“Alas!” says Albert of Aix, “alas! what grief for these women so tender and so noble, led into captivity by savages so impious and so horrible! For these men had their heads shaven in front, at the sides, and at the nape, the little hair left fell behind in disorder, and in few plaits, upon their necks; their beards were thick and unkempt, and everything, with their garments, gave them the appearance of infernal and unclean spirits. There were no bounds to the cries and lamentations of these delicate women; the camp re-echoed with their groans; one had seen her husband perish, one had been left behind by hers. Some were beheaded after serving to gratify the lust of the Turks; some whose beauty had struck their eyes were reserved for a wretched captivity. After having taken so many women in the tents of the Christians, the Turks set off in pursuit of the foot-soldiers, the knights, the priests, and the monks; they struck them with the sword as a reaper cuts the wheat with his sickle; they respected neither age nor rank, they spared none but those whom they destined to be soldiers. The ground was covered with immense riches abandoned by the fugitives. Here and there were seen splendid dresses of various colours; horses and mules lay about the plain; blood inundated the roads, and the number of dead amounted to more than a hundred and sixty thousand.” As for the arm of St. Ambrose, that was lost too, and it doubtless lies still upon the plain beyond Ancyra, waiting to work more miracles. It is exasperating to find all the chroniclers, with the exception of Albert of Aix, passing over with hardly a word of sympathy the miserable fate of the helpless women, and pouring out their regrets over this trumpery relic. There was another army still, headed by the Duke of Nevers. They followed in the footsteps of their predecessors as far as Ancyra, where they turned southwards. Their fate was the same as that of the others: all were killed. The leader, who had fled to Germanicopolis, took some Greek soldiers as guides. These stripped him, and left him alone in the forest. He wandered about for some days, and at last found his way to Antioch, as poor and naked as any beggar in his own town. The third and last army, headed by the Count Hugh of Vermandois, met with a similar end. Thirst, heat, and hunger destroyed their strength, for the Turks had filled the wells, destroyed the crops, and let the water out of the cisterns. On the river Halys they met their end; William of Poitiers, like the Duke of Nevers, arrived naked at Antioch. The luckless Count of Vermandois got as far as Tarsus, where he died of his wounds, and poor Ida of Austria, who came, as she thought, under the protection of the pilgrims, with all her noble ladies, was never heard of any more.