The ostensible object of this council was to regulate the state of the church, and to correct abuses; but the great object was, in fact, the crusade. It is useless to investigate the motives which gave Urban II. courage to summon a council, destined, among other things, to solemnly reprobate the dissolute conduct of Philip of France, in the midst of dominions, if not absolutely feudatory to the crown[101] of that monarch, at least bound to it by friendship and alliance. Whether it arose from fortitude of a just cause, or from reliance on political calculation, the prelate's judgment was proved by the event to be right. After one or two changes in regard to the place of meeting, the council was assembled at Clermont, in Auvergne,[102] and was composed of an unheard-of multitude of priests, princes, and nobles, both of France and Germany, all willing and eager to receive the pope's injunctions with reverence and obedience. After having terminated the less important affairs which formed the apparent business of the meeting, and which occupied the deliberation of seven days, Urban, one of the most eloquent men of the age, came forth from the church[103] in which the principal ecclesiastics were assembled, and addressed the immense concourse which had been gathered into one of the great squares, no building being large enough to contain the number. The prelate[104] then, with the language best calculated to win the hearts of all his hearers, displayed the miseries of the Christians in the Holy Land. He addressed the multitude as a people peculiarly favoured by God, in the gift of courage, strength, and true faith. He told them that their brethren in the east were trampled under the feet of infidels, to whom God had not granted the light of his Holy Spirit--that fire, plunder, and the sword had desolated completely the fair plains of Palestine--that her children were led away captive, or enslaved, or died under tortures too horrible to recount--that the women of their land were subjected to the impure passions of the pagans, and that God's own altar, the symbols of salvation, and the precious relics of the saints were all desecrated by the gross and filthy abomination of a race of heathens. To whom, then, he asked--to whom did it belong to punish such crimes, to wipe away such impurities, to destroy the oppressors, and to raise up the oppressed? To whom, if not to those who heard him, who had received from God strength, and power, and greatness of soul; whose ancestors had been the prop of Christendom, and whose kings had put a barrier to the progress of infidels? "Think!" he cried, "of the sepulchre of Christ our Saviour possessed by the foul heathen!--think of all the sacred places dishonoured by their sacrilegious impurities!--O brave knights, offspring of invincible fathers, degenerate not from your ancient blood! remember the virtues of your ancestors, and if you feel held back from the course