When Godfrey
of Bouillon became King of Jerusalem, Peter was appointed Governor.
After he had seen his dream fulfilled, he returned to his own
country, entered the convent Neufmoustier, near Luttich, and
remained there till his death.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem soon came to an end. The Muhammedans
re-occupied it, and remain there to this day.
The remarkable thing about these predatory expeditions--the
Crusades--was that they were led by the Normans, and were curiously
like the raids of the Vikings. The indirect results of the Crusades
are still treated of in students' essays, which generally close with
the moral, "there is nothing evil which does not bring some good
with it." Voltaire and Hume, on the other hand, regard the Crusades
as the enterprises of lunatics. It is a difficult matter to decide!
LAOCOON
On the Esquiline Hill in Rome, on a spring day in 1506, Signer de
Fredis was walking in his vineyard. The day before, his workmen had
been digging a pit to seek water, but found none. Signer de Fredis
stood by it, and asked himself whether it was not a pity that so
much earth had been thrown out, and whether it could not be utilised
in the vineyard. He felt about with his stick in the upper part of
the pit to ascertain how deep the soil was.
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