IT would be difficult at the present day to appreciate the wild enthusiasm spread throughout Europe by the preaching of Peter the Hermit. Thousands from all classes--kings, princes, nobles, priests, peasants, beggars, all alike impelled by the same blind impulse, many amongst them scarcely knowing where they were going or for what they went to fight,--hastened to take up arms against the Infidel. The enthusiasm was not, as it would probably in our days, confined to one, nor even to three or four nations. "There were men," says Robert of Gloucester:-- "Of Normandy, of Denmark, of Norway, of Bretagne, Of Wales, and of Ireland, of Gascony, of Spain, Of Provence, of Saxony, and of Allemayne, Of Scotland, and of Greece, of Rome and Aquitaine." Ay, and women too. The first Crusading armies which set out in the spring of 1096, commanded by Peter the Hermit, Gaultier-sans-Avoir, and other leaders of less reputation, comprised nearly as many women as men. Even where they did not contend hand to hand with the Saracens, these heroines cheered the warriors by marching with them in the ranks, by carrying food and ammunition to the battle-field, by speaking with enthusiasm of the cause for which they had armed. It was, indeed, owing as much to the courage and endurance of the women, who suffered without a murmur the miseries of cold, hunger, and want of clothing, as to their own indomitable bravery that the Templars owed the capture of Antioch. William of Tyre, speaking of the grand review held before Nice in 1099, says that exclusive of the cavalry, who, to the number of one hundred thousand were well armed in helmets and mail, there were found six hundred thousand Crusaders of both sexes, many of them little children. When the second Crusade was preached, many ladies, especially in France and Germany, formed themselves into squadrons and regiments of Amazons, and assumed the arms and armour of the Templars. The commander of the German Amazons, who, says Michaud, was more admired for her dress than her courage, received the title of the "Golden Footed Dame," or the "Lady with the Golden Legs," on account of her magnificent gilded buskins and spurs. She enrolled her troop under the banner of the emperor Conrad, who started for the East 1147. The French Amazons were commanded by their queen, Eleonora of Aquitaine (afterwards wife of Henry II. of England). Forming themselves into a squadron of light cavalry, they went through a regular course of military training, and, by constant exercise, they acquired tolerable proficiency in the use of arms.