his small dominion. He had at heart, beyond everything, the conquest of
Aleppo and Caesarea. In this design the King of France and the crusaders
who were still about him might be of real service; and he attempted to
win them over. Louis answered that he would engage in no enterprise
until he had visited the holy places. Raymond was impetuous, irritable,
and as unreasonable in his desires as unfortunate in his undertakings.
He had quickly acquired great influence over his niece, Queen Eleanor,
and he had no difficulty in winning her over to his plans. "She," says
William of Tyre, "was a very inconsiderate woman, caring little for royal
dignity or conjugal fidelity; she took great pleasure in the court of
Antioch, where she also conferred much pleasure, even upon Mussulmans,
whom, as some chronicles say, she did not repulse; and, when the king,
her husband, spoke to her of approaching departure, she emphatically
refused, and, to justify her opposition, she declared that they could no
longer live together, as there was, she asserted, a prohibited degree of
consanguinity between them." Louis, "who loved her with an almost
excessive love," says William of Nangis, was at the same time angered and
grieved. He was austere in morals, easily jealous, and religiously
scrupulous, and for a moment he was on the point of separating from his
wife; but the counsels of his chief barons dissuaded him, and, thereupon,
taking a sudden resolution, he set out from Antioch secretly, by night,
carrying off the queen almost by force. "They both hid their wrath as
much as possible," says the chronicler; "but at heart they had ever this
outrage." We shall see, before long, what were the consequences. No
history can offer so striking an example of the importance of
well-assorted unions amongst the highest as well as the lowest, and of
the prolonged woes which may be brought upon a nation by the domestic
evils of royalty.

On approaching Jerusalem, in the month of April, 1148, Louis VII. saw