He had at heart, beyond everything, the conquest of Aleppo and Caesarea.

In this design the King of France and the crusaders who were still about him might be of real service; and he attempted to win them over.

Louis answered that he would engage in no enterprise until he had visited the holy places.

Raymond was impetuous, irritable, and as unreasonable in his desires as unfortunate in his undertakings.
He had quickly acquired great influence over his niece, Queen Eleanor, and he had no difficulty in winning her over to his plans.

"She," says William of Tyre, "was a very inconsiderate woman, caring little for royal dignity or conjugal fidelity; she took great pleasure in the court of Antioch, where she also conferred much pleasure, even upon Mussulmans, whom, as some chronicles say, she did not repulse; and, when the king, her husband, spoke to her of approaching departure, she emphatically refused, and, to justify her opposition, she declared that they could no longer live together, as there was, she asserted, a prohibited degree of consanguinity between them." Louis, "who loved her with an almost excessive love," says William of Nangis, was at the same time angered and grieved.