insensible to any other influence but that of his own mind, and most disregardful of his enemies’ bitter speeches, of all the kings in French history.  He returned to France after the capture of St. Jean d’ Acre, because he considered the ultimate success of the crusade impossible, and his return necessary for the interests of France and for his own.  He was right in thus thinking and acting; and King Richard, when insultingly reproaching him for it, did not foresee that, a year later, he would himself be doing the same thing, and would give up the crusade without having obtained anything more for Christendom, except fresh reverses.

[Illustration:  Richard coeur de lion having the Saracens beheaded.——­7]

On the 31st of July, 1191, Philip, leaving with the army of the crusaders ten thousand foot and five hundred knights, under the command of Duke Hugh of Burgundy, who had orders to obey King Richard, set sail for France; and, a few days after Christmas in the same year, landed in his kingdom, and forth-with resumed, at Fontainebleau according to some, and at Paris according to others, the regular direction of his government.  We shall see before long with what intelligent energy and with what success he developed and consolidated the territorial greatness of France and the influence of the kingship, to her security in Europe and her prosperity at home.

From the 1st of August, 1191, to the 9th of October, 1192, King Richard remained alone in the East as chief of the crusade and defender of Christendom.  He pertains, during that period, to the history of England, and no longer to that of France.  We will, however, recall a few facts to show how fruitless, for the cause of Christendom in the East, was the prolongation of his stay and what strange deeds—­at one time of savage barbarism, and at another of mad pride or fantastic knight-errantry—­were united in him with noble instincts and the most heroic courage.  On the 20th of August, 1191, five weeks after the surrender of St. Jean d’Acre, he found that Saladin was not fulfilling with sufficient promptitude the conditions of capitulation, and, to bring him up to time, he ordered the decapitation, before the walls of the place, of, according to some, twenty-five hundred, and, according to others, five thousand, Mussulman prisoners remaining in his hands.

[Illustration:  Richard Coeur de Lion having the Saracens beheaded.——­37]

The only effect of this massacre was, that during Richard’s first campaign after Philip’s departure for France, Saladin put to the sword all the Christians taken in battle or caught straggling, and ordered their bodies to be left without burial, as those of the garrison of St. Jean d’Acre had been.  Some months afterwards Richard conceived the idea of putting an end to the struggle between Christendom and Islamry, which he was not succeeding in terminating by war, by a marriage.  He had