occasion of an appeal to Europe which called out the Second
Crusade. The great preacher of this crusade was St. Bernard
of Clairvaux, a man who, in earnestness and eloquence,
closely resembled Pope Urban and Peter the Hermit. Bernard's
influence won to his cause not only the common people, but
also nobles and kings, and the Second Crusade was led by
Louis VII, King of France, and Conrad III, Emperor of
Germany.

The time of the Second Crusade was 1147-1149. Louis and
Conrad each commanded a great army, but they made the
mistake of working separately. Conrad reached Constantinople
first, and partly in consequence of the faithless conduct of
Manuel, the Byzantine emperor--who, like his predecessor
Alexius, in the time of the First Crusade, threw obstacles
in the way of the western hosts--the whole German army was
cut to pieces in Asia Minor, only the Emperor himself, with
a few followers, escaping. Louis, soon arriving with his
army, received the same treatment from Manuel, and after
taking a few towns he saw his forces likewise destroyed by
the Turks. Louis himself escaped and returned to France.

So ended in utter failure and shame the Second Crusade. The
event seemed to give the lie to the glowing promises of St.
Bernard, who was charged by anguished women with sending
their fathers, husbands, and sons forth on a fruitless
errand to disgrace and death. The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem
profited nothing from this ignominious enterprise. The power
of that kingdom was already waning, and, but for the knights
of the military orders now in Jerusalem, the city must have
yielded to the Turcoman hordes that continually menaced it.
Baldwin III died in 1162, at the age of thirty-three, loved
and lamented by his people and respected by his foes. He
died childless, and his brother Almeric was elected to
succeed him. What experience and what fate awaited the
kingdom after this will be seen in the remarkable narration
which follows.

Almost at the beginning of Almeric's reign the affairs of the Latin
kingdom became complicated with those of Egypt; and the Christians are
seen fighting by the side of one Mahometan race, tribe, or faction
against another. The divisions of Islam may have turned less on points
of theology, but they were scarcely less bitter than