On approaching Jerusalem, in the month of April, 1148, Louis VII. saw coming to meet him King Baldwin III., and the patriarch and the people, singing, “Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord!” So soon as he had entered the city, his pious wishes were fulfilled by his being taken to pay a solemn visit to all the holy places. At the same time arrived from Constantinople the Emperor Conrad, almost alone and in the guise of a simple pilgrim. All the remnant of the crusaders, French and German, hurried to join them. Impatient to exhibit their power on the theatre of their creed, and to render to the kingdom of Jerusalem some striking service, the two Western sovereigns, and Baldwin, and their principal barons assembled at Ptolemais (St. Jean d’Acre) to determine the direction to be taken by their enterprise. They decided upon the siege of Damascus, the most important and the nearest of the Mussulman princedoms in Syria, and in the early part of June they moved thither with forces incomplete and ill united. Neither the Prince of Antioch nor the Counts of Edessa and Tripolis had been summoned to St. Jean d’Acre; and Queen Eleanor had not appeared. At the first attack, the ardor of the assailants and the brilliant personal prowess of their chiefs, of the Emperor Conrad amongst others, struck surprise and consternation into the besieged, who, foreseeing the necessity of abandoning their city, laid across the streets beams, chains, and heaps of stones, to stop the progress of the conquerors and give themselves time for flying, with their families and their wealth, by the northern and southern gates. But personal interest and secret negotiations before long brought into the Christian camp weakness, together with discord. Many of the barons were already disputing amongst themselves, at the very elbows of the sovereigns, for the future government of Damascus; others were not inaccessible to the rich offers which came to them from the city; and it is maintained that King Baldwin himself suffered himself to be bribed by a sum of two hundred thousand pieces of gold which were sent to him by Modjer-Eddyn, Emir of Damascus, and which turned out to be only pieces of copper, covered with gold leaf. News came that the Emirs of Aleppo and Mossoul were coming, with considerable forces, to the relief of the place. Whatever may have been the cause of retreat, the crusader- sovereigns decided upon it, and, raising the siege, returned to Jerusalem. The Emperor Conrad, in indignation and confusion, set out precipitately to return to Germany. King Louis could not make up his mind thus to quit the Holy Land in disgrace, and without doing anything for its deliverance. He prolonged his stay there for more than a year without anything to show for his time and zeal. His barons and his knights nearly all left him, and, by sea or land, made their way back to France. But the king still lingered. I am under a bond,” he wrote to Suger, “not to leave the Holy Land, save with glory, and after doing somewhat for the cause of God and the kingdom of France.” At last, after many fruitless entreaties, Suger wrote to him, “Dear king and lord, I must cause thee to hear the voice of thy whole kingdom. Why dost thou fly from us? After having toiled so hard in the East, after having endured so many almost unendurable evils, by what harshness or what cruelty comes it that, now when the barons and grandees of the kingdom have returned, thou persistest in abiding with the barbarians? The disturbers of the kingdom have entered into it again; and thou, who shouldst defend it, remainest in exile as if thou wert a prisoner; thou givest over the lamb to the wolf, thy dominions to the ravishers. We conjure thy majesty, we invoke thy piety, we adjure thy goodness, we summon thee in the name of the fealty we owe thee; tarry not at all, or only a little while, beyond Easter; else thou wilt appear, in the eyes of God, guilty of a breach of that oath which thou didst take at the same time as the crown.” At length Louis made up his mind and embarked at St. Jean d’Acre at the commencement of July, 1149; and he disembarked in the month of October at the port of St. Gilles, at the mouth of the Rhone, whence he wrote to Suger, “We be hastening unto you safe and sound, and we command you not to defer paying us a visit, on a given day and before all our other friends. Many rumors reach us touching our kingdom, and knowing nought for certain, we be desirous to learn from you how we should bear ourselves or hold our peace, in every case. And let none but yourself know what I say to you at this present writing.”