Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/352

 330 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Near Laodicea] rpebrnary 2, A.D. U48] the lessons of experience or the nature of war, the king of France advanced through the same country to a similar fate. The vanguard, which bore the royal banner and the oriflamme of St. Denys,'* had doubled their march with rash and inconsiderate speed ; and the rear, which the king commanded in person, no longer found their companions in the evening camp. In dark- ness and disorder, they were encompassed, assaulted, and over- whelmed by the innumerable host of Turks, who, in the art of war, were superior to the Christians of the twelfth century. Louis, who climbed a tree in the general discomfiture, was saved by his own valour and the ignorance of his adversaries ; and with the dawn of day he escaped alive, but almost alone, to the camp of the vanguard. But, instead of pursuing his expedition by land, he was rejoiced to shelter the relics of his army in the friendly seaport of Satalia."^ From thence he embarked for Antioch ; but so penurious was the supply of Greek vessels that they could only afford room for his kniglits and nobles ; and the plebeian crowd of infantry was left to perish at the foot of the Pamphylian hills. The emperor and the king embraced and wept at Jerusalem ; their martial trains, the remnant of mighty armies, were joined to the Christian powers of Syria, and a fruit- less siege of Damascus was the final effort of the second crusade. Conrad and Louis embarked for Europe with the personal fame of piety and courage ; but the Orientals had braved these potent monarchs of the Franks, with whose names and military forces they had been so often threatened. ^^ Perhaps they had still mas, 1 147, as we learn from Conrad's letter to the abbot Wibald of Corvei (an important source ; published in the collection of Wibald's letters, in JafK, Bib. rer. Germ. i. no. 78). Here Conrad fell ill, and returned to Constantinople on the Emperor's invitation. He set sail from Constantinople on March 10, 1148, and reached Acre in April. During their joint march Louis VH. appears to have shown e%ery consideration to his fellow-sovereign. The other part of Conrad's army, led by Otto of Freising, was cut to pieces near Mount Cadmus, south of Laodicea. It is to this misfortune that Gibbon's "action on the banks of the Mreander'' refers. The same region was also disastrous to the army of Louis VII.] ^•'As counts of Vexin, the kings of France were the vassals and advocates of the monastery of St. Denys. The saint's peculiar banner, which they received from the abbot, was of a square form and a red ox flaming colour. The oriflamme appeared at the head of the French armies from the xiith to the xvth century (Ducange sur Joinville, dissert, xviii. p. 244-253). 25 [The ancient Attalia. '? 'AxTciAeiav.] 2t> The original F^rench histories of the second crusade are the Gesta Ludovici VII. published in the ivth volume of Duchesne's Collection. The same volume contains many original letters of the king, of Suger his minister, &c., the best documents of authentic history. [This work, the Gesta Ludovici VII., is a Latin translation from the Grandes Chroniques de France ; in which the history of the