This being the state of the case, he had every motive for pressing the negotiations, and for cultivating, while they were in progress, the most friendly relations possible with Saladin, and for persevering in pressing them as long as the least possible hope remained. Accordingly, during all this time Richard treated Saladin with the greatest courtesy. He sent him many presents, and paid him many polite attentions. All this display of urbanity toward each other, on the part of these ferocious and bloodthirsty men, has been actually attributed by mankind to the instinctive nobleness and generosity of the spirit of chivalry; but, in reality, as is indeed too often the case with the pretended nobleness and generosity of rude and violent men, a cunning and far-seeing selfishness lay at the bottom of it. In the course of these negotiations, Richard declared to Saladin that all which the Christians desired was the possession of Jerusalem and the restoration of the true cross, and he said that surely some terms could be devised on which Saladin could concede those two points. But Saladin replied that Jerusalem was as sacred a place in the eyes of Mussulmans, and as dear to them, as it was to the Christians, and that they could on no account give it up. In respect to the true cross, the Christians, he said, if they could obtain it, would worship it in an idolatrous manner, as they did their other relics; and as the law of the Prophet in the Koran forbade idolatry, they could not conscientiously give it up. "By so doing," said he, "we should be accessories to the sin." It was in consequence of the insuperable objections which arose against an absolute surrender of Jerusalem to the Christians that the negotiations took the turn which led to the proposal of a marriage between the ex-Queen Joanna and Saphadin; for, when Richard found that no treaty was possible that would give him full possession of Jerusalem, and the letters which he received from England made more and more urgent the necessity that he should return, he conceived the plan of a sort of joint occupancy of the Holy City by Mussulmans and Christians together. This was to be effected by means of the proposed marriage. The marriage was to be the token and pledge of a surrendering, on both sides, of the bitter fanaticism which had hitherto animated them, and of their determination henceforth to live in peace, notwithstanding their religious differences. If this state of feeling could be once established, there would be no difficulty, it was thought, in arranging some sort of mixed government for Jerusalem that would secure access to the holy places by both Mussulmans and Christians, and accomplish the ends of the war to the satisfaction of all.