After Louis VII. of France had been on pilgrimage to Compostella, we hear of several other sovereigns from time to time who did the same, among whom was St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal. The Frieslanders, who had a great devotion to St. James, and attributed to his aid a victory they had gained over the Saracens, visited his tomb in immense numbers; the English did the same, and from the time of Edward I.’s marriage with Eleanor of Castile, having stipulated for the safe-conduct of their pilgrims, they arrived in such multitudes that the kings of France became uneasy at so great a concourse, and made an agreement with the king of England that his subjects should obtain permission of them before proceeding to Compostella. In 1434 this leave was granted to about two thousand five hundred persons. These were the palmy days of pilgrims, who were not only well received at Santiago, whither they brought activity, riches, and life, but they were everywhere sheltered and protected. No cottager was too poor to offer them a resting-place or to share his loaf of hospitality with them. A pilgrim was not only a brother come from perhaps some far distant land to do honor to Monseigneur St. James, but he was also, in those days when postage was unknown, the walking gazette, who brought the news of other countries, and enlivened with his narratives and conversation the hearth of the poor as of the rich. From the time of the Reformation pilgrimages began to decrease. England and Germany were the first to discontinue them. France showed herself less fervent as soon as the spirit of rationalistic philosophy had infected the upper classes of her people, after which the Revolution carried down the lower ranks into the gulf of irreligion. The wars of the empire, the spoliations of which Napoleon’s generals were guilty, and consequently the deadly hatred which they evoked against their nation in the heart of every Spaniard, struck the last blow at these pious journeyings. Only the inhabitants of the country continued to visit the shrine of their apostle, and even they by degrees lost the habit. Pilgrims are nowadays but few, excepting only on the feast of the patron, and they have ceased to be popular at Santiago. If they chance to be poor, the townspeople turn a deaf ear when they ask an alms “for the love of St. James”; or, should they be rich, seek only to turn them to account and to lighten their purses.