compassion, and cried with one voice, and lifted up their hands,
saying: " We consent, we consent I " Then was there so great a noise
and tumult that it seemed as if the earth itself were falling to
pieces.

And when this great tumult and passion of pity - greater did never any
man see-were appeased, the good Doge of Venice, who was very wise and
valiant, went up into the reading-desk, and spoke to the people, and
said to them: "Signors, behold the honour that God has done you; for
the best people in the world have set aside all other people, and
chosen you to join them in so high an enterprise as the deliverance of
our Lord!

All the good and beautiful words that the Doge then spoke, I cannot
repeat to you. But the end of the matter was, that the covenants were
to be made on the following day; and made they were, and devised
accordingly. When they were concluded, it was notified to the council
that we should go to Babylon (Cairo), because the Turks could better
be destroyed in Babylon than in any other land; but to the folk at
large it was only told that we were bound to go overseass. We were
then in Lent (March 1201), and by St. john's Day, in the following
year-which would be twelve hundred and two years after the Incarnation
of Jesus Christ-the barons and pilgrims were to be in Venice, and the
ships ready against their coming.

When the treaties were duly indited and sealed, they were brought to
the Doge in the grand palace, where had been assembled the great and
the little council. And when the Doge delivered the treaties to the
envoys, he knelt greatly weeping, and swore on holy relics faithfully
to observe the conditions thereof, and so did all his council, which