The most important of their expeditions was the siege and capture of Maarah, situated between Hamath and Aleppo. Raymond was the first to sit himself down before this city, where he was soon joined by the duke of Normandy and the count of Flanders and their troops. The Christians met with the most obstinate resistance from the besieged during several days. The infidels poured arrows and stones upon them in clouds, together with floods of an inflammable matter, which several historians pretend to have been the Greek fire. William of Tyre says that they hurled from the summits of the towers upon the assailants quick lime and hives filled with bees.[139] Want of provisions soon began to be felt, and the Crusaders at length experienced such distress, that many among them subsisted upon the dead bodies of their enemies.[140] History ought, however, to relate with hesitation the extremes to which famine is said to have carried them, and to throw great doubt upon the account of the public sale of human flesh in the camp of the Christians.[141]
The Crusaders endured all their misfortunes with patience, but they could not support the outrages committed by the inhabitants of Maarah upon the religion of Jesus Christ. The infidels raised crosses upon the ramparts, covered them with ordure, and heaped all sorts of insults upon them. This sight so irritated the Christians, that they resolved to redouble their efforts to get possession of the city. They constructed machines which shook the walls, whilst the soldiers mounted to the assault; and they succeeded, after a lengthened resistance, in making themselves masters of the towers and the ramparts. As they were overtaken by night in the midst of their victory, they did not venture to penetrate into the place; and when, with the break of day, they spread themselves through the streets, not a sound was to be heard,—every part of the city was deserted. The army pillaged the uninhabited houses, but soon discovered, to their great surprise, that the whole population of Maarah had taken refuge in subterranean places. A large quantity of straw, set on fire at the mouths of the caverns in which the infidels were concealed, soon forced them to issue from their retreats, and such was the animosity of the conquerors, that the bewildered and trembling multitude implored their pity in vain. All the inhabitants of Maarah were either put to the sword or led into slavery; the city was completely razed to the ground, “which so terrified the neighbouring cities,” says an historian, “that of their own free will, and without force, they surrendered to the Crusaders.”
This conquest became the subject of fresh discord. Bohemond, who had come to the siege, was desirous of keeping a portion of the city, whilst Raymond pretended to reign over Maarah as its sovereign. The debate grew warm; the camp of the Christians was filled with confusion and factions, and the Crusaders were very near shedding their own blood to ascertain who should be master of a city which they had just entirely deprived of inhabitants, and given up to pillage. “But God, who was the leader of this great enterprise,” says le Père Maimbourg, “repaired by the zeal of the weak and the lowly that which the passions of the great and the wise of this world had destroyed.” The soldiers at length became indignant at the thoughts of shedding, for miserable quarrels, the blood which they had sworn to dedicate to a sacred cause. Whilst they were most loud in their complaints and murmurs, the report reached them that Jerusalem had fallen into the hands of the Egyptians: they had taken advantage of the defeat of the Turks, and of the unfortunate delay of the Christian army in their invasion of Palestine. This news redoubled the discontent of the Crusaders, and they loudly accused Raymond and their other leaders of having betrayed the cause of God. They announced their intention of choosing fresh leaders, who should have no other ambition but that of accomplishing their vows, and would conduct the Christian army to the Holy Land.
The count of St. Gilles and the prince of Antioch, the latter of whom was, perhaps, no stranger to the general movement, went through the ranks, and addressed the soldiers, the one upon the necessity of obedience, the other upon the glory which awaited them at Jerusalem. The tumult soon became more violent. The clergy menaced Raymond with the anger of Heaven, whilst his soldiers threatened to abandon his standard. The Provençals themselves at length refused to obey the inflexible count of Thoulouse, and the army set seriously to work to demolish the ramparts of Maarah, the possession of which was the object of contention.
Whilst this was going on, Tancred had, by either force or address, got possession of the citadel of Antioch, and planted the standard of Bohemond in place of that of the count of St. Gilles. Raymond, thus left alone, and without any hopes of realizing his pretensions, was obliged to yield to the wishes of the army, and appeared to listen to the voice of God. After having set fire to the city of Maarah, he marched out of it by the light of the flames, barefooted, and shedding tears of repentance. Followed by the clergy, who sang the psalms of penitence, he abjured his ambition, and renewed the oath he had so often made, and so often forgotten, of delivering the tomb of Jesus Christ.
BOOK IV.
A.D. 1099-1103.
More than six months had passed away since the taking of Antioch, and several of the leaders of the crusade still thought nothing of commencing their march to Jerusalem. As soon as Raymond gave the signal for departure, his soldiers, and the knights who accompanied him, broke into loud demonstrations of joy and a revived enthusiasm. The count of Thoulouse was followed by Tancred and the duke of Normandy, who were both impatient to accomplish their vow and conquer Palestine. Conducted by these three leaders, a great part of the Christian army traversed the territories of Cæsarea in Syria, Hamath, and Edessa. From all parts both Christians and Mussulmans came eagerly to meet them, the former to beg their assistance, the latter to implore their clemency. Many emirs came to conjure Raymond to plant his standard on their cities’ walls, to protect them from pillage, and render them safe from the enterprises of the other Crusaders. The pilgrims everywhere on their passage received provisions and rich tributes without the trouble and risk of fighting for them. In the course of their triumphant march, the sweetest fruit of their labours and the terror that their arms inspired was the return of a vast number of Christian prisoners, whose death they had mourned, who were sent to them from the neighbouring cities by the Mussulman chiefs.
They drew near to the sea-coast, and advanced, almost without obstacle, as far as the vicinity of Archas. This city was situated at the foot of Libanus, two leagues from the sea, in a territory covered with olive-trees, and rich with corn. The count of Thoulouse, either from a desire to conquer