outing
out their approval: _Dieu le veult! Dieu le veult!_ who could stop to
think of the idle and shifty King of France? Were they not all going to
battle in the service of a greater king than he?

Yet the motives of even these first Crusaders were in some cases far
from that consistent purity which one would expect. Among the leaders is
one Guilhelm, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers, a gay and famous
troubadour, who has founded in his own domain a _maison de plaisir_
where the inmates are dressed like nuns, a sort of Persian heaven ("A
Persian's heaven is easily made 'Tis but black eyes and lemonade"); who
bids an affecting farewell "to brilliant tourneys, to grandeur and to
riches, to all that enchained his heart, for he goes in the service of
God to find remission for his sins;" and who yet carries with him on
this holy war a perfect swarm of the beauties (_examina puellarum_) who
enchained his heart, and continued to enchain it, probably, until they
were captured by the Turks. But this Guilhelm gives a still more
interesting proof of the motives of his pious warfare. Two papal legates
came to Poitiers in November, 1100, to hold a council. Having preached
the Crusade, they next proceeded to renew the curse of excommunication
upon Philip, who was still living with Bertrade. The good Count
Guilhelm, with the red cross already upon his breast, stirred up a mob
against the legates, led the way into the church where the council was
sitting, and encouraged his followers to stone the assembled bishops.
There were broken heads, and there was some bloodshed, but enough of the
bishops stood their ground to pronounce the excommunication once more.

Bertrade bore the censures with amazing effrontery, and jested about how
the bells of the churches, silent during their stay, would begin to ring
as they left a town; and she actually forced some priests to hold a
service for her. But repeated curses, or the debauchery in which he had
all his life indulged, seem to have undermined Philip's constitution. At
any rate, he determined to relieve himself of the cares of government.
In spite of the protests of Bertrade, who wished to prevent the power of
the sceptre from going to the son of Queen Bertha, Philip, in 1100,
associated his son Louis in the government.

The young man proved himself a vigorous ruler, and won the love of his
subjects by attempts to punish some of the robber barons who made life
miserable for merchants an