shame. He abandoned the feelings of the monarch and the warrior for those of the pilgrim; refused at first to undertake any enterprise against the infidels; and stole from Antioch to Jerusalem like a craven. If his subjects were discontented with such weakness in their sovereign, Eleonora of Aquitaine was still more disgusted with such a husband: she refused longer to remain on any friendly terms with him. The historians of France, who detest the memory of her who transferred half the provinces of the kingdom to the Plantagenets, accuse her of lightness of conduct on this occasion; but their testimony is much to be mistrusted. Not a single feat of arms marked the stay of Louis in Palestine, where he lingered until 1149, ashamed to return. He did so at length, and it was to show that all prudence had forsaken him as well as courage. The quarrel betwixt him and Eleonora was at its height. He withdrew his garrisons from Aquitaine, more in spite than policy. A divorce was pronounced betwixt the spouses by an assembly of prelates at Beaugency, and Eleonora soon after married Henry II. of England, bringing with her the rich dowry of her inheritance.

Hence dates the rivalry betwixt the kings which fills up the rest of their reigns. In perusing their history, and beholding the superior activity, talents, and power of the English monarch, we expect to see him crush his rival and usurp his place. But in that age war tended more to mutual annoyance than to conquest: it was a livelihood to the needy, a portion to the powerful; and neither were very serious or bent upon the destruction of an enemy. A prisoner that could afford a large ransom, was chiefly looked to by each soldier in the event of a battle. Feudal rights and supremacy were also held in high respect; and the name of suzerain, though but a name, often supplied to Louis the place of the armies of his vassal Henry. In time the church came to fling itself into the scale. The persecution and murder of Thomas à Becket rcused all the clergy in enmity to Henry, and Louis took advantage of their aid.

1180.

DEATH OF LOUIS THE YOUNG.

47

Later still, the French monarch used the more unworthy expedient of exciting the sons of Henry to rebel against their parent; and throughout, he contrived to supply by intrigue what he wanted in martial spirit, activity, and power. Although the divorce of Eleonora deprived Louis of the possession of Aquitaine, still the marriage was not useless to him: it made the monarch's name to be known, and his authority invoked, in the south. When Henry endeavoured to make good those same rights of Eleonora upon Toulouse that Louis himself had supported, the latter took the part of the Toulousans, and defeated the intentions of his rival. And he was equally successful in support of the people of Auvergne. Louis VII. was long without a son, and at length obtained one by dint of prayer. When the life of the prince was threatened by a fever, the anxious parent undertook a pilgrimage to Canterbury, to the tomb of St. Thomas à Becket, for his recovery. The young Philip recovered; but Louis, on his return, was struck with a palsy, under which he lingered for the space of a year, and died in 1180.

Two centuries had now elapsed since the accession of Hugh Capet. At that period France was divided into a thousand petty states, each shut up in its barbarism. Selfishness, violence, and want of faith, were general characteristics. Courage was the only virtue prized; independence the only boon sought after. Now, however, a union, a concentration, had taken place. The unforeseen development of the feudal system had raised the king supreme above the aristocracy; and this, together with other causes, amongst which the crusades rank foremost, had assimilated the formerly disjointed parts of the state, and given a general bond of sympathy to the nation. Social habits and frequent intercourse excited emulation of a kind less coarse and more varied than the mere struggle betwixt strong and weak. The creation of wealth and luxury suggested the more refined wants of the imagination and the heart. Selfishness and fraud gave way to the chivalrous virtues.

A

general tendency to enthusiasm and devotion distinguished the rising age; and both were extreme, to whatever object directed, whether towards religion, towards royalty, or to the fairer sex.

Philip Augustus, who was about fifteen years of age when he began to reign, was already the nursling of court adulation and homage. His predecessors had not attained dignity sufficient to expose them to this bane of the royal nature. Congratulations, couched in the language of oriental hyperbole, had greeted his birth. He was styled the Dieu-donné, the august; and self-constituted laureates began already to celebrate the majesty of the monarch of the French. Formerly, the surrounding nobles had disdained to dispute court favour or influence; but the first years of Philip's reign were taken up with the rivalry of the houses of Flanders and Champagne, which each sought to be the masters and ministers of the young sovereign. Henry II. of England gave his support to the Counts of Champagne, and the partisans of Flanders were obliged to retire from Paris. They formed a league, and menaced war; but Philip, with the English monarch's aid, easily overcame the malcontents. Henry showed generosity on this occasion. Instead of profiting by the divisions of the French, and keeping them alive, he frankly supported the young king against his refractory barons. He was king himself, and sympathised with royalty. Philip ill repaid this kindness: he imitated his father's policy in seducing the sons of the English monarch from their allegiance; and their frequent ingratitude at length broke the heart of the sensitive and passionate monarch. Richard, Duke of Aquitaine, known as Cœur de Lion, and his father's successor on the throne, was the especial friend and ally of Philip in these quarrels; and for a long time the princes shared the same tent and the same bed.

Meantime a third crusade began to be preached. This prevalent enthusiasm, like the rebellions of an oppressed yet brave people, was sure to arouse itself and re-awaken

1190.

THE THIRD CRUSADE.

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as soon as time had elapsed sufficient to allow the disasters of the past to be forgotten. Saladin had recently taken Jerusalem. Fugitives instantly filled Europe with the dismal tidings. The cry for a crusade became general: it was no longer, however, the church that called a council to debate and decide upon the question; another power had arisen to rob the clergy of their initiative. The king called a parlement of his barons at Gisors, and there a third crusade was determined upon. Cœur de Lion was the first to assume the cross; and king Philip, only hurt at being anticipated, followed his example. Frederic Barbarossa also took the same resolution. That emperor died, owing to imprudently bathing in a river of Asia Minor, ere he reached the Holy Land.

In June of the year 1190, Philip Augustus received the pilgrim's scrip and staff from the hands of the abbot of St. Denis. Richard received his at Tours; and it was remarked, as an omen, that, as he leaned on the staff, it broke under his weight. In order to avoid the disasters of former crusades, they were to proceed to Palestine by sea. The two kings wintered in Sicily on their voyage thither, and there laid the foundation of their future jealousy and hate. The crusaders found the barons of Syria engaged in the siege of Acre. Their arrival hastened its surrender, and at the same time marked it with crime. Richard caused upwards of two thousand captives to be massacred in cold blood, and Philip was guilty of a similar piece of cruelty. The monarchs, indeed, had some slight breach of stipulations to allege, or might excuse their conduct as a reprisal for that of Saladin, who put to death many of the prisoners whom he made at the battle of Tiberias, more especially all those whose tonsure marked them to belong to the order of the Templars. It was thus that the ferocity of oriental manners came to alloy the more generous spirit of chivalry. In Palestine the French learned to be sanguinary and merciless towards their religious enemies, and hence it was that the fair page of their history was

soon afterwards stained by the massacre of those whom they called heretics at home.

Philip Augustus could not long endure the superior renown and prowess of Cœur de Lion. He seized the pretext of an illness to quit Palestine and abandon the field of glory to his rival. Returning home, he besought the pope to release him from the oath which bound him to respect the rights and territories of a brother crusader. The pontiff refused: but Philip felt himself sufficiently absolved by the Machiavelian law of monarchical policy. And fortune, in making Richard fall captive to the Duke of Austria, in his return from the Holy Land, seemed to favour the envious designs of the French monarch. Philip no sooner was informed of Richard's captivity, than he leagued with his brother John, and invaded Normandy. He took several towns and castles, but was repulsed from before Rouen. At length Richard was released, or, as Philip wrote to his confederate, "the devil broke loose." We expect on this occasion to read of a furious war betwixt the sovereigns. And yet no brilliant feat, no general engagement, marked that which ensued. Petty treason and short truce, varied by a skirmish or a marauding party, were all the effects produced by the envy of Philip and the resentment of the lion-hearted king. The death of the latter by an arrow-shot, as he besieged a castle in the Limousin, left a less formidable rival to Philip in the person of king John.

The writer of fiction never imagined a baser character than that of John. His cowardice and meanness form a phenomenon and an exception in the feudal ages. The nullity of such a rival converted Philip Augustus from the powerless intriguer to the conqueror and the hero. The latter, who knew the character of John, no sooner heard of his succession than he prepared to take advantage of it. And yet intrigue was the first weapon he employed. As he had seduced Richard from his father's allegiance, and John from that of Richard, Philip now espoused the cause of Arthur of Britany,