So I say unto you, ye rich men who are here, and to all other knights who shall have a mind to bide with me, come and speak boldly unto me, and I will give ye so much that it shall not be my fault if ye have no mind to bide.'" Thus none, save Louis himself, dared go to the root of the question.

The most discreet advised him to depart, only for the purpose of coming back, and recommencing what had been so unsuccessful; and the boldest only urged him to remain a year longer.

None took the risk of saying, even after so many mighty but vain experiments, that the enterprise was chimerical, and must be given up.

Louis alone was, in word and deed, perfectly true to his own absorbing idea of recovering the Holy Sepulchre from the Mussulmans and re-establishing the kingdom of Jerusalem.

His was one of those pure and majestic souls, which are almost alien to the world in which they live, and in which disinterested passion is so strong that it puts judgment to silence, extinguishes all fear, and keeps up hope to infinity.