Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/334

 312 THE DECLINE AND FALL Election and reign of Godfrey of Bouillon. A.D. 1099, July 23— A.D, 1100, July 18 Battle of Ascalon. A.D. 1099, August 12 natural ; by the other/-*' as absurd and incredible. Perhaps it is too rigorously applied to the same persons and the same hour : the example of the virtuous Godfrey awakened the piety of his companions ; while they cleansed their bodies, they purified their minds ; nor shall I believe that the most ardent in slaughter and rapine were the foremost in the procession to the holy sepulchre. Eight days after this memorable event, which Pope Urban did not live to hear, the Latin chiefs proceeded to the election of a king, to guard and govern their conquests in Palestine. Hugh the Great and Stephen of Chartres had retired with some loss of reputation, which they strove to regain by a second crusade and an honourable death. Baldwin was established at Edessa, and Bohemond at Antioch ; and the two Roberts, the duke of Normandy ^-^ and the count of Flanders, preferred their fair inheritance in the West to a doubtful competition or a barren sceptre. The jealousy and ambition of Raymond were condemned by his own followers, and the fi'ee, the just, the unanimous voice of the army proclaimed Godfrey of Bouillon the first and most worthy of the champions of Christendom. His magnanimity accepted a trust as full of danger as of glory ; but in a city where his Saviour had been crowned with thorns the devout pilgrim rejected the name and ensigns of royalty ; and the founder of the kingdom of Jerusalem contented himself with the modest title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government of a single year,^"^ too short for the public happiness, was interrupted in the first fortnight by a summons to the field, by the approach of the vizir or sultan of Egypt, who had been too slow to prevent, but who was impatient to avenge, the loss of Jerusalem. His total overthrow in the battle of Ascalon sealed the establishment of the Latins in Syria, and signalised the valour of the French princes, who, in this action, bade a long farewell to the holy wars. Some glory might be derived fi-om the prodigious inequality of numbers, though I shall not count the myriads of horse and foot on the 120 Voltaire, in his Essai sur I'Histoire G^ndrale, torn. ii. c. 54, p. 345, 346. 121 The Enghsh ascribe to Robert of Normandy, and the Provincials to Ray- mond of Toulouse, the glory of refusing the crown ; but the honest voice of tradi- tion has preserved the memory of the ambition and revenge (Villehardouin, No. 136) of the count of St. Giles. He died at the siege of Tripoli, which was possessed by his descendants. 1" See the election, the battle of Ascalon, &c. in William of Tyre, 1. i.x. q. i-i.^ .and in the conclusipn of t^ie Latip historians of the first, crusade