crusaders returned to
Jerusalem, having done nothing to weaken the enemy, but every thing to
weaken themselves.

The freshness of enthusiasm had now completely subsided;--even the
meanest soldiers were sick at heart. Conrad, from whose fierce zeal at
the outset so much might have been expected, was wearied with reverses,
and returned to Europe with the poor remnant of his host. Louis
lingered a short time longer, for very shame, but the pressing
solicitations of his minister Suger induced him to return to France.
Thus ended the second Crusade. Its history is but a chronicle of
defeats. It left the kingdom of Jerusalem in a worse state than when it
quitted Europe, and gained nothing but disgrace for its leaders and
discouragement for all concerned.

St. Bernard, who had prophesied a result so different, fell after this
into some disrepute, and experienced, like many other prophets, the
fate of being without honour in his own country. What made the matter
worse, he could not obtain it in any other. Still, however, there were
not wanting zealous advocates to stand forward in his behalf, and stem
the tide of incredulity, which, unopposed, would have carried away his
reputation. The Bishop of Freysinghen declared that prophets were not
always able to prophesy, and that the vices of the crusaders drew down
the wrath of Heaven upon them. But the most ingenious excuse ever made
for St. Bernard is to be found in his life by Geoffroi de Clairvaux,
where he pertinaciously insists that the Crusade was not unfortunate.
St. Bernard, he says, had prophesied a happy result, and that result
could not be considered other than happy which had peopled heaven with
so glorious an army of martyrs. Geoffroi was a cunning pleader, and, no
doubt, convinced a few of the zealous; but plain people, who were not
wanting even in those days, retained their own opinion, or, what
amounts to the same thing, "were convinced against their will."

We now come to the consideration of the third Crusade, and of the
causes which rendered it necessary. The epidemic frenzy, which had been
cooling ever since the issue of the first expedition, was now extinct,
or very nearly so, and the nations of Europe looked with cold
indifference upon the armaments of their princes. But chivalry had
flourished in its natural element of war, and was now in all its glory.
It continued to supply armies for the Holy Land when the popular ranks
refused to deliver up their able-b