Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/282

 260 THE DECLINE AND FALL man's famih^ (for we must now adopt a modern idiom), and his military service was under the neighbouring counts of Boulogne, the heroes of the first crusade. But he soon relinquished the sword and the world ; and, if it be true that his wife, however noble, was aged and ugly, he might withdraw, with the less reluctance, from her bed to a convent, and at length to an her- mitage. In this austere solitude, his body was emaciated, his fancy was inflamed : whatever he wished, he believed ; whatever he believed, he saw in dreams and revelations. From Jerusalem the pilgrim returned an accomplished fanatic: but, as he excelled in the popular madness of the times, Pope Urban the Second received him as a prophet, applauded his glorious design, pro- mised to support it in a general council, and encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land. Invigorated by the approbation of the Pontiff, his zealous missionary traversed, with speed and success, the provinces of Italy and France. His diet was abstemious, his praters long and fervent, and the alms which he received with one hand, he distributed with the other ; his head was bare, his feet naked, his meagre body was wrapt in a coarse garment; he bore and displayed a weighty crucifix; and the ass on which he rode was sanctified in the public eye by the service of the man of God. He preached to innumerable crowds in the churches, the streets, and the high-wajs : the hermit entered with equal confidence the palace and the cottage ; and the people, for all was people, were impetuousl)' moved by his call to repentance and arms. When he painted the sufferings of the natives and pilgrims of Palestine, every heart was melted to compassion ; every breast glowed with indignation, when he challenged the warriors of the age to defend their brethren and rescue their Saviour : his ignorance of art and language was com- pensated by sighs, and tears, and ejaculations ; and Peter sup- plied the deficiency of reason by loud and frequent appeals to Christ and his mother, to the saints and angels of paradise, with whom he had personally conversed. The most perfect orator of Athens might have envied the success of his eloquence : the rustic enthusiast inspired the passions which he felt, and Christen- dom expected with impatience the counsels and decrees of the supreme Pontiff". at the Council of Clermont. The story first appears in Albert of Aix and a little later in the Chanson d'Aniioche (of the Pilgrim Richard, c. 1145), which has been edited by P. Paris, 184S. Set- Hagenmeyer, Peter der Eremite, 1879. After the Council of Clermont Peter was active in preaching the Crusade in his own country in the north-east of France, as we know from Guibertus.]