Still zeal, and sympathy, and indignation, and chivalrous feeling, and the thirst of glory, and the passion for enterprise, and a thousand vague but great and noble aspirations, mingled in the complicated motive of the crusade. It increased by contagion; it grew by communion; it spread from house to house, and from bosom to bosom; it became a universal desire--an enthusiasm--a passion--a madness. In the mean while, the crusade was not without producing a sensible benefit even to Europe. The whole country had previously been desolated by feuds[109] and pillage, and massacre. Castle waged war with castle: baron plundered baron; and from field to field, and city to city, the traveller could scarcely pass without injury or death. No sooner,[110] however, had the crusade been preached at the council of Clermont, than the universal peace, which was there commanded, called the _Truce[111] of God_, was sworn throughout the country, the plunder ceased and the feuds disappeared. The very fact of the wicked, the infamous, and the bloodthirsty having embraced the crusade, either from penitence or from worse motives, was a positive good to Europe. That not alone the good,[112] the religious, the zealous, or the brave, filled the ranks of the Cross is admitted on all hands; yet those who had once assumed that holy sign were obliged, in some degree, to act as if their motives had been pure, and their very absence was a blessing to the land they left. Still the crusade went on; and the imagination of the people being once directed towards a particular object found, even in the phenomena which in former days would have struck nations with fear and apprehension, signs of blessing and omens of success. An earthquake itself[113] was held as good augury; and scarcely a meteor shot across the sky without affording some theme for hope. The sign of the Cross was now to be seen on the shoulder of every one; and being generally cut in red[114] cloth, was a conspicuous and remarkable object. As these multiplied, the hearts even of the fearful grew strong, and the contagion of example added to the number every hour. Peter the Hermit, indefatigable in his calling, though his mind seems day by day[115] to have become more excited, till enthusiasm grew nearly akin to madness, gathered a vast concourse of the lower orders, and prepared to set out by the way of Hungary. But the real and serviceable body of crusaders was collected from among another class, whose military habits and chivalrous character were well calculated to effect the great object proposed.