I must now return to France and England, where private feuds had prevented the distresses of Palestine from producing so immediate an effect as they had wrought with the Germans. Henry II. had, as we have already seen, espoused Eleonor, the repudiated wife of Louis VII., and had obtained with her the whole of Aquitain.[653] This, in addition to Normandy, which he also held as a feudatory of the French crown, rendered the kingly vassal a greater territorial lord than even the sovereign to whom he did homage for his continental lands. Such a state of things, was alone quite sufficient to cause endless dissensions; but soon more immediate matter was found. Louis VII. died. Philip Augustus succeeded, yet in his youth; and Henry II., after having himself, in execution of the feudal duty of the dukes of Normandy, lifted the crown with which Philip's brow was to be decorated, endeavoured to strengthen his own party in France as much as possible against the young monarch. His second son, Geoffrey, he married to Constance, Dutchess of Brittany: his eldest son, Henry, espoused Marguerite, sister of Philip, and received with her the lordship of Gisors,[654] and the territory of the Vexin. Prince Henry died early, leaving no children; and the land, by his marriage contract, reverted to the crown of France; but his father refused to yield it. War broke out in consequence, and was raging fiercely when the news of the fall of Jerusalem reached Europe. The tidings were so unexpected, each one felt so deep and religious a devotion for the Holy Land, every knight had there so many relations or friends, that the news found a thousand avenues open to the hearts of all who heard it. The world, too, was then mad with song. Nations in that early age had all the zealous passions of youth. That fresh ardour--that wild spirit of pursuit, which almost every one must have felt in his own young days, was then the character of society at large. Europe was as an enthusiastic boy, and whatever it followed, love, religion, song, it followed with the uncontrolled passion, the fiery desire which burns but in the days of boyhood among nations as among men. Poetry had now become both the great delight, and the great mover of the day; and all the eloquence of verse found a fit subject in the sorrows of Palestine. The Troubadours[655] and the Trouveres vied with each other, which should do most to stimulate the monarchs and the Chivalry of Europe to lay aside their private quarrels, and to fly to the deliverance of the Holy Land. The _plainte_ was heard from castle to castle, mourning over the loss of Jerusalem. The _sirvente_ and the _fabliau_ were spread far and wide, lashing with all the virulence of indignant satire those whom feuds or interests withheld from the battles of the Cross. The papal authority enjoined, with its menaces and its inducements, peace to Europe and war to the Saracen: but even superstition and zeal effected little,