When the people of Europe heard the head of the Church exhort the faithful to the conquest of Jerusalem, and at the same time curse Frederick, the liberator of the holy city, the object of the crusade lost its sacred character in the eyes of Christians. The emperor of Germany, after his return from his expedition, sometimes said, “If God had been acquainted with the kingdom of Naples, he never could have preferred the barren rocks of Jerusalem to it.” These sacrilegious words of Frederick must have been a great subject of offence to pilgrims; but, indeed, this prince only sent to the Holy Land such of his subjects as he was dissatisfied with, or wished to punish. The popes also condemned to pilgrimage the great criminals whom society rejected from its bosom, which was very repugnant to the manners and opinions of the nobles and knights of Europe. As a crowning misfortune, the reverses or exploits of the Crusaders beyond the seas frequently created divisions among the princes of the West. From that time, Palestine was no longer, in the eyes of the faithful, a land of blessedness, flowing with milk and honey, but a place of exile. From that time Jerusalem was less considered the city of God and the heritage of Christ, than a subject of discord, or the place in which were born all the storms that disturbed Christendom. In the other crusades, the popes had been satisfied with awakening the enthusiasm of pilgrims, and addressing prayers to Heaven for the success of the Crusaders; but in this war, the heads of the Church insisted upon directing all the expeditions, and commanding, by their legates, the operations of the Christian armies. The invasion of Egypt was decided upon in the Council of the Lateran, without a thought of asking the advice or opinions of any of the skilful captains of the age. When hostilities began, the envoys of the pope presided over all the events of the war; weakening the ardour of the soldiers of the cross, by their ambitious pretensions, as well as by their ignorance. They let all the fruits of victory slip through their hands, and gave birth to an injurious rivalry between the spiritual and the temporal powers. This rivalry, this reciprocal mistrust, were carried so far, that the sovereign pontiff and the emperor of Germany, by turns, arrested the march of the pilgrims; the first fearing that the Crusaders, on embarking for Palestine, would become the soldiers of Frederick; the second, that these same soldiers might become the defenders of the temporal power of the popes.