ting, that in
several towns there did not remain a single male inhabitant capable of
bearing arms, and that everywhere castles and towns were to be seen
filled with women weeping for their absent husbands. But in spite of
this apparent enthusiasm, the numbers who really took up arms were
inconsiderable, and not to be compared to the swarms of the first
Crusade. A levy of no more than two hundred thousand men, which was the
utmost the number amounted to, could hardly have depopulated a country
like France to the extent mentioned by St. Bernard. His description of
the state of the country appears, therefore, to have been much more
poetical than true.

Suger, the able minister of Louis, endeavoured to dissuade him from
undertaking so long a journey at a time when his own dominions so much
needed his presence. But the king was pricked in his conscience by the
cruelties of Vitry, and was anxious to make the only reparation which
the religion of that day considered sufficient. He was desirous
moreover of testifying to the world, that though he could brave the
temporal power of the church when it encroached upon his prerogatives,
he could render all due obedience to its spiritual decrees whenever it
suited his interest or tallied with his prejudices to so do. Suger,
therefore, implored in vain, and Louis received the pilgrim's staff at
St. Denis, and made all preparations for his pilgrimage.

In the mean time St. Bernard passed into Germany, where similar success
attended his preaching. The renown of his sanctity had gone before him,
and he found everywhere an admiring audience. Thousands of people, who
could not understand a word he said, flocked around him to catch a
glimpse of so holy a man; and the knights enrolled themselves in great
numbers in the service of the Cross, each receiving from his hands the
symbol of the cause. But the people were not led away as in the days of
Gottschalk. We do not find that they rose in such tremendous masses of
two and three hundred thousand men, swarming over the country like a
plague of locusts. Still the enthusiasm was very great. The
extraordinary tales that were told and believed of the miracles worked
by the preacher brought the country people from far and near. Devils
were said to vanish at his sight, and diseases of the most malignant
nature to be cured by his touch. [Philip, Archdeacon of the cathedral
of Liege, wrote a detailed account of all the miracles performed by St.
Berna