Alexios I Komnenos but these victories were unable to stop the Turks altogether. As early as 1090, Alexios had taken reconciliatory measures towards the Papacy, with the intention of seeking western support against the Seljuqs. In 1095 his ambassadors appeared before Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza. The help he sought from the West was simply some mercenary forces, not the immense hosts that arrived, to his consternation and embarrassment, after the pope preached the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont later that same year. Not quite ready to supply this number of people as they traversed his territories, the
Pope Urban X the page where this child is mentioned. ""Notice how exceedingly discreet our author is. There has so far been no Pope called Urban X. He hesitates to ascribe a bastard to an actual Pope. What Discretion! What a tender conscience he shows!"" This issue may have been slightly distorted in the BBC's 1973 dramatisation of "Candide", where Voltaire says ironically "Observe that the name of the Pope has been chosen completely at random", which viewers may have taken as implying that this was a genuine Pope who was a womaniser. Pope Urban X Pope Urban X is a fictional pope