Note 1 — Chapter I

I am thinking, of course, of the thousands of simple folk who rushed blindfold into the fatal procession towards Jerusalem, setting their children on their rude carts, and asking naïvely, at each tower that came in sight in their own France, if that was the Holy City: those whose bones marked the path to Palestine for later Crusaders. As to the professional warriors, there is surely more humour than aught else in the picture of the King of France and his like setting forth to ‘do penance’ for their vice and violence by a few months of adventure, carnage, and pillage.