Fame soon spread everywhere the war that had just been declared against the infidels. When the bishops returned to their dioceses, they still continued to bestow their blessings upon the crosses of the crowds of Christians that required to be led to the conquest of the Holy Land. Urban went through several provinces of France, to finish the work he had so happily begun. In the cities of Rouen, Tours, and Nîmes he held councils, in which he deplored the fate of the Christians of the East: everywhere the people and the great, the nobles and the clergy, obeyed the pressing exhortations of the pontiff, and promised to take arms against the Mussulmans. It might be said that the French had no longer any other country than the Holy Land, and that to it they were bound to sacrifice their ease, their property, and their lives. This enthusiasm, which had no bounds, was not long in extending itself to the other Christian nations; the flame which consumed France was communicated to England, still disturbed by the recent conquest of the Normans; to Germany, troubled by the anathemas of Gregory and Urban; to Italy, agitated by its factions; to Spain even, although it had to combat the Saracens on its own territory. Such was the ascendancy of the religion outraged by the infidels, such was the influence of the example given by the French, that all Christian nations seemed to forget, at once, the objects of their ambition or their fears, and furnished, for the crusade, soldiers that they absolutely required to defend themselves. The entire West resounded with these words: “_He who will not take up his cross and come with me, is not worthy of me._”