In 1212 or 1213 occurred what is known as the Children’s Crusade, a movement that doubtless has been greatly exaggerated by after writers, but the facts of which illustrate the ignorance and credulity, as well as the adventurous, not to say marauding, spirit of the times. If in our day the free circulation of stories relating the adventures of cutthroats and robbers inflames the passions and engenders lawless conceits in the young, we may imagine that reports of the bloody work done by persecutors of the Albigenses, dastardly and cruel deeds, which were applauded by Pope and people, could not but make a similar impression upon the callow mind of childhood in the middle ages. Boys practised the sword-thrust at one another’s throats, built their pile of fagots about the stake of some imaginary heretic, and charged in mimic brigades upon phantom hosts of Infidels. It needed only the impassioned appeals of unwise preachers to start the avalanche thus trembling on the slope. It was proclaimed that supernal powers waited to strengthen the children’s arms. The lads were all to prove Davids going forth against Goliaths; the girls would become new Judiths and Deborahs without waiting for their growth. It was especially revealed that the Mediterranean from Genoa to Joppa would be dried up so that these children of God could pass through it dry-shod. From towns and cities issued bands of boys and girls, who in response to the question, “Whither are you going?” replied, “To Jerusalem.” “Boy preachers” were universally encouraged to proclaim the crusade. One lad, named Stephen, announcing that Christ had visited him, led hundreds away. A boy named Nicholas, instigated by older persons, deluded a company into crossing the Alps, where many starved, were killed, or kidnapped. The real leaders, however, seem to have been men and women of disorderly habits, who in an age of impoverished homes readily adopted the lives of tramps, and used the pitiable appearance of the children to secure the charities of the towns and cities they passed through. Saracen kidnappers also took advantage of the craze to lure children on board of ships by promise of free passage to the Holy Land. Thus entrapped, they were sold as slaves for Eastern fields or harems. Seven vessels were loaded with Christian children at Marseilles. Five of the ships reached Egypt, consigned to slave merchants; two were wrecked off the isle of St. Peter, where Pope Gregory IX. afterwards caused a church to be built in memory of the victims. THE FIFTH CRUSADE. CHAPTER XL. DISASTER OF MARIETTA.