CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY. 531 



wielded a wider influence than then. The whole West answered to the appeal 

 with one voice, " Dieu le volt ! " 



The two great orators of the first Crusade were Peter the Hermit and Pope 

 Urban II. The former was the people's orator, for he traversed the land 

 upon his mule, cross in hand, preaching, weeping, and beating his breast. 

 It was Pope Urban II. who, at the Council of Clermont, brought to a climax 

 the resolution in favour of the Crusade by the warmth of his utterances. As 

 contemporary Chronicles have it, "Those who heard him preach believed 

 that they heard the heavenly trumpet." His speech was answered with the 

 unanimous shout, " Dieu le veut ! " Thus thousands of pilgrims started for 

 the East with no other hope or thought save of obtaining remission for their 

 sins and an eternal recompense. It was Christian eloquence, too, which, 

 during the hardships of this distant expedition, sustained the courage of 

 Godfrey de Bouillon and his companions. (See, in volume on " Military and 

 Religious Life," the chapter on Crusades.) 



The second Crusade was resolved upon in 1146 at the assembly of Vezelay, 

 which St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, had convoked by order of Louis VII. 

 Suger, the King's minister, had endeavoured to get the new Crusade adjourned 

 in the interests of the State, but St. Bernard protested, in the name of the 

 Church and of the national honour, that it was necessary to avenge the recent 

 disasters of Christians. The eloquence of the Abbot of Clairvaux prevailed 

 over that of St. Denis, and Suger was compelled to abandon his opposition to 

 the popular movement. St. Bernard, inflamed by a holy zeal, at once set out 

 to raise armies by the mere power of his word. Wherever he went the 

 churches and the public places of assembly were not large enough to contain 

 the excited crowds which pressed around him, and he then preached from 

 rude platforms erected for the purpose in the middle of the fields. When he 

 was addressing the clerks and doctors he spoke in Latin, only employing the 

 vulgar or Romanic tongue to address the people ; and so great was the respect 

 felt for him that when he preached at Mayence, Cologne, and Spires, his 

 hearers, though they could not understand a word of what he said, were 

 inflamed by the enthusiasm of his gestures, and flew to arms as eagerly aa 

 the French crusaders. 



The same enthusiasm was reproduced a century later, when Foulques 

 de Neuilly was authorised by Pope Innocent III. to preach the Crusade of 

 1198. " When Foulques opened his mouth to preach," relates the chronicler 



