WE have made known the origin, the spirit, and the character of the crusades; it is now our task to show their influence on the state of society. Before giving our opinion upon the results of the holy wars, it has appeared to us desirable to lay before our readers, in a few words, the judgments that others have passed upon them. In the seventeenth century, so abounding in men of genius, the heroic bravery of the Crusaders was admired, their reverses were deplored, and, without a question as to the good or evil which these distant expeditions had brought about, the pious motives which had made the warriors of the West take arms were respected. The eighteenth century, which had adopted all the opinions of the Reformation, and exaggerated them,—the eighteenth century did not spare the crusades, and did not fail to accuse the ignorance, barbarity, and fanaticism of our ancestors as the causes of them.[93]Voltaire published a history of the crusades, in 1753; the subject he had chosen was at that time so low in public opinion, and he himself cast so much ridicule upon the events he described, that his book created no curiosity, and found no readers. Nothing can equal the violence with which the authors of the _Encyclopédie_, a short time afterwards, surpassed even the acerbity of Voltaire. This manner of judging the crusades became so general, that the panegyrists of St. Louis allowed themselves to be drawn into it, and several among them, in their discourses, were scarcely inclined to pardon the pious monarch for his exploits and his misfortunes in Egypt and before Tunis. A philosophy, however, enlightened by the spirit of research and analysis, traced events to their causes, studied their effects, and, from holding truth as the only object worthy of inquiry, neglected declamation and despised satire. The judicious Robertson, in his introduction to the History of Charles V., gave it as his opinion, that the crusades had favoured the progress of liberty and the development of the human mind. Whether this perception flattered some of the opinions of the time, or whether it exercised over the public the natural ascendancy of truth, it met with a sufficient number of partisans; and from that time the expeditions of the Crusaders into the East have been judged with less severity.