When the articles of the treaty became known in the two camps, the peace was considered by both as impious and sacrilegious.[238] The imauns and cadis, invoking the name of the caliph of Bagdad, loudly condemned a truce which conveyed away from the Mussulmans the holy city, which they called _the house of God, the city of the prophet_. The prelates and bishops, speaking in the name of the pontiff of Rome, declaimed vehemently against a treaty which left mosques standing by the side of the Holy Sepulchre, and in some sort confounded the worship of Mahomet with that of Christ. When the envoy of the emperor of Germany went to Damascus, to procure the ratification of the treaty which had been concluded, the sultan and his vizier refused to hear him. The peace made with the Christians was a subject of affliction and scandal for all true believers. One of the most celebrated orators of Islamism pronounced the panegyric of Jerusalem in the great mosque; and, when recalling in pathetic terms the loss the Mussulmans had experienced, he drew tears from all the assembled people. The patriarch of Jerusalem placed an interdict upon the recovered holy places, and refused pilgrims permission to visit the sepulchre of Christ. Jerusalem was no longer, in the eyes of Christians, the holy city and the heritage of the Son of God; when the emperor made his public entrance, the faithful preserved a sullen and melancholy silence as he passed along. Accompanied by the German barons and the Teutonic knights, he repaired to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was hung with mourning, and appeared as if guarded by the angel of reprobation; all the ecclesiastics had deserted the sanctuary, and everything wore the air of abomination and desolation. Frederick himself took the crown, and placing it upon his head, he was proclaimed king of Jerusalem without any religious ceremony; the images of the apostles were veiled; nothing was seen around the altars but swords and lances; and the sacred vaults gave back no sounds but the noisy acclamations of warriors. After his coronation, Frederick wrote to the pope and to all the princes of the West, that he had reconquered Jerusalem without the effusion of blood; in his account he endeavoured to enhance the splendour and merit of this victory, which must fulfil all the hopes of the Christian world. At the same time, the patriarch wrote to Gregory, and all the faithful of Christendom, to show them the impiety and the disgrace of the treaty Frederick had just concluded. When he heard of the success of the emperor, the sovereign pontiff deplored the conquest of Jerusalem as he would have deplored its loss, and compared the new king of Judæa to those impious monarchs whom the anger of God placed upon the throne of David.