miraculously stricken with a panic at sight of them ; that God would, through the hands of children only, whose lives were yet pure, work the recovery of the Cross and the Sepulchre. Thousands—it is said fifty thousand— children of both sexes responded to the call. They listened to the impassioned preaching of the monks, believed their lying miracles, their visions, their portents, their references to the Scriptures, and, in spite of all that their parents could do, rushed to take the Cross, boys and girls together, and streamed along the roads which led to Marseilles and Genoa, singing hymns, waving branches, replying to those who asked whither they were going, " We go to Jerusalem to deliver the Holy Sepulchre," and shouting their rallying cry, " Lord Jesus, give us back thy Holy Cross." They admitted whoever came, provided he took the Cross ; the infection spread, and the children could not be restrained from joining them in the towns and villages along their route. Their miserable parents put them in prison ; they escaped ; they forbade them to go ; the children went in spite of prohibition. They had no money, no provisions, no leaders ; but the charity of the towns they passed through supported them. At their rear streamed the usual tail of camp followers, those people who lived wherever soldiers were found, following in the track of the army like vultures, to prey on the hving. and to rob the dead. Of these there came many, ribands et ribaudes, corrupting the boys, and robbing them of their little means ; so that long before the army reached the shores of the Mediterranean the purity of many was gone for ever. There were two main bodies. One of these directed its way through Germany, across the Alps, to Genoa. On the road they were robbed of all the gifts which had been presented them ; they were exposed to heat and want, and very many either died on the march or wandered away from the road, and so became lost to sight; when they reached Italy they dispersed about the country seeking food, were