Such was even then the authority of the orators who spoke in the name of Jerusalem, that the last words of Brother Andrew left trouble and uneasiness in the mind of a powerful monarch; but fresh political storms had recently broken out. Edward III. had laid claim to the throne of the Capets, and his ambition was the signal for a war which lasted more than a century, and brought the greatest calamities upon France. Philip, attacked by a formidable enemy, was obliged to renounce his expedition beyond the seas, and employ, for the defence of his own kingdom, the troops and fleets that he had collected for the deliverance of the heritage of Christ. The pope did not, however, abandon the project of the holy war. The poet Petrarch, who was then at Avignon, proved one of the most ardent apostles of the crusade. This illustrious poet, whom we are now accustomed to consider only as the ingenious singer of the praises of the fair Laura, and who was then deemed the most worthy interpreter of the wisdom of the ancients, and one of the great spirits of his age, addressed an eloquent letter to the Doge of Venice, to induce him to enter into a war against the Mussulmans. Some of the states of Italy united their forces to make an expedition into the East. A chronicle of the counts of Ason relates that a great number of Crusaders, clothed in white, with a red cross, marched out of Milan; and that a fleet, equipped by the sovereign pontiff, passed through the Archipelago, and surprised the city of Smyrna, in which the Crusaders were themselves quickly besieged by the Turks. The pope’s legate and several knights perished in a sortie, which circumstance determined the sovereign pontiff to employ new efforts to revive a zeal for the crusade. It was at this period that the dauphin of Viennois, Humbert II., resolved to take the cross, and came to Avignon, to supplicate the pope to allow him to be the captain of the holy voyage against the Turks, and against the faithless vassals of the church of Rome. Humbert easily obtained all he asked, and returned to his states to make preparations for his expedition. He alienated his domains, he sold privileges to the nobility, and immunities to his cities; he levied considerable sums upon the Jews, and upon the Italian merchants established in the Viennois; he exacted a tribute from all his subjects who would not accompany him to the crusade, and having embarked, with a hundred men-at-arms, he went to seek in Asia either the fortune of a conqueror or the glory of a martyr. He found neither the one nor the other, and returned to Europe without renown and burdened with debts. History represents Humbert as a weak, inconstant and irresolute prince. He ruined himself, in the first place, by his dissipation, then by the expenses of the crusade; weary of the world and its affairs, he finished by abandoning to the crown of France his principality, which he had pledged to Philip of Valois, and retired to a monastery