coming to meet him King Baldwin III., and the patriarch and the people,
singing, "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" So soon
as he had entered the city, his pious wishes were fulfilled by his being
taken to pay a solemn visit to all the holy places. At the same time
arrived from Constantinople the Emperor Conrad, almost alone and in the
guise of a simple pilgrim. All the remnant of the crusaders, French and
German, hurried to join them. Impatient to exhibit their power on the
theatre of their creed, and to render to the kingdom of Jerusalem some
striking service, the two Western sovereigns, and Baldwin, and their
principal barons assembled at Ptolemais (St. Jean d'Acre) to determine
the direction to be taken by their enterprise. They decided upon the
siege of Damascus, the most important and the nearest of the Mussulman
princedoms in Syria, and in the early part of June they moved thither
with forces incomplete and ill united. Neither the Prince of Antioch nor
the Counts of Edessa and Tripolis had been summoned to St. Jean d'Acre;
and Queen Eleanor had not appeared. At the first attack, the ardor of
the assailants and the brilliant personal prowess of their chiefs, of the
Emperor Conrad amongst others, struck surprise and consternation into the
besieged, who, foreseeing the necessity of abandoning their city, laid
across the streets beams, chains, and heaps of stones, to stop the
progress of the conquerors and give themselves time for flying, with
their families and their wealth, by the northern and southern gates. But
personal interest and secret negotiations before long brought into the
Christian camp weakness, together with discord. Many of the barons were
already disputing amongst themselves, at the very elbows of the
sovereigns, for the future government of Damascus; others were not
inaccessible to the rich offers which came to them from the city; and it
is maintained that King Baldwin himself suffered himself to be bribed by
a sum of two hundred thousand pieces of gold which were sent to him by
Modjer-Eddyn, Emir of Damascus, and which turned out to be only pieces of