THE history of Richard Cœur de Lion is a history of the third crusade, and the most memorable one of all. Upon the side of the Mussulmans was Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria. Saladin, whose name means “splendor of religion,” was a noble and generous man, and though a Mohammedan, he often evinced a far more humane and commendable spirit than many of his foes, who called themselves Christians. Upon the side of the Mohammedans, as well as that of the Christians, this conflict was regarded as a holy war; for the Christians were fighting to obtain Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre, where the body of Jesus Christ was supposed to have lain, while the Mohammedans were just as zealously fighting to retain Jerusalem; and Saladin’s answer to the Christians, when they demanded the surrender of that city was, “Jerusalem never was yours, and we may not without sin give it up to you; for it is the place where the mysteries of our religion were accomplished; and the last one of my soldiers will perish before the Mussulmans renounce conquests made in the name of Mohammed.” [Illustration: RICHARD CŒUR DE LION.] Before the time of Richard the Lion-Hearted, Jerusalem had been conquered by the Christians, and they had set up in it a king. This was in 1099, when the crusaders elected Godfrey de Bouillon as king of Jerusalem. But he reigned but one year and died. In the space of one hundred and seventy-one years, from the coronation of Godfrey de Bouillon as king of Jerusalem in 1099, to the last crusade under Louis IX. of France, in 1270, there were seven crusades which were undertaken by the kings of France and England, the emperors of Germany, the king of Denmark, and various princes of Italy. They all failed in the end of accomplishing the permanent possession of the city of Jerusalem by the Christians; but these various crusades called forth a number of devout and self-sacrificing monks and bishops, and gave occasion for brave and valiant deeds by many knights and kings, and none were so brave, and none became so famous in the annals of these holy wars as Richard I., king of England, called by the Christians Cœur de Lion, the Lion-hearted, on account of his valor, and for the same reason feared among the Mohammedans, and called by them Malek-Rik; and so great a terror did this name become, that when St. Louis, more than fifty years after, led the French to another crusade, they heard the Saracen mothers scolding their children, and threatening them with punishment by the dreadful Malek-Rik, who had never been forgotten. The first of the crusades had been inspired by a zealous monk, called Peter the Hermit. From the earliest days of Christianity, many pious persons had made pilgrimages to Palestine, to visit the graves of saints and other places. After a time, these pilgrimages had been extended to Jerusalem; and that city at length, having fallen into the hands of the Turks, the Christian people were treated with cruelty, and many of the