Pamphylia, at Satalia, a little port on the Mediterranean, the
impossibility of thus proceeding became evident; they were still, by
land, forty days' march from Antioch, whereas it required but three to
get there by sea. The governor of Satalia proposed to the king to embark
the crusaders; but, when the vessels arrived, they were quite inadequate
for such an operation; hardly could the king, the barons, and the knights
find room in them; and it would be necessary to abandon and expose to the
perils of the land-march the majority of the infantry and all the mere
pilgrims who had followed the army. Louis, disconsolate, fluctuated
between the most diverse resolutions, at one time demanding to have
everybody embarked at any risk, at another determining to march by land
himself with all who could not be embarked; distributing whatever money
and provisions he had left, being as generous and sympathetic as he was
improvident and incapable, and "never letting a day pass," says Odo of
Deuil, who accompanied him, "without hearing mass and crying unto the God
of the Christians." At last he embarked with his queen, Eleanor, and his
principal knights; and towards the end of March, 1148, he arrived at
Antioch, having lost more than three quarters of his army.

Scarcely had he taken a few days' rest when messengers came to him on
behalf of Baldwin III., king of Jerusalem, begging him to repair without
delay to the Holy City. Louis was as eager to go thither as the king and
people of Jerusalem were to see him there; but his speedy departure
encountered unforeseen hinderances. Raymond, of Poitiers, at that time
Prince of Antioch by his marriage with Constance, granddaughter of the
great Bohemond of the first crusade, was uncle to the Queen of France,
Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was, says William of Tyre, "a lord of noble
descent, of tall and elegant figure, the handsomest of the princes of the
earth, a man of charming affability and conversation, open-handed and
magnificent beyond measure," and, moreover, ambitious and eager to extend