The story of the First Crusade is an oft-told tale. But it is a tale which bears telling often. There is nothing in history which may be compared with this extraordinary rising of whole peoples. The numbers which came from Western Europe cannot, of course, be even approximately stated. Probably, counting the women, children, and camp-followers, their number would not be less than a million. Of these, far more than a half, probably two-thirds, came from the provinces of France. The Germans were but slightly affected by the universal enthusiasm—the English not at all. Edgar Atheling brought a band of his countrymen to join Robert of Normandy; but these were probably those who had compromised themselves in former attempts to raise Northumbria and other parts of England. The Italians came from the south, but not from the north; and nearly the whole of Spain was occupied by the caliphate of Cordova. That all these soldiers were fired with the same ardour, were led by the same disinterested hope, is not to be supposed; but it is certain from every account, whether Christian or Arabic, that the main object of their enterprise was a motive power strong enough, of itself, to enable them to endure hardships and privations almost incredible, and to combat with forces numerically, at least, ten times their superior. The way to the Holy Land lay through a hostile country. Asia Minor, overrun by the Mohammedans since twenty years, was garrisoned rather than settled. Numerous as were the followers of the Crescent, they had not been able to do more, in their rapid march of conquest, than to take strongholds and towns, and keep them. There were even some towns which had never surrendered, while of those which belonged to them, many were held by insufficient forces, and contained an element of weakness in the large number of Christian inhabitants. And the first of these towns which came in their way was the town of Nicæa. The miserable remnant of Peter’s army, on the arrival of their friends, made haste to show them the places of their own disasters. These fugitives had lived hidden in the forest, and now, on seeing the _brassard_ of the Cross, emerged—barefooted, ragged, unarmed, cowed—to tell the story of their sufferings. They took the soldiers to see the plain where their great army had been massacred—there were the piles of bones, the plain white with them; they took them to the camp where the women and children had been left. These were gone, but the remains were left of the old men and those who had tried to defend them. Their bodies lay in the moat which had been cut round the camp. In the centre, like a pillar of reproach, stood the white stones which had served for the altar of the camp.