execute by sea the pilgrimage of Palestine. Without studying the
lessons of experience, or the nature of the war, the king of
France advanced through the same country to a similar fate. The
vanguard, which bore the royal banner and the oriflamme of St.
Denys, ^21 had doubled their march with rash and inconsiderate
speed; and the rear, which the king commanded in person, no
longer found their companions in the evening camp. In darkness
and disorder, they were encompassed, assaulted, and overwhelmed,
by the innumerable host of Turks, who, in the art of war, were
superior to the Christians of the twelfth century. ^* Louis, who
climbed a tree in the general discomfiture, was saved by his own
valor and the ignorance of his adversaries; and with the dawn of
day he escaped alive, but almost alone, to the camp of the
vanguard. But instead of pursuing his expedition by land, he was
rejoiced to shelter the relics of his army in the friendly
seaport of Satalia. From thence he embarked for Antioch; but so
penurious was the supply of Greek vessels, that they could only
afford room for his knights and nobles; and the plebeian crowd of
infantry was left to perish at the foot of the Pamphylian hills.
The emperor and the king embraced and wept at Jerusalem; their
martial trains, the remnant of mighty armies, were joined to the
Christian powers of Syria, and a fruitless siege of Damascus was
the final effort of the second crusade. Conrad and Louis
embarked for Europe with the personal fame of piety and courage;
but the Orientals had braved these potent monarchs of the Franks,
with whose names and military forces they had been so often
threatened. ^22 Perhaps they had still more to fear from the
veteran genius of Frederic the First, who in his youth had served
in Asia under his uncle Conrad. Forty campaigns in Germany and
Italy had taught Barbarossa to command; and his soldiers, even