When the Christian army was thus assembled on Calvary, night began to fall; silence reigned over the public places and around the ramparts;[181] nothing was heard in the holy city but hymns of penitence and these words of Isaiah, “_You who love Jerusalem, rejoice with her_.” The Crusaders exhibited a devotion so animated and so tender, that it might have been said, according to the remark of a modern historian,[182] that these men who had just taken a city by assault, and had committed a horrible carnage, had come forth from a long retirement and a profound meditation upon our mysteries. These inexplicable contrasts are often to be observed in the history of the crusades. Some writers have believed that they found in them a pretext to accuse the Christian religion itself, whilst others, not less blind or passionate, have endeavoured to palliate the deplorable excesses of fanaticism; the impartial historian contents himself with relating them, and mourns in silence over the weaknesses of human nature. The pious fervour of the Christians only suspended the scenes of carnage. The policy of some of the leaders might make them believe that it was necessary to inspire the Saracens with as much dread as possible; they thought, perhaps also, that if they released the men who had defended Jerusalem, they should have to fight them over again, and that it was not prudent for them, in a distant country and surrounded by enemies, to undertake the charge of prisoners whose number by far surpassed that of their own soldiers. The approach of the Egyptian army likewise was announced, and the dread of a new danger closed their hearts against pity. In their council, a sentence of death was decreed against all the Mussulmans that remained in the city.[183] Fanaticism but too well seconded this barbarous policy. All the enemies whom humanity or the fatigue of carnage had at first spared, and even such as had been saved in hopes of a rich ransom, were slaughtered. They compelled the Saracens to cast themselves from the tops of the towers and the houses; they made them perish in the midst of flames; they dragged them from their subterranean concealments to the public places, and there immolated them upon heaps of dead. Neither the tears of women nor the cries of infants, not even the sight of the very place where Christ had pardoned his executioners, could soften the hearts of the angry conquerors. The carnage was so great that, according to the report of Albert d’Aix, bodies were seen heaped up, not only in the palaces, the temples, and the streets, but even in the most retired and solitary places. Such was the delirium of vengeance and fanaticism, that these scenes appear not to have been revolting to the eyes of those who beheld them. The contemporary historians describe them without thinking of excusing them, and amidst recitals of the most disgusting details, never allow a single expression of horror or pity to escape them.[184]