othing but the vain excitement of it all, the wonders of
the Greek civilization, the glitter and splendor. Warned by the
disastrous experience of the Germans who had preceded him, Louis elected
to follow the coast route along the shores of Asia Minor, and he and his
army were safely transported across the straits by the Greeks.

In the march that followed, the vain and headstrong Eleanor more than
once jeopardized herself and the whole army. She insisted on leading the
van, and her too complaisant husband consented. The result was that
Eleanor, with utter disregard of strategy and of ordinary military
precautions, conducted her forces as if the expedition were merely a
party of pleasure, selected her camps and her route according to the
beauty of the landscape, and all the time flirted in the most
irresponsible fashion with anyone who attracted her. It was said that
she had a most shameful intrigue with a handsome young emir, accepted
gifts from Sultan Noureddin, and spoke of her husband with increasing
flippancy, disrespect, contempt. The army was saved in the mountain
passes by a knight from Eleanor's native land, one Gilbert, of whom
really nothing is known, but who has been made the central figure in a
romance in which Eleanor also plays her part.

From Satalia, on the Gulf of Cyprus, the king and Eleanor, with the more
well to do among their followers, took ship for Antioch, abandoning the
mass of poor followers to the mercies of the perfidious Greeks and the
fierce Turks. In Antioch, Eleanor was received too kindly by her uncle,
Raymond, Prince of Antioch, said to have been the handsomest man of his
time, and as licentious as Eleanor's own grandfather had been. Despite
their relationship, Eleanor's conduct with Raymond made Louis wildly
jealous. She was already talking of a separation from Louis. The
daughter of William of Poitou certainly could not, as she proclaimed,
put up with a monk for her husband; but it is rather amazing to find her
pretending that she wishes her marriage dissolved for reasons of
conscience, since she and her husband are related within the degrees
prohibited by that Church of which she has always been so devout a
daughter. Louis carried her off, willy-nilly, from Antioch, and we hear
nothing more but complaints from him and soothing counsel from his
friends until after he and Eleanor returned from this disastrous
crusade. Eleanor's caprice and haughty temper had almost driven Louis to
des