Before closing this chapter, one observation also must be made respecting the justice of the crusade, which enterprise it has become somewhat customary to look upon as altogether cruel and unnecessary. Such an opinion, however, is in no degree founded on fact. The crusade was not only as just as any other warfare of the day, but as just as any that ever was waged. The object was, the protection and relief of a cruelly oppressed and injured people--the object was, to repel a strong, an active, and an encroaching enemy--the object was, to wrest from the hands of a bloodthirsty and savage people territories which they themselves claimed by no right but the sword, and in which the population they had enslaved was loudly crying for deliverance from their yoke--the object was, to defend a weak and exposed frontier from the further aggression of a nation whose boast was conquest. Such were the objects of the crusades; and though much of superstition was mingled with the incitements, and many cruelties committed in its course, the evils were not greater than ordinary ambition every day produces; and the motives were as fair as any of those that have ever instigated the many feuds and warfares of the world. CHAPTER IV. _The Effects of the Council of Clermont--State of France--Motives of the People for embracing the Crusade--Benefits produced--The Enthusiasm general--Rapid Progress--The First Bodies of Crusaders begin their March--Gautier Sans Avoir--His Army--Their Disasters--Reach Constantinople--Peter the Hermit sets out with an immense Multitude-- Storms Semlin--Defeated at Nissa--His Host dispersed--The Remains collected--Joins Gautier--Excesses of the Multitude--The Italians and Germans separate from the French--The Germans exterminated--The French cut to pieces--Conduct of Alexius._ The immediate effects of the council of Clermont are detailed with so much animation by Guibert of Nogent, that I shall attempt to trace them nearly in his own words, merely observing, that previous to his departure from France, Urban II., having taken every means in his power to secure the property of the crusaders during their absence, committed the chief direction of the expedition to Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, in Auvergne.[107] "As soon as the council of Clermont was concluded," says the historian, "a great rumour spread through the whole of France, and as soon as fame brought the news of the orders of the pontiff to any one, he went instantly to solicit his neighbours and his relations to engage with him in the _way of God_, for so they designated the purposed expedition.