“Never, so long as I live,” said the king, “shall Peter de la Chatre (the pope’s candidate) enter the city of Bourges.” The chapter of Bourges, thinking as the pope thought, elected Peter de la Chatre; and Theobald II., Count of Champagne, took sides for the archbishop elect. “Mind your own business,” said the king to him; “your dominions are large enough to occupy you; and leave me to govern my own as I have a mind.” Theobald persisted in backing the elect of pope and chapter. The pope excommunicated the king. The king declared war against the Count of Champagne; and went and besieged Vitry. Nearly all the town was built of wood, and the besiegers set fire to it. The besieged fled for refuge to a church, in which they were invested; and the fire reached the church, which was entirely consumed, together with the thirteen hundred inhabitants, men, women, and children, who had retreated thither. This disaster made a great stir. St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux and the leading ecclesiastical authority of the age, took the part of Count Theobald. King Louis felt a lively sorrow, and sincere repentance. Soon afterwards it became known in the West that the affairs of the Christians were going ill in the East; that the town of Edessa had been re-taken by the Turks, and all its inhabitants massacred. The kingdom of Jerusalem, too, was in danger. Great was the emotion in Europe; and the cry of the crusade was heard once more. Louis the Young, to appease his troubled conscience, and to get reconciled with the pope, to say nothing of sympathy for the national movement, assembled the grandees, laic and ecclesiastical, of the kingdom, to deliberate upon the matter.
Deliberation was more prolonged, more frequently repeated, and more indecisive than it had been at the time of the first crusade. Three grand assemblies met, the first in 1145, at Bourges; the second in 1146, at Vezelai, in Nivernais; and the third in 1147, at Etampes; all three being called to investigate the expediency of a new crusade, and of the king’s participation in the enterprise. Not only was the question seriously discussed, but extremely diverse opinions were expressed, both amongst the rank and file of these assemblies, and amongst their most illustrious members. There were two men whose talents and fame made them conspicuous above all; Suger, Abbot of St. Denis, the intimate and able adviser of the wise king, Louis the Fat, and St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, the most eloquent, most influential, and most piously disinterested amongst the Christians of his age. Though both were ecclesiastics, these two great men were, touching the second crusade, of opposite opinions. “Let none suppose,” says Suger’s biographer and confidant, William, monk of St. Denis, “that it was at his instance or by his counsel that the king undertook the voyage to the Holy Land.” Although the success of it was other than had been expected, this prince was influenced only by pious wishes and zeal for the service of God. As for Suger, ever far-seeing and only too well able to read the future, not only did he not suggest to the monarch any such design, but he disapproved of it so soon as it was mentioned to him. The truth of it is, that, after having vainly striven to nip it in the bud, and being unable to put a check upon the king’s zeal, he thought it wise, either for fear of wounding the king’s piety, or of uselessly incurring the wrath of the partisans of the enterprise, to yield to the times.” As for St. Bernard, at the first of the three assemblies, viz., at Bourges, whether it were that his mind was not yet made up or that he desired to cover himself with greater glory, he advised the king to undertake nothing without having previously consulted the Holy See; but when Pope Eugenius III., so far from hesitating, had warmly solicited the aid of the Christians against the infidels, St. Bernard, at the second assembly, viz., at Vezelai, gave free vent to his feelings and his eloquence. After having read the pope’s letters, “If ye were told,” said he, “that an enemy had attacked your castles, your cities, and your lands, had ravished your wives and your daughters, and had profaned your temples, which of you would not fly to arms? Well, all those evils, and evils still greater, have come upon your brethren, upon the family of Christ, which is your own. Why tarry ye, then, to repair so many wrongs, to avenge so many insults? Christian warriors, He who gave His life for you to-day demandeth yours; illustrious knights, noble defenders of the cross, call to mind the example of your fathers, who conquered Jerusalem, and whose names are written in heaven! The living God hath charged me to tell unto you that He will punish those who shall not have defended Him against His enemies. Fly to arms, and let Christendom re-echo with the words of the prophet, ‘Woe to him who dyeth not his sword with blood!’ ” At this fervent address the assembly rang with the shout of the first crusade, ‘God willeth it! God willeth it!’ The king, kneeling before St. Bernard, received from his hands the cross; the queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, assumed it, like her husband; nearly all the barons present followed their example; St. Bernard tore up his garments into crosses for distribution, and, on leaving the assembly, he scoured the country places, everywhere preaching and persuading the people. “The villages and castles are deserted,” he wrote to the pope; “there is none to be seen save widows and orphans whose husbands and fathers are alive.” Nor did he confine himself to France; he crossed into Germany, and preached the crusade all along the Rhine. The emperor, Conrad III., showed great hesitation; the empire was sorely troubled, he said, and had need of its head. “Be of good cheer,” replied St. Bernard “so long as you defend His heritage, God himself will take the burden of defending yours.” One day, in December, 1146, he was celebrating mass at Spire, in presence of the emperor and a great number of German princes. Suddenly he passed from the regular service to the subject of the crusade, and transported his audience to the last judgment, in the presence of all the nations of the earth summoned together, and Jesus Christ bearing his cross, and reproaching the emperor with ingratitude. Conrad was deeply moved, and interrupted the preacher by crying out, ‘I know what I owe to Jesus Christ: and I swear to go whither it pleaseth Him to call me.’ ” The attraction became general; and Germany, like France, took up the cross.
St. Bernard returned to France. The ardor there had cooled a little during his absence; the results of his trip in Germany were being waited for; and it was known that, on being eagerly pressed to put himself at the head of the crusaders, and take the command of the whole expedition, he had formally refused. His enthusiasm and his devotion, sincere and deep as they were, did not, in his case, extinguish common sense; and he had not forgotten the melancholy experiences of Peter the Hermit. In support of his refusal he claimed the intervention of Pope Eugenius III. “Who am I,” he wrote to him, “that I should form a camp, and march at the head of an army? What can be more alien to my calling, even if I lacked not the strength and the ability? I need not tell you all this, for you know it perfectly. I conjure you by the charity you owe me, deliver me not over, thus, to the humors of men.” The pope came to France; and the third grand assembly met at Etampes, in February, 1147. The presence of St. Bernard rekindled zeal; but foresight began to penetrate men’s minds. Instead of insisting upon his being the chief of the crusade, attention was given to preparations for the expedition; the points were indicated at which the crusaders should form a junction, and the directions in which they would have to move; and inquiry was made as to what measures should be taken, and what persons should be selected for the government of France during the king’s absence. “Sir,” said St. Bernard, after having come to an understanding upon the subject with the principal members of the assembly, at the same time pointing to Suger and the Count de Nevers, “here be two swords, and it sufficeth.” The Count de Nevers peremptorily refused the honor done him; he was resolved, he said, to enter the order of St. Bruno, as indeed he did. Suger also refused at first, “considering the dignity offered him a burden, rather than an honor.” Wise and clear-sighted by nature, he had learned in the reign of Louis the Fat, to know the requirements and the difficulties of government. “He consented to accept,” says his biographer, “only when he was at last forced to it by Pope Eugenius, who was present at the king’s departure, and whom it was neither permissible nor possible for him to resist.” It was agreed that the French crusaders should form a junction at Metz, under the command of King Louis, and the Germans at Ratisbonne, under that of the Emperor Conrad, and that the two armies should successively repair by land to Constantinople, whence they would cross into Asia.
Having each a strength, it is said, of one hundred thousand men, they marched by Germany and the Lower Danube, at an interval of two months between them, without committing irregularities
