Nicetas, the Grand Logothete, whose own house was burnt earlier in the siege, and who now had to escape with his family as best he might, tells piteous tales of the horrors that ensued. Of the destruction of precious things it seems impossible to draw an adequate picture. S. Sophia, then the richest as well as the finest church in the world, was utterly despoiled; and what had been "an earthly heaven, a throne of divine magnificence, an image of the firmament created by the Almighty," became like a bare barn, and was defiled by the most disgraceful scenes of profanity and horror. When the church had been stripped of everything it contained, the altars of precious metals broken up to be melted down, the vestments and carpets and hangings carried off, the sacred vessels packed up with the other plunder as if they were common things, the sacred icons torn down from the splendid iconostasis; when the tombs of the emperors had been rifled, and the body of Justinian cast out like that of a criminal in the search for treasure, it might be thought that the worst was over. It was not so. Then began the hunt for relics which made not the least degrading part of the work of these soldiers of Christ. Well was it said by a contemporary that if these soldiers had when they besieged the city the shield of the Lord, now when they had taken the city they threw away His shield and took the shield of the devil. Bitter, and well deserved, were the words of Nicetas. "You have taken up the Cross, and have sworn on it and on the Holy Gospels to us that you would pass over the territory of Christians without shedding blood and without turning to the right hand or to the left. You told us that you had taken up arms against the Saracens only, and that you would steep them in their blood alone. You promised to keep yourselves chaste while you bore the Cross, as became soldiers enrolled under the banner of Christ. Instead of defending His tomb, you have outraged the faithful who are members of Him. You have used Christians worse than the Arabs used the Latins, for they at least respected women."