counsels, and determined upon following the plan before laid down. The Emperor of Germany was the first[564] to set out, and by June reached Constantinople in safety, followed by a large body of armed men, and a number of women whose gay dress, half-military, half-feminine, gave the march the appearance of some bright fantastic cavalcade. The King of France, having previously received[565] at St. Denis, the consecrated banner as a warrior, and the staff and scrip[566] as a pilgrim, now quitted Metz, and proceeded by Worms and Ratisbon. Here he was met by envoys from the Emperor of the East, charged with letters so filled with flattery and fair speeches, that Louis is reported to have blushed, and the Bishop of Langres to have observed-- Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. Here,[567] too, the French beheld, for the first time, the custom of an inferior standing in the presence of his lord. The object of the emperor was to obtain from Louis a promise to pass through his territories without violence, and to yield to him every town from which he should expel the Turks, and which had ever belonged to the Grecian territory. Part of this proposal was acceded to, and part refused; and the army marched on through Hungary into Greece. The progress of the second crusade was of course subject to the same difficulties that attended that of the first, through a waste and deserted land; but many other obstacles no longer existed--the people of the country were more accustomed to the appearance of strangers;[568] the army was restrained by the presence of the king; and the whole account of the march to Constantinople leaves the impression of a more civilized state of society than that which existed at the period of the first crusade. We meet with no massacres, no burning of towns, no countries laid waste: and though there are to be found petty squabbles between the soldiers and the townspeople, frays, and even bloodshed; yet these were but individual outrages, kindled by private passions, and speedily put down by the arm of authority.