Another  meeting  was  also  convened  at  Chartres,

(1)  Ex  Chronico  Mauriniaceiisi,  apud  Dom  Bouquet,  xii.  p.  88.
420  THE   LIFE   AND   TIMES  [BOOK  IV.
A.D.  1146.  which  distinguished  itself  by  electing  Bernard  com-
r- 55-  mander-in-chief  of  the  Crusaders's  army.  He  almost
cries  aloud,  in  a  letter  to  the  Pope,  as  in  wonder
where  the  popular  excitement  would  stop.  He  super-
fluously demonstrates  his  ignorance  of  war,  his  un-
suitableness  for  the  task.  The  Pope  had  not  much
difficulty  in  accepting  a  refusal  which  every  man  of
sense  among  the  Crusaders  must  have  approved.
The  more  befitting  office  of  preaching  the  Crusade
in  Germany  and  north-eastern  France  was  deputed
to  Bernard.1

The  weakness  and  exhaustion  of  which  he  had
complained,  were  soon  forgotten,  when  work,  which
he  felt  it  was  his  duty  to  do,  came  before  him.  He
left  Clairvaux  with  the  known  design  of  arousing
the  enthusiasm  of  the  multitude  for  the  Crusade,  and
wherever  he  appeared,  the  usual  bonds  of  society
seemed  loosed,  and  all  moved  round  him  as  around  a
new  centre  of  life.  What  remained  of  the  summer  of
the  year  1146  he  spent  in  France.  Towards  the

Bernard  goes    autumn,  he  began  to  enter  on  the  less  known  field  of
Germany.      The   German   nation   had,   up   to   this


SecondCrusade.
