copper, covered with gold leaf. News came that the Emirs of Aleppo and
Mossoul were coming, with considerable forces, to the relief of the
place. Whatever may have been the cause of retreat, the crusader-
sovereigns decided upon it, and, raising the siege, returned to
Jerusalem. The Emperor Conrad, in indignation and confusion, set out
precipitately to return to Germany. King Louis could not make up his
mind thus to quit the Holy Land in disgrace, and without doing anything
for its deliverance. He prolonged his stay there for more than a year
without anything to show for his time and zeal. His barons and his
knights nearly all left him, and, by sea or land, made their way back to
France. But the king still lingered. I am under a bond," he wrote to
Suger, "not to leave the Holy Land, save with glory, and after doing
somewhat for the cause of God and the kingdom of France." At last, after
many fruitless entreaties, Suger wrote to him, "Dear king and lord, I
must cause thee to hear the voice of thy whole kingdom. Why dost thou
fly from us? After having toiled so hard in the East, after having
endured so many almost unendurable evils, by what harshness or what
cruelty comes it that, now when the barons and grandees of the kingdom
have returned, thou persistest in abiding with the barbarians? The
disturbers of the kingdom have entered into it again; and thou, who
shouldst defend it, remainest in exile as if thou wert a prisoner; thou
givest over the lamb to the wolf, thy dominions to the ravishers. We
conjure thy majesty, we invoke thy piety, we adjure thy goodness, we
summon thee in the name of the fealty we owe thee; tarry not at all, or
only a little while, beyond Easter; else thou wilt appear, in the eyes of
God, guilty of a breach of that oath which thou didst take at the same
time as the crown." At length Louis made up his mind and embarked at St.
Jean d'Acre at the commencement of July, 1149; and he disembarked in the
month of October at the port of St. Gilles, at the mouth of the Rhone,
whence he wrote to Suger, "We be hastening unto you safe and sound, and