ces to be rendered by him to the empire and the emperor.

The chiefs of the crusade were not alone in treating with disdain this
haughty, wily, and feeble sovereign. During a ceremony at which some
French princes were doing homage to the emperor, a Count Robert of Paris
went and sat down free-and-easily beside him; when Baldwin, count of
Hainault, took the intruder by the arm, saying, "When you are in a
country you must respect its masters and its customs." "Verily,"
answered Robert, "I hold it shocking that this jackanapes should be
seated, whilst so many noble captains are standing yonder." When the
ceremony was over, the emperor, who had, no doubt, heard the words,
wished to have an explanation; so he detained Robert, and asked him who
and whence he was. "I am a Frenchman," quoth Robert; "and of noble
birth. In my country there is, hard by a church, a spot repaired to by
such as burn to prove their valor. I have been there often without any
one's daring to present himself before me." The emperor did not care to
take up this sort of challenge, and contented himself with replying to
the warrior, "If you there waited for foes without finding any, you are
now about to have what will satisfy you. I have, however, a piece of
advice to give you; don't put yourself at the head or the tail of the
army; keep in the middle. I have learned how to fight with Turks; and
that is the best place you can choose." The crusaders and the Greeks
were mutually contemptuous, the former with a ruffianly pride, the latter
with an ironical and timid refinement.

This posture, on either side, of inactivity, ill-will, and irritation,
could not last long. On the approach of the spring of 1097, the crusader
chiefs and their troops, first Godfrey de Bouillon, then Bohemond and
Tancred, and afterwards Count Raymond of Toulouse, passed the Bosphorus,
being conveyed across either in their own vessels or those of the Emperor
Alexis, who encouraged them against the infidels, and at the same time
had the infidels supplied with information most damaging to the
crusaders. Having effected a junction in Bithynia, the Christian chiefs
resolved to go and lay siege to Nicaea, the first place, of importance,
in possession of the Turks. Whilst marching towards the place they saw
coming to meet then, with every appearance of the most woful destitution,
Peter the Hermit, followed by a small band of pilgrims escaped from the
disasters of their expeditio