unconscionable a period as five days a week;
or, if they did, they made ample amends on the two days left open to
them. The truce was afterwards shortened from the Saturday evening to
the Monday morning; but little or no diminution of violence and
bloodshed was the consequence. At the council of Clermont, Urban II.
again solemnly proclaimed the truce. So strong was the religious
feeling, that every one hastened to obey. All minor passions
disappeared before the grand passion of crusading; the noble ceased to
oppress, the robber to plunder, and the people to complain; but one
idea was in all hearts, and there seemed to be no room for any other.

The encampments of these heterogeneous multitudes offered a singular
aspect. Those vassals who ranged themselves under the banners of their
lord, erected tents around his castle; while those who undertook the
war on their own account, constructed booths and huts in the
neighbourhood of the towns or villages, preparatory to their joining
some popular leader of the expedition. The meadows of France were
covered with tents. As the belligerents were to have remission of all
their sins on their arrival in Palestine, hundreds of them gave
themselves up to the most unbounded licentiousness: the courtezan, with
the red cross upon her shoulders, plied her shameless trade with
sensual pilgrims, without scruple on either side: the lover of good
cheer gave loose rein to his appetite, and drunkenness and debauchery
flourished. Their zeal in the service of the Lord was to wipe out all
faults and follies, and they had the same surety of salvation as the
rigid anchorite. This reasoning had charms for the ignorant, and the
sounds of lewd revelry and the voice of prayer rose at the same instant
from the camp.

It is now time to speak of the leaders of the expedition. Great
multitudes ranged themselves under the command of Peter the Hermit,
whom, as the originator, they considered the most appropriate leader of
the war. Others joined the banner of a bold adventurer, whom history
has dignified with no other name than that of Gautier sans Avoir, or
Walter the Pennyless, but who is represented as having been of noble
family, and well skilled in the art of war. A third multitude from
Germany flocked around the standard of a monk, named Gottschalk, of
whom nothing is known, except that he was a fanatic of the deepest dye.
All these bands, which together are said to have amounted to three
hundred thou