f Toulouse
embraced in sight of the whole camp. The clergy aided the cause with
their powerful voice, and preached union and goodwill to the highest
and the lowest. A solemn procession was also ordered round the city, in
which the entire army joined, prayers being offered up at every spot
which gospel records had taught them to consider as peculiarly sacred.

The Saracens upon the ramparts beheld all these manifestations without
alarm. To incense the Christians, whom they despised, they constructed
rude crosses, and fixed them upon the walls, and spat upon and pelted
them with dirt and stones. This insult to the symbol of their faith
raised the wrath of the crusaders to that height that bravery became
ferocity and enthusiasm madness. When all the engines of war were
completed the attack was recommenced, and every soldier of the
Christian army fought with a vigour which the sense of private wrong
invariably inspires. Every man had been personally outraged, and the
knights worked at the battering-rams with as much readiness as the
meanest soldiers. The Saracen arrows and balls of fire fell thick and
fast among them, but the tremendous rams still heaved against the
walls, while the best marksmen of the host were busily employed in the
several floors of the moveable towers in dealing death among the Turks
upon the battlements. Godfrey, Raymond, Tancred, and Robert of
Normandy, each upon his tower, fought for hours with unwearied energy,
often repulsed, but ever ready to renew the struggle. The Turks, no
longer despising the enemy, defended themselves with the utmost skill
and bravery till darkness brought a cessation of hostilities. Short was
the sleep that night in the Christian camp. The priests offered up
solemn prayers in the midst of the attentive soldiery for the triumph
of the Cross in this last great struggle, and as soon as morning dawned
every one was in readiness for the affray. The women and children lent
their aid, the latter running unconcerned to and fro while the arrows
fell fast around them, bearing water to the thirsty combatants. The
saints were believed to be aiding their efforts, and the army,
impressed with this idea, surmounted difficulties under which a force
thrice as numerous, but without their faith, would have quailed and
been defeated. Raymond of Toulouse at last forced his way into the city
by escalade, while at the very same moment Tancred and Robert of
Normandy succeeded in bursting open one