I must now retrograde in my history for some years, and speak of the affairs of Europe. No crusade, as we have seen, had been desired by the Christians of Palestine[742] since they had enjoyed the comforts of peace, and no crusade had reached that country; but, nevertheless, one of the most powerful expeditions which Europe had ever brought into the field had set out for the purpose of delivering Jerusalem.[743] This crusade was, in the first place, instigated by the preaching of a man less mighty than St. Bernard in oratory,[744] and less moved by enthusiasm than Peter the Hermit; but it was encouraged by one of the most talented and most ambitious of the prelates of Rome. Foulque of Neuilly would have produced little effect, had he not been supported by Innocent III.; and the influence of neither the one nor the other would possibly have obtained the object desired, had not the young and enterprising Thibalt, Count of Champagne, embraced the badge of the Cross with his court and followers, at a grand tournament[745] to which he had invited all the neighbouring princes. In the midst of their festivities, Foulque appeared, and called the whole assembly to the crusade. Partly, it is probable, from the love of adventure, partly from religious feeling, Thibalt, in his twenty-second year, assumed the Cross. The Count of Blois, who was present, followed his example; and of eighteen hundred knights who held vassalage under the lord of Champagne, scarcely enough were left to maintain the territories of their sovereign. Nothing, except fear, is so contagious as enthusiasm: the spirit of crusading was revived in a wonderfully short time. The Count of Flanders, with various other persons, took the Cross at Bruges, and many more knights joined them from different parts of France, among whom was Simon de Montfort, who afterward proved the detestable persecutor of the Albigeois.