condition of surrendering Jerusalem to the Christians, and Saladin always
answered, "Jerusalem never was yours, and we may not without sin give it
up to you; for it is the place where the mysteries of our religion were
accomplished, and the last one of my soldiers will perish before the
Mussulmans renounce conquests made in the name of Mahomet." Twice
Richard and his army drew near Jerusalem, "without his daring to look
upon it, he said, since he was not in a condition to take it." At last,
in the summer of 1192, the two armies and the two chiefs began to be
weary of a war without result. A great one, however, for Saladin and the
Mussulmans was the departure of Richard and the crusaders. Being unable
to agree about conditions for a definitive peace, they contented
themselves, on both sides, with a truce for three years and eight months,
leaving Jerusalem in possession of the Mussulmans, but open for worship
to the Christians, in whose hands remained, at the same time, the towns
they were in occupation of on the maritime coast, from Jaffa to Tyre.
This truce, which was called peace, having received the signature of all
the Christian and Mussulman princes, was celebrated by galas and
tournaments, at which Christians and Mussulmans seemed for a moment to
have forgotten their hate; and on the 9th of October, 1192, Richard
embarked at St. Jean d'Acre to go and run other risks.

Thus ended the third crusade, undertaken by the three greatest sovereigns
and the three greatest armies of Christian Europe, and with the loudly
proclaimed object of retaking Jerusalem from the infidels, and
re-establishing a king over the sepulchre of Jesus Christ. The Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa perished in it before he had trodden the soil of
Palestine. King Philip Augustus retired from it voluntarily, so soon as
experience had foreshadowed to him the impossibility of success. King
Richard abandoned it perforce, after having exhausted upon it his heroism
and his knightly pride. The three armies, at the moment of departure