The besieged fled for refuge to a church, in which they were invested; and the fire reached the church, which was entirely consumed, together with the thirteen hundred inhabitants, men, women, and children, who had retreated thither.

This disaster made a great stir.

St.Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux and the leading ecclesiastical authority of the age, took the part of Count Theobald.

King Louis felt a lively sorrow, and sincere repentance.

Soon afterwards it became known in the West that the affairs of the Christians were going ill in the East; that the town of Edessa had been re-taken by the Turks, and all its inhabitants massacred.