The scenes of carnage that followed are revolting to humanity. The Roman pontiff himself, who had granted a plenary indulgence to all who engaged in the expedition, was compelled to denounce their brutality. He accused them of “sparing neither age nor sex, nor religious profession, of the allies they came to assist; deeds of darkness were perpetrated in the open day; noble matrons and holy nuns suffered insult in the Catholic camp.” As an instance of individual suffering, an imperial senator, Nicetas, an eye-witness, details what he himself endured. His palace being reduced to ashes, he fled for refuge to an obscure house in the suburbs of the town. Here he concealed himself, guarded by a friendly Venetian in disguise, till an opportunity occurred of saving his own life, and the chastity of his daughter, from the ferocious crusaders who were pillaging the city. On a winter’s night, with his wife and tender child, carrying all they possessed on their shoulders, they fled for life; and, in order to disguise their rank and features, smeared their clothes and faces with mud; nor could they rest a moment, from their pursuers, till they reached a distance of forty miles from the capital. On their road, they overtook the venerable Greek patriarch, the head of the Christian church in the East, flying also for his life, mounted on an ass, and almost naked. Nicetas afterwards lived to instruct and inform the world, by his important history of these events. Meantime the captors glutted, without restraint, every passion. They burst into the church of Santa Sophia, and other sacred edifices, which they defiled in the most wanton manner. They converted sacred chalices into drinking-cups, and trampled under foot the most venerable objects of Christian worship. In the cathedral, the veil of the sanctuary was torn to pieces for the sake of the fringe, and the finest monuments of pious art broken up for their material. It would be too revolting to detail all the particulars of these impious outrages; let one suffice. They placed on the throne of the patriarch a harlot, who sang and danced in the church, to ridicule the hymns and processions of the Oriental Christian worship.