Pope's
legate; Robert, Duke of Normandy, the heroic and reckless son of William
the Conqueror; Count Robert of Paris, wild and ferocious; the gallant
Count of Flanders; Stephen of Blois, Count of Chartres; and the pure and
perfect knight, Tancred.

All these leaders Alexius flattered and cajoled with soft words and
magnificent gifts, promising them help and support on condition that
the cities in Asia Minor formerly belonging to his empire, if captured
by the Crusaders, be returned to him. But Alexius was a weak and
deceitful prince, caring naught for anything save his own interest, as
the Crusaders soon discovered. So it was without regret, in spite of his
sumptuous entertainment of them, that Godfrey and the other leaders took
leave of the Greek emperor and crossed the Bosphorus. This took some
time, for the immense armies numbered one hundred thousand knights on
horseback, clad in armor, five hundred thousand foot-soldiers, and
numerous priests, women, and little children. They outnumbered "the
sands of the sea, the leaves of the forest, the stars of heaven," writes
the daughter of Alexius.

This vast host soon encamped before the large city of Nicaea, its strong
walls and hundreds of towers swarming with Turks. Here, Godfrey's men
found, wandering in the desert, Peter the Hermit and a few wretched men
who had escaped when their companions were slaughtered by the Turks.
These few were the remnant of the hundred thousand pilgrims--men, women,
and children--whom the wild monk had undertaken to lead to Palestine
soon after the Council of Clermont. So numerous were the bones of these
slain Crusaders, near Nicaea, that the soldiers of Godfrey used them in
building the walls and divisions of his great camp before that city.

Scarcely had this camp been completed when the Sultan of Nicaea,
Kilidge-Arslan, the "Sword of the Lion," swept down from the mountain on
the Christian army. "Then the two armies joined, mingled, and attacked
each other with equal fury. Everywhere glittered casques and shields;
lances rung against cuirasses; the air resounded with piercing cries;
the terrified horses recoiled at the din of arms and the hissing of
arrows; the earth trembled under the tread of the combatants; and the
plain was for a vast space bristling with javelins."

Godfrey was here, there, everywhere, in the fiercest of the fight,
slaying the infidels on all sides. His high contempt of danger and death
inspired his men to fight