken in Europe, and indifference and apathy began to take its place. When the throne of Godefroy de Bouillon began to totter upon its insecure foundations, the road to Jerusalem became deserted, and the civilised world, absorbed and distracted by the nearer and keener struggles continually waging between its popes and its sovereigns, soon, preserved but a vague remembrance of the glorious enterprises of its fathers. Suddenly, however, it was rumoured in the West that the city of Edessa, the capital of the first Christian principality founded by the Crusaders in the East, and considered as the bulwark of the kingdom of Jerusalem, had been retaken by the Saracens, who had deluged the streets in blood. The painful tidings were received with deep indignation; but a man of genius was at hand to strike the keynote of distress and vengeance, and the voice of St. Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, rekindled the waning torch of crusading enthusiasm. It was at Vézelai (Fig. 105), where Louis VII. held his court, that the illustrious abbot, “fortified with the apostolical authority and his own sanctity,” first addressed the nobles and the populace (1146). “As there was no room in the castle,” says an eye-witness, Eudes de Deuil, in his Latin chronicles, “a pulpit had been constructed in the open air upon the plains which lay at the foot of the hill of Vézelai, into which Bernard ascended, accompanied by the king, wearing the cross sent him by the pope.” When the heaven-born orator had aroused his hearers with the divine fire of his eloquence, there arose a universal shout of “Crosses! crosses!” The crosses which the abbot had prepared beforehand were soon exhausted, and, tearing his clothes into strips, he distributed them amongst the assembly, who fastened them crosswise on their garments. He continued his exhortations during the whole of his stay at Vézelai, giving proof of the sanctity of his mission by the numerous miracles which he performed.