But, unfortunately, the character of the materials of which Richard's army was composed was not such as to favor any special efficiency in conducting an engineering operation. All the knights, and a large proportion of the common soldiers, deemed themselves gentlemen. They had volunteered to join the crusade from high and romantic notions of chivalry and religion. They were perfectly ready, at any time, to fight the Saracens, and to kill or be killed, whichever fate the fortune of war might assign them; but to bear burdens, to mix mortar, and to build walls, were occupations far beneath them; and the only way to induce them to take hold of this work seems to have been for the knights and officers to set them the example. Thus, in repairing the walls of Acre, all the highest officers of the army, with Richard himself at the head of them, took hold of the work with their own hands, and built away on the walls and towers like so many masons. Of course, the body of the soldiery had no excuse for declining the work, when even the king did not consider himself demeaned by it, and the whole army joined in making the reparations with great zeal. But such kind of zeal as this is not often very enduring. The men had accomplished this work very well at Acre, but now, in undertaking a second operation of the kind, their ardor was found to be somewhat subsided. Besides, they were discouraged and disheartened in some degree by the results of the fruitless campaign they had made into the interior, and worn down by the fatigues they had endured on their march. Still, the knights and nobles generally followed Richard's example, and worked upon the walls to encourage the soldiery. One, however, absolutely refused; this was Leopold, the Archduke of Austria, whose flag Richard had pulled down from one of the towers in Acre, and trampled upon as it lay on the ground. The archduke had never forgiven this insult.