or simply less wearied out,—­Philip Augustus, Frederick Barbarossa, and Richard Coeur de Lion,—­were taking their places.  In the East the theatre of policy and events was being enlarged; Egypt was becoming the goal of ambition with the chiefs, Christian or Mussulman, of Eastern Asia; and Damietta, the key of Egypt, was the object of their enterprises, those of Amaury I., the boldest of the kings of Jerusalem, as well as those of the Sultans of Damascus and Aleppo.  Noureddin and Saladin (Nour-Eddyn and Sala-Eddyn), Turks by origin, had commenced their fortunes in Syria; but it was in Egypt that they culminated, and, when Saladin became the most illustrious as well as the most powerful of Mussulman sovereigns, it was with the title of Sultan of Egypt and of Syria that he took his place in history.

In the course of the year 1187, Europe suddenly heard tale upon tale about the repeated disasters of the Christians in Asia.  On the 1st of May, the two religious and warlike orders which had been founded in the East for the defence of Christendom—­the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem and the Templars—­lost, at a brush in Galilee, five hundred of their bravest knights.  On the 3d and 4th of July, near Tiberias, a Christian army was surrounded by the Saracens, and also, ere long, by the fire which Saladin had ordered to be set to the dry grass which covered the plain.  The flames made their way and spread beneath the feet of men and horses.  “There,” say the Oriental chroniclers, “the sons of Paradise and the children of fire settled their terrible quarrel.  Arrows hurtled in the air like a noisy flight of sparrows, and the blood of warriors dripped upon the ground like rain-water.”  “I saw,” adds one of them who was present at the battle, “hill, plain, and valley covered with their dead; I saw their banners stained with dust and blood; I saw their heads laid low, their limbs scattered, their carcasses piled on a heap like stones.”  Four days after the battle of Tiberias, on the 8th of July, 1187, Saladin took possession of St. Jean d’Acre, and, on the 4th of September following, of Ascalon.  Finally, on the 18th of September, he laid siege to Jerusalem, wherein refuge had been sought by a multitude of Christian families driven from their homes by the ravages of the infidels throughout Palestine; and the Holy City contained at this time, it is said, nearly one hundred thousand Christians.  On approaching its walls, Saladin sent for the principal inhabitants, and said to them, “I know as well as you that Jerusalem is the house of God; and I will not have it assaulted if I can get it by peace and love.  I will give you thirty thousand byzants of gold if you promise me Jerusalem, and you shall have liberty to go whither you will and do your tillage, to a distance of five miles from the city.  And I will have you sup-plied with such plenty of provisions that in no place on earth shall they be so cheap.  You shall have a truce from now to Whitsuntide, and