volume one

niSTOKV OF TJIE CRUSADES. 73
—to have been placed upon the passage of the pilgrims as
instruments of divine wrath. A very small number escaped
the carnage. Among the few who found safety in flight,
some returned into their own country, where they were
welcomed by the scorn and jeers of their compatriots ; the
rest arrived at Constantinople, where the Greeks learnt the
new disasters of the Latins, with so much the more joy,
from having suifered greatly from the excesses committed by
the army of Peter the Hermit.
This army, united to that of AValter, had received under
its standard an accession of Pisans, Yenetians, and Genoese,
and might amomit to about a hundred thousand combatants.
The remembrance of their misery caused them for a time to
respect the commands of the emperor and the laws of hos-
pitality ; but abundance, idleness, and the sight of the riches
of Constantinople, brought back to their camp, license,
insubordination, and a thirst for plunder. Impatient to
receive the signal for war, they pillaged the houses, the
palaces, and even the chuiThes, of the suburbs of Byzantium.
To deliver his capital from these destructive guests, Alexis
furnished them with vessels, and transported them to the
other side of the Bosphorus.
]>^othing could be expected from a band composed of a
confused mixture of all nations, and the wrecks of several
undisciplined armies. A great number of the Crusaders, on
quitting their country, had thought of nothing but accomplishing
their vow, and only sighed for the happiness of
beholding Jerusalem ; but these pious dispositions had all
vanished on their route. "WTiatever may be the motive that
brings them together, when men are not confined by any
restraint, the most corrupted gain the ascendancy, and bad
examples constitute the law. As soon as the soldiers of
Peter had passed the straits, they considered all they met
their enemies, and the subjects of the Greek emperor suffered
much more than the Turks from their first exploits. In
their blindness, they allied superstition with license, and
under the banners of the cross, committed crimes which
make nature shudder.* But discord soon broke out amongst
* There were in the army of Peter the Hermit, says Anna Comnena,
ten thousand Normans, who committed horrible excesses in the neighbourhood
of Nicea. They chopped children in pieces, stuck others upon