Leopold also struggled to attain some degree of
calmness, mortified as he was by having been seen by Philip in
the act of passively submitting to the insults of the fiery King
of England.
Possessed of many of those royal qualities for which he was
termed by his subjects the August, Philip might be termed the
Ulysses, as Richard was indisputably the Achilles, of the
Crusade. The King of France was sagacious, wise, deliberate in
council, steady and calm in action, seeing clearly, and steadily
pursuing, the measures most for the interest of his kingdom
--dignified and royal in his deportment, brave in person, but a
politician rather than a warrior. The Crusade would have been no
choice of his own; but the spirit was contagious, and the
expedition was enforced upon him by the church, and by the
unanimous wish of his nobility. In any other situation, or in a
milder age, his character might have stood higher than that of
the adventurous Coeur de Lion. But in the Crusade, itself an
undertaking wholly irrational, sound reason was the quality of
all others least estimated, and the chivalric valour which both
the age and the enterprise demanded was considered as debased if
mingled with the least touch of discretion.
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