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1 (1852)
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102

THE HISTORY OF TIIE ORDER OF [book I.

Latinsand pardonably enough, if to judge by thissampleinteriorly applauded the courageous Bul-garians; though the emperor himself not fearingthe garrulous Peter, nor his corps, now unarmedand in the rags of indigence, advised them, with asmuch condescension as sincerity, to wait for thePrince of the Crusade.

But the second division had yet to come. Thisresembled the hermits, but rather worse. Theywere, for the most part, from the north of the Rhine,and towards the Elbe, and led by a priest of thePalatinate, of the name of Gotschalk. Wholly oc-cupied with robbing, and all kinds of pillage, rapes,quarrels, murders, these worthies soon forgot Con-stantinople, Jerusalem, Jesus Christ himself. Ifany of them had ever had any religion, they cer-tainly soon lost the least traces of it. Not a law,human or Divine, did they consider sacred. Theywere quite hurried away by their passions. Theslenderest temptation was irresistible to them.Their ferocity was accompanied by imbecility, andwould have worn itself out probably, but that theyfell victims to perfect barbarity, nor could expectto be saved by the laws of humanity, which theyhad broken themselves.

Yet was there a third division of such frioRtful

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eminence in iniquity, anarchy, sedition, that no one