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 280 THE DECLINE AND FALL engagement and behaviour in the holy war announced in Robert a reformation of manners, and I'estored him in some degree to the public esteem. Another Robert was count of Flanders, a royal province, which, in this century, gave three queens to the thrones of France, England, and Denmark. He was surnamed the Sword and Lance of the Christians ; but in the exploits of a soldier he sometimes forgot the duties of a general. Stephen, count of Chartres, of Blois, and of Troyes, was one of the richest princes of the age ; and the number of his castles has been com- pared to the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. His mind was improved by literature ; and, in the council of the chiefs, the eloquent Stephen °" was chosen to discharge the office of their president. These four were the principal leaders of the French, the Normans, and the pilgrims of the British isles ; but the list of the barons, who were possessed of three or four towns, would exceed, says a contemporary, the catalogue of the Trojan m. Raymond war.^i HI. In the south of France, the command was assumed by Adhemar, bishop of Puy, the Pope's legate, and by Raymond, count of St. Giles and Toulouse, who added the prouder titles of duke of Narbonne and marquis of Provence. The former was a respectable prelate, alike qualified for this world and the next. The latter was a veteran warrior, who had fought against the Saracens of Spain, and who consecrated his declining age, not only to the deliverance, but to the perpetual service, of the holy sepulchre. His experience and riches gave him a strong ascendant in the Christian camp, whose distress he was often able, and sometimes willing, to relieve. But it was easier for him to extort the praise of the infidels than to preserve the love of his subjects and associates. His eminent qualities were clouded by a temper, haughty, envious, and obstinate ; and, though he resigned an ample patrimony for the cause of God, his piety, in the public opinion, Avas not exempt from avarice and ambition.s^ A mercantile rather than a martial spirit pre- 5" His original letter to his wife [Adela] is inserted in the Spicilegium of Dom. Luc. d'Acheri, torn. iv. and quoted in the Esprit des Croisadcs, torn. i. p. 63. [This and another letter (entitled Ep. ex castris obsidionis Nicaenae anno 1098) are printed in the Recueil, Hist. Occ. 3, p. 883 sgq.'] 51 Unius enim, duum, trium, seu quatuor oppidorum domincs quis numeret ? quorum tanta fuit copia, ut non vix toiidem Trojana obsidio coegisse putetur. (Ever the lively and interesting Guibert, p. 486.) 52 It is singular enough that Raymond of St. Giles, a second character in the genuine history of the crusades, should shine as the first of heroes in the writings of the Greeks (Anna Comnen. Alexiad. 1. x. xi. [Anna calls him Isangeles^ and the Arabians (Longueruana, p. 129).