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222 armour shining in the Eastern sun, the old Latin hymn sung above the clang of steel under their great banners when they first see the Holy City, golden and mystic under the deep Syrian sky. One pictures, above the lines of steel, the English leopards, the lilies of France, the great sable eagle of the Empire, and then the other coats of the great houses of Europe—chevrons and fesses and pales—till they plant above the Holy Sepulchre the banner with the five potent crosses, argent and or, unearthly, wonderful, as should be the arms of the heavenly city. And, at any rate, some of the Crusaders were very valiant knights and courteous gentlemen. St. Lewis IX of France (1226–1270) is the one example of a king who was entirely perfect, and Godfrey of Bouillon, our Richard Lionheart, old Frederick Redbeard the Emperor, were at least eminently picturesque and imposing persons. But then, all through the Crusades, there is the other side, horrible cruelty,—as soon as they took Jerusalem (July 15, 1099) they massacred all the Jews and Moslems in the city—and then they quarrelled hopelessly among themselves. Each Crusade was less ideal than the last, till the whole movement whittled out into hordes of the riff-raff of the West pouring across Eastern Europe, plundering, burning, slaying, the pretence of fighting for the Holy Sepulchre now the merest farce.

And the Crusades had no lasting effect. To save themselves