aloft, and listened with sighs and tears, while he depicted the sufferings of the Christians of Palestine, and with loud and frequent appeals to Christ and the holy mother, challenged the warriors of the age to defend their brethren, and rescue the tomb of the Saviour from the dominion of Infidels. Robert's curiosity was excited. He joined the eager crowds that followed the steps of the monk, and listened to the thrilling words till the latent desire of pilgrimage that had long slumbered in his mind awoke to life and activity, and he became a convert to the preachings of Peter the Hermit. But while he hesitated at the palmer's gown and staff, the united voices of chivalry and religion, bade him don his armor and draw his sword. In the general council of the church, at Placentia, the am-bassadors of the Greek Emperor Alexins Comnenus had por-trayed the distress of their sovereign, and the danger of Constantinople, from the victorious Turks. The sad tales of the misery and perils of the eastern brethren, drew tears from the assembly, and several champions declared their readiness to march to the East. The Greeks were dismissed with assurances of speedy and powerful succor. Pope Urban had given his sanction to the scheme, and summoned a second council to meet in Clermont the following November, to confer upon measures for sending armed forces into Asia. It was to secure the concurrence of Adela, and the co-operation of Stephen, that Robert now came to Blois. The representations of her brother, and the subject of his discourse renewed, in the memory of Adela, the fancy sketches of her childhood, and called up the half-formed purposes of her early youth. "With the clear-sightedness peculiar to her character, she scanned the wide field thus opened to ambition, balanced the possible with the imprac-ticable, determined for her brother the only course that would give free scope to his knightly abilities, and covet-ing for her husband a share in the glorious enterprise, per-suaded him to embrace the scheme, and thus rendered her-self really the " Heroine of the First Crusade." 74 HEROINES OF THE CRUSADES.