heaven and themselves. Those sovereigns who had everything to lose and nothing to gain, preferred to stay at home. What principality in the East was worth anything to Richard Lion Heart, compared with his own fair realm of England? What successes in Palestine would compensate Philip Augustus for dangers and losses at home? But to the princes who were of royal lineage, and yet of the second, third, or fourth order, a Crusade offered noble chances. Godfrey, Baldwin, Jocelyn, Tancred, Bohemon, all the princes of the first Crusade, who became kings of Jerusalem, princes, counts, dukes, and marquises of Edessa, Tripoli, Antioch, and Tyre, had been of the same rank as themselves. Glory and greatness, as well as religion, pointed in the direction of the East. Therefore it was not surprising to hear that Fulke de Neuilly, with his band of preachers, speedily roused up the Western nobles to an enthusiasm which was respectable, although, compared with that which sent forth Peter with his myriads, it was the glory of Nehemiah's Temple compared with that which the oldest men remembered with tears of the Temple which had passed away. Not twice in the world's history does the same enthusiasm seize the hearts of men.
The first chief of the fourth Crusade was Thibaut III., Count of Champagne, father of the roi chansonnier, Thibaut IV., poet, and platonic lover of the saintly Blanche. He was a young man of twenty-three when he placed himself at the head of the new Crusade. With him were Simon de Montfort; Baldwin, Count of Flanders, who had married a sister of Thibaut; Henry of
