106 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book i.

all were totally butchered. Yet the exterminationof their less worthy parts, only increased the spirit-stirring glow of heroic and religious chivalry. Thebrilliant epoch of the holy war now begins. Theprinces of the crusade had not been yet ready.With Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lor-raine, at their head, gathered nearly all the mostillustrious captains of the time, and in a mass thenobility of France, and of both banks of the Rhine,and many of the English, and indeed of all Europe.No wonder then that the price of a war horse roseto an excessive height, the funds of a good estatehardly sufficing to arm and mount a single knight.

Germans and Hungarians were shown quite adifferent sight from the hermit’s army, whichwas only a villainous mob—and re-established thehonour of the crusaders in every land they wentthrough. Hungary and Bulgaria wished Godfreysuccess; and he deplored the bad conduct andsevere chastisement of those who had preceded him,but he did not once attempt to avenge their cause.Nor is his conduct or of any of the crusade to beascribed to deep political views, for such matterswere utterly unknown to them.

But what was purely accidental in those remotetimes, became to posterity, who judged of it bytheir own wisdom, the product of long foresight.