Some chroniclers have insisted that Richard felt remorse at thus abandoning his God; and when, in a skirmish, he saw the walls of Jerusalem, they related that he hid his face and wept. He may have done so, but, during his life, the time came when Christian knights felt naught but exultation at having successfully bartered the Sepulchre for money. After Richard's departure, the situation of the Franks in the Holy Land went rapidly from bad to worse. The decay of faith constantly relaxed the bond which had once united them against the Moslems, while they were divided amongst themselves by commercial jealousies. The Temple and the Hospital carried on perpetual private wars about disputed property, the fourth crusade miscarried, and the garrison of Joppa was massacred, while Europe looked on with indifference.
When this point was reached, the instinct of self-preservation seems to have roused the clergy to the fact that their fate was bound up with the fate of the holy places: if the miracle were discredited, their reign was at an end. Accordingly, Innocent III., on his election, threw himself into a new agitation with all the intensity of his nature. Foulques de Neuilly was chosen to preach, like Saint Bernard; but his success, at first, was not flattering. He was insulted publicly by Richard, and was even accused of having embezzled the funds entrusted to him. At length, in the year 1199, Tybalt, Count of Champagne, and Louis, Count of Blois, took the cross at a tournament they were holding at the castle of Ecry. They soon were joined by others, but probably the most famous baron of the pilgrimage was Simon de Montfort.
At the end of the twelfth century the great fiefs had not been absorbed, and the Count of Champagne was a powerful sovereign. He was therefore chosen leader of the expedition, and, at a meeting held at Compiègne, the three chief princes agreed to send a committee of six to Venice to contract for transportation. In this committee, Ville-Hardouin, who wrote the chronicle of the war, represented Tybalt.
The doge was then Henry Dandolo, perhaps the most remarkable man Venice ever produced. Though nearly ninety-five, he was as vigorous as in middle life. A materialist and a sceptic, he was the best sailor, the ablest diplomatist, and the keenest speculator in Europe; and while, as a statesman and a commander, he raised his country to the pinnacle of glory, he proved himself the easy superior of Innocent III. in intrigue. So eminent were his abilities that, by common consent, he was chosen leader of a force which held some of the foremost captains of the age; and when, by his sagacity, Constantinople had been captured, he refused the imperial crown.