The pious and touching appeals of St. Bernard attained the success he desired. King Louis, his wife Eleanor, his principal nobility and clergy, many thousand knights, and a vast number of the lower classes, enrolled themselves under the banner of the cross. “As soon as it was agreed that they should set out at the expiration of a year,” says another chronicler, “all joyfully returned home. But the Abbot of Clairvaux went about preaching from place to place, and it soon became impossible to reckon the number of the Crusaders.” From France, Bernard crossed over to Germany, where the influence of his inspired words fully revealed itself, for whole populations, unable even to understand the language he addressed them in, carried away by the marvellous charm of his manner, smote their breasts, and cried out, “God be merciful to us! The saints be with us!” [Illustration: Fig. 105.--Façade of the Abbey Church of the Magdalen, as it now stands at Vézelai, where, in 1146, St. Bernard preached the Second Crusade (Twelfth Century).] The Emperor Conrad, whom the Abbot endeavoured to persuade to join the King of France in the new crusade, at first gave the enterprise considerable opposition; but at last, at a meeting held at Spires, the 28th of December, 1146, Bernard’s extraordinary eloquence produced such an effect upon him that he vowed on the spot to assume the cross. His example was immediately followed by several German princes, amongst whom was his own nephew, the youthful Frederick of Suabia, who afterwards became so celebrated under the name of Frederick Barbarossa. A few months later, the French and German armies, each of which contained more than a hundred thousand fighting men, without reckoning the swarm of pilgrims who accompanied them, set out, well armed, well equipped, and full of confidence, for the East. The two armies contained the _élite_ of the chivalry of both countries. “Europe,” said St. Bernard in one of his letters, “contained nothing but desert towns and castles, nothing but widows and orphans, whose husbands and fathers were still alive.”