“The prince, who had tried the temper of the king several times privately, and not found what he wanted, came one day to him before his barons and made his requests to the best of his power. Many reasons he showed that if he would agree, he would do his soul much good, and would win the applause of his age; Christendom would be so benefited by this thing. The king took counsel, and then he answered that he was vowed to the Sepulchre, and had taken the cross particularly to go there; that, since he had left his country, he had met with many hindrances, and that he had no wish to begin any wars until he had perfected his pilgrimage.”[120] This refusal so exasperated Prince Raymond that he threw off all disguise, and became the avowed lover of the queen, who detested her husband. Louis, shortly afterward, escaped by night from Antioch, taking Eleanor with him by force, and thus the only hope for the recovery of Edessa was lost. For the emotionalist everything yielded to the transcendent importance of propitiatory rites; therefore Louis ascended Calvary, kissed the stones, intoned the chants, received the benediction, and lost Palestine. Thus, by the middle of the twelfth century, the idealist had begun to flag in the struggle for life. An attempt, indeed, was afterwards made upon Damascus, but it only served to expose the weakness of the men who relied on magic. By the time the advance began, confidence had been restored among the Saracens, the attack was repulsed, and Nour-ed-Din had only to move from the north to throw the crusaders back upon Jerusalem, covered with ridicule. Nothing conveys so vivid an idea of the shock these reverses gave believers, as the words in which Saint Bernard defended his prophecies.