They did grant the prayer, but with conditions; and these were hard. The Crusaders were to pay, before their embarkation, the sum of 85,000 silver marks, and all conquests were to be equally divided between Crusaders and Venetians.
The generosity or the selfishness of these terms depends entirely on the purchasing power of a silver mark. To provision 33,500 men and 4,500 horses for nine months would at the present time cost, at the low estimate of two shillings a day for each man, one million pounds sterling. To this must be added the cost of the transports and sailors—an item impossible to estimate. If we reckon a million and a half for the cost of the whole, we find that, supposing the 85,000 marks barely paid the cost, each mark had a purchasing power very nearly equivalent to that of £18 of our money. But we may be very certain that this republic of traders were not going to let slip so good an opportunity of profit.
It was more difficult to promise than to execute the treaty. The deputation returned to France after a fruitless effort to enlist the sympathies of Nice and Genoa. Their engagements were ratified by the princes. But here an unforeseen accident threatened the enterprise at its very commencement. Thibaut, Count of Champagne, the chief of the Crusade, died, and the warriors found themselves without a leader. A council was held at Soissons, where Boniface, the Marquis de Montferrat, a soldier conspicuous for gallantry and descended of a race of soldiers, was chosen to lead the Crusade. With him were the Counts of Flanders, Blois, St. Pol, and a
