Part 35

In a single night, more than ten thousand of the inhabitants of Antioch perished; many who attempted to escape were brought back to either death or slavery. Accien, finding he was betrayed, and not daring to place confidence in any of his officers, resolved to fly towards Mesopotamia, and meet Kerbogha. After leaving the gates, he was proceeding without any escort, through forests and over mountains, when he fell in with some Armenian woodcutters. These men recognised the prince of Antioch, and as he was without a train, and bore upon his countenance the marks of depression and grief, they judged the city must be taken. One of them went up to him, snatched his sword from him, and plunged it into his heart. His head was brought to the new masters of Antioch, and Phirous was able to contemplate without fear the features of him who, the evening before, might have commanded his death. After having received great wealth as the reward of his treachery, the renegade re-embraced the Christianity he had abandoned, and followed the Crusaders to Jerusalem. Two years after, his ambition not being satisfied, he returned to the religion of Mahomet, and died abhorred by both Mussulmans and Christians, whose cause he had by turns embraced and betrayed.

When tired of slaughter, the Christians turned their attention towards the citadel; but that, being situated upon an almost inaccessible mountain, set their efforts at defiance. They satisfied themselves with surrounding it with machines of war and soldiers, and proceeded to indulge in all the intoxication inspired by their victory. The pillage of Antioch yielded immense treasures; and, although provisions did not abound, they gave themselves up to intemperance and debauchery.

These things took place in the early part of June, 1098; the siege had commenced in the month of October, the preceding year. After this success, for we cannot call it a victory, three days quickly passed away in rejoicings and festivity; but the fourth was a day of fear and of mourning.

A formidable army of Saracens approached Antioch. All the powers of the East were roused by the successes of the Christians, and Asia Minor seemed to be in arms to repel the attack of Europe. Kerbogha, sultan of Mossoul, commanded the Mussulman forces. This formidable leader had gained great experience in civil wars. Despising the Christians and confident in himself, the true model of the fierce Circassian celebrated by Tasso, he already considered himself the liberator of Asia. Three sultans, the governor of Jerusalem, and twenty-eight emirs, marched in his train. Animated by the thirst of vengeance, the Mussulman soldiers swore by their prophet to exterminate the Christians; and, three days after the taking of Antioch, the army of Kerbogha pitched their tents upon the banks of the Orontes. Their approach was announced to the Christians by the appearance of three hundred horsemen, who came under the walls to reconnoitre. Anxiety and alarm instantly succeeded to joy and excess; for they at once perceived that they had not provisions for a siege. Troops were sent to forage in all directions, but as the territory of Antioch had been ravaged for several months, they returned, to the consternation of their comrades, almost empty-handed. The moment the infidels arrived, they attacked the advanced posts of the Crusaders. In these early combats, the Christians had to lament the loss of some of their bravest warriors. Bohemond was wounded in a sortie. In vain Tancred and Godfrey performed progidies of valour; the Mussulmans drove the Christians into the city, in which they were now, in their turn, besieged.

Placed between the vast Mussulman army and the garrison of the citadel, the position of the Crusaders was awful. Kerbogha took possession of the port of St. Simeon, so that no provisions could reach them by sea, and famine very quickly began to exercise cruel ravages upon the besieged.

At the very commencement of the siege, the commonest necessaries were worth their weight in gold. A moderate-sized loaf was worth a byzant, an egg as much as six Lucchese deniers; a pound-weight of silver was given for the head of an ox, of a horse, or of an ass. Godfrey gave fifteen silver marks for a lean camel, and three marks for a goat, which, at other times, would have been disdained by the meanest soldier of his army. Our readers will not fail to observe that these prices did not only bespeak the scarcity of provisions, they announced the abundance of money;--the army was rich with the late plunder of the city. After having slaughtered most of their horses, they were obliged to have recourse to unclean animals. The soldiers and the poor who followed the army lived upon leaves and roots; some even went so far as to devour the leather of their bucklers and shoes: the most destitute exhumed the bodies of the Saracens, and, to support their wretched existence, disputed his prey with Death. In this frightful distress, agonized mothers could no longer support their children, and with them died of despair and hunger. Princes and knights, whose pride had been most conspicuous, were debased to the asking of charity. The count of Flanders went about the streets and to the houses of Antioch, begging for the grossest food, and which he frequently could not obtain. More than one leader sold his equipments and his arms to purchase food for a single day. As long as the duke of Lorraine had anything eatable left, he shared it with his companions; at length he made the sacrifice of his last war-horse, and was, like the other Crusaders, reduced to the most cruel necessity.

Many of the Crusaders endeavoured to fly from a city which presented nothing but the image and the prospect of death; some fled towards the sea, through a thousand dangers; others cast themselves amongst the Mussulmans, where they purchased a morsel of bread by abandonment of Christ and his religion. The soldiers lost courage at seeing the count de Melun fly, for the second time: he could brave any dangers in the field of battle, but he could not endure hunger and misery. His desertion was preceded by that of the count de Blois, who bore the standard of the Crusaders, and presided in council. He had quitted the army two days before the taking of Antioch; and when he learnt the arrival of Kerbogha, marched towards Constantinople. The deserters escaped during the darkness of night. Sometimes they precipitated themselves into the ditches of the city, at the risk of their lives; and others slipped down the rampart with the aid of ropes. The Christians found themselves every day abandoned by a great number of their companions; which added to their despair. Heaven was invoked against these cowards; God was implored that in another life they might share the punishment of the traitor Judas. The ignominious epithet of _rope-dancers_ was affixed to their names, and devoted them to the scorn of their contemporaries. William of Tyre refuses to name any of these fugitives, as he considers them razed from the Book of Life. The ill-wishes of the Christians directed against these fugitives were but too completely fulfilled; most of them perished of want, and the rest were killed by the Saracens.

Stephen, count of Chartres, more fortunate than his companions, arrived safely at the camp of Alexius, who was advancing at the head of an army towards Antioch. To excuse his desertion, he did not fail to paint in the darkest colours the ills and perils of the Christians, and to make it evident by his recital that God had abandoned the cause of the Christians. The despair of some Latin pilgrims who followed the army of the Greeks was so violent, that it inspired them with horrible blasphemies. They demanded with groans why the true God had permitted the destruction of His people? why He had allowed to fall into the hands of His enemies those who came to deliver the tomb of His Son? Nothing was heard among the Latin Crusaders but these strange speeches; the most violent in his despair being Guy, the brother of Bohemond. In the excess of his grief, he blasphemed more than any of the rest, and said he could not understand the mysteries of Providence, which betrayed the cause of the Christians.

The emperor Alexius, who had advanced as far as Philomelum, terrified at all he heard, did not dare to continue his march towards Antioch. He thought, says Anna Comnena, that it would be rash to endeavour to succour a city whose fortifications had been ruined by a long siege, and had no defenders but soldiers reduced to the lowest misery. Alexius still further reflected, adds the same historian, upon the indiscretion and the inconstancy of the Franks, upon their manner of making war without either art or rules; upon the imprudence with which, after having conquered their enemies, they allowed themselves to be surprised by the very people they had conquered. He thought likewise of the difficulty he should have in making his arrival known to the Crusaders, and of the still greater difficulty of agreeing with their leaders respecting the measures to be taken in order to save them.

All these motives were one-sidedly reasonable. Alexius hated the Crusaders quite as much as he did the Turks, and no doubt rejoiced to see them destroy each other. He returned towards Constantinople, dragging in his train half the inhabitants of the countries he passed through, they being afraid of being left to the mercy of the Mussulmans.

The news of this retreat completed the despair of the Christians: hope was gone; deaths increased awfully; their enfeebled hands could scarcely wield the lance or the sword; they had neither the strength to defend their lives nor to bury the dead. Amidst such frightful misery, no more tears were seen to flow, no more groans were heard, the silence was as complete in Antioch as if it had been perpetual night, or that no one was left in it. The Crusaders were abandoned even by the courage of despair. The last feeling of nature, love of life, became fainter in their hearts every day; they dreaded to meet each other in the public places, and remained concealed in the interior of their houses, which they looked upon as their tombs.

The towers and ramparts were almost without defence. Bohemond, as lord of the place, in vain endeavoured by words and exertions to keep up the courage of the Crusaders; the summons of the serjeant-at-arms, or the trumpet-call, was equally unresponded to. Whilst the army without and the garrison of the citadel within renewed their assaults daily, the Christian warriors remained motionless in their dwellings. In order to rouse them, Bohemond set fire to several quarters of the city, destroying, as a pompous poet said, churches and palaces built with the cedar of Lebanon, in which shone marble from the Atlas, crystal from Tyre, brass from Cyprus, lead from Amathonte, and steel from England. The barons, unable to command the obedience of their soldiers, had not the strength to set them an example. And then came the melancholy reflections of home! They thought of their families, their castles, the wealth, the comforts they had abandoned to carry on this unfortunate war; they could not comprehend how such reverses should happen to them, and that the enemies of Christ should triumph, and almost, says William of Tyre, accused God of ingratitude for having rejected so many sacrifices made to the glory of His Son.

They offered to give up the city, upon being permitted to return to their country; but Kerbogha would listen to nothing but unconditional surrender, which implied all the horrors of barbarous revenge. The European invasion of Asia was such an extraordinary event, that the Saracens, perhaps wisely, deemed a severe lesson necessary. If the Roman Catholics of France were to invade England out of reverence for St. Thomas of Canterbury, we should not think such madmen deserving of much mercy.

But some of the leaders, who knew how the minds of many of the Crusaders had been worked upon to undertake the enterprise, had recourse in this extreme distress to similar motives of action: they industriously circulated accounts of visions and supernatural revelations, all pointing to a happy issue.

In order to realize the promises of Heaven, a priest of the diocese of Marseilles, named Pierre Barthélemi, appeared before the council of the leaders, for the purpose of revealing an apparition of St. Andrew, which had been repeated three times whilst he was asleep. The holy apostle had said to him,--“Go to the church of my brother Peter, at Antioch: near the high altar you will find, on digging the earth, the iron of the lance which pierced the side of our Redeemer. In three days, that instrument of eternal salvation shall be manifested to His disciples: that mystic iron, borne at the head of the army, will effect the delivery of the Christians and pierce the hearts of the infidels.”

Adhemar, Raymond, and the other leaders affected to believe this tale. The report of it was soon spread throughout the army. The soldiers said solemnly to each other, that nothing was impossible to the God of the Christians; they likewise believed that the glory of Christ was interested in their safety, and that God ought to perform miracles to save his disciples and defenders. During three days the Christian army prepared itself by fasting and prayer for the discovery of this holy lance.

On the morning of the third day, twelve Crusaders chosen from amongst the most respectable of the clergy and knights, repaired to the great church of Antioch, accompanied by a vast number of labourers provided with the necessary tools. They began to dig the ground under the high altar; the greatest silence prevailed in the church; every instant the spectators expected to behold the glittering of the miraculous iron. The whole army, assembled outside the closed doors, awaited impatiently the result of the search. The diggers had worked during several hours, and had thrown out the earth to the depth of twelve feet, without the appearance of any lance. Night came on, and nothing was discovered; and yet the impatience of the Crusaders seemed to be increased rather than diminished by disappointment. The labourers rested for a while, and then in the darkness of the night resumed their operations. Whilst the twelve witnesses were bent in prayer round the hole, Barthélemi leaped into it, and in a very short time reappeared with the sacred iron in his hand. Our readers will smile at this poor trick; but let them glance at the superstitions of the period, and they will be satisfied that historians have not deceived them with respect to this lance or its miraculous effects. A cry of joy was uttered by all present; it was repeated by the anxious army at the doors, and soon resounded through every quarter of the city. The iron to which so many hopes were attached, was exhibited in triumph to the Crusaders; it appeared to them a celestial weapon with which God himself would disperse His enemies. Enthusiasm gave fresh life to the Crusaders, and seemed to restore strength to the soldiers. The horrors of the famine were forgotten; the numbers of their enemies were despised: the most pusillanimous thirsted for the blood of the Saracens; and all demanded with loud cries to be led out to battle.

The leaders of the army who had thus excited the enthusiasm of the soldiers were too prudent to let it slumber. They sent deputies to the Saracens to offer them either a single combat or a general engagement. Peter the Hermit, who had, in the lance-scene, evinced more exaltation than any one, was selected for this embassy. Although received with contempt in the camp of the infidels, he spoke with none the less haughtiness and pride: “The princes assembled in Antioch,” said he to the Saracen leaders, “have sent me to you, to demand justice. These provinces, marked with the blood of martyrs, have belonged to Christian peoples, and as all Christian peoples are brothers, we are come into Asia to avenge the outrages of those who are persecuted, and to defend the heritage of Christ and his disciples. Heaven has allowed the cities of Syria to fall for a time into the power of infidels, as a chastisement for the offences of his people; but learn that the vengeance of the Most High is at length appeased; learn that the tears and repentance of the Christians have wrested the sword from the hand of divine justice, and that the God of armies is risen to combat for us. Nevertheless, we still consent to speak of peace; I conjure you, in the name of the all-powerful God, to abandon the territories of Antioch, and return into your own country. The Christians promise you, by my voice, not to interrupt your retreat. We will put up vows that the true God may touch your hearts, and show you the truth of our faith. If Heaven deigns to listen to us, how delightful it will be to us to give you the name of brethren, and to conclude with you a durable peace! But if you are unwilling to receive either the advantages of peace or the blessings of the Christian religion, let the fate of arms decide the justice of our cause. As the Christians do not wish to be surprised, and as they are incapable of stealing a victory, they offer you the choice of the battle.”

On finishing these words, Peter fixed his eyes upon the countenance of the leader of the Saracens: “Choose,” said he, “the bravest of thy army, and let them fight with a similar number of the Crusaders; fight thyself with one of the Christian princes, or give the signal for a general battle. Whichever be thy choice, thou shalt soon learn what thy enemies are, and shalt know who is the God we serve.”

Kerbogha, who was acquainted with the situation of the Christians, but who knew nothing of the kind of succour they had received in their distress, was extremely surprised at such language. He remained for some time mute with astonishment and rage; but at length recovering himself: “Return,” cried he to Peter, “return to those that sent thee, and tell them that the conquered receive conditions, and do not dictate them. Miserable vagabonds, attenuated wretches, phantoms can inspire fear in none but women. The warriors of Asia are not to be terrified with words. The Christians shall soon learn that the land we tread on belongs to us. Nevertheless, I am desirous of showing them some pity, and if they will acknowledge Mahomet, I may be able to forget that the city, ravaged by hunger, is already in my power; I may leave it in their power, and give them clothes, food, women--all they stand in need of; for the Koran commands us to pardon those who submit to its laws. Tell thy companions to be quick, and profit to-day by my clemency; to-morrow they shall not leave Antioch but by the sword. They will then see if their crucified God, who could not save himself from the cross, can save them from the fate which is prepared for them.”

This speech was warmly applauded by the Saracens, whose fanaticism it rekindled. Peter wanted to reply, but the sultan of Mossoul, laying his hand upon his sabre, commanded the miserable mendicants, who united insolence to blindness, to be driven out of his camp. The Christian deputies retired in haste, and several times ran great risk of their lives in passing through the army of the infidels. On his return to Antioch, Peter gave the assembled princes and barons an account of his mission; and they prepared for the great contest. The heralds-at-arms visited the various quarters of the city, and the impatient valour of the Crusaders was promised battle on the ensuing day.

The priests and bishops exhorted the Christians to render themselves worthy of fighting in the cause of Christ: the whole army passed the night in prayer and acts of devotion. Injuries were forgiven, alms were bestowed; all the churches were filled with warriors, humbling themselves before God, and asking absolution for their sins. The evening before, a considerable quantity of provisions had been discovered, and this unexpected abundance was looked upon as a kind of miracle. The Crusaders repaired their strength by a frugal repast: towards midnight, all the bread and flour that remained in Antioch served for the sacrifice of the mass. A hundred thousand warriors approached the tribunal of penitence, and received, with all the marks of piety, what they believed to be the God for whom they had taken up arms.

At length day appeared; it was the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul. The gates of Antioch were thrown open, and the Christian army marched out, divided into twelve bodies, which reminded them of the twelve apostles. Hugh the Great, although weakened by a long illness, appeared in the foremost ranks, bearing the standard of the Church. All the princes, knights, and barons were at the head of their men-at-arms. The count of Toulouse was the only leader not in the ranks; detained in Antioch, in consequence of a wound, he was charged with keeping the garrison in check whilst the battle was fought.

Raymond of Agiles, one of the historians of the Crusade, bore the holy lance, and exhibited it to the soldiers. Bishop Adhemar marched by his side, announcing to the Crusaders the assistance of the heavenly legions which God had promised them. A part of the clergy advanced in procession at the head of the army, singing the martial psalm: “Let the Lord arise, and let his enemies be dispersed.” The bishops and priests who remained in Antioch, surrounded by the women and children, from the heights of the ramparts, blessed the arms of the Crusaders, and raising their hands towards heaven, prayed the Lord to save His people, and confound the pride of his enemies. The banks of the Orontes and the neighbouring mountains seemed to reply to these invocations, and resounded with the war-cry of the Crusaders, _Dieu le veut! Dieu le veut!_

Amidst this concert of acclamations and prayers the Christian army advanced into the plain. To consider only the state to which it was reduced, it had rather the appearance of a vanquished army than of one which was marching to victory. A great number of the Crusaders were almost without clothes. Most of the knights and barons marched on foot. Some were mounted on asses, and some on camels; and, which is worthy of note on such a day, Godfrey Bouillon was obliged to borrow a horse of the count of Toulouse. In the ranks were sickly attenuated men, marching with difficulty, and only supported by the hope of either conquering or dying in the cause of Christ.

All the plains near Antioch were covered with Mussulman battalions. The Saracens had divided their army into fifteen bodies, arranged in _échelons_. In the midst of all these bodies, that of Kerbogha looked like an inaccessible mountain. The Saracen general, who had no expectation of a battle, at first supposed that the Christians were coming to implore his clemency. A black flag, hoisted on the citadel of Antioch, which was the signal agreed upon to announce the resolution of the Crusaders, soon convinced him that he had not to deal with supplicants. Two thousand men of his army, who guarded the bridge of Antioch, were cut to pieces by the count de Vermandois. The fugitives carried terror to the tent of their general, who was playing at chess at the time. Roused from his false security, Kerbogha ordered the head of a deserter, who had announced to him the speedy surrender of the Christians, to be struck off, and prepared for battle.