The enthusiasm of the crusaders was not maintained by those who remained at home, since upon them fell the unromantic burden of providing money for the army’s sustenance. The Jews were openly robbed, the Abbot of Cluny declaring it a righteous thing to despoil them of wealth acquired by usury and sacrilege. Monasteries were bled of their long-accumulated treasure. Churches sold their ornaments and mortgaged their lands to supply the enormous demand. Thus the huzzas of the departing were echoed by the suppressed groans of those who were left behind. The Germans under Conrad III. had preceded the French. Before they reached Constantinople they had more than once to punish with violence the chronic perfidy of the Greeks. The Germans burned the monastery at Adrianople to avenge the assassination of one of their comrades. Beyond the Bosporus Conrad’s soldiers were incessantly picked off and slain by skulking Greeks. The flour they purchased from the merchants of Constantinople they found mixed with lime. The Greek guides were in alliance with the Turks, and led the Christians into ambuscades among the defiles of the Taurus. Conrad himself was twice wounded by treacherous arrows, and his host, reduced to one tenth of its original numbers, was forced to painfully retrace the way to Nicæa. The French were at first more cordially received by the Greeks than had been their German allies; but they soon learned that the Emperor Manuel was in collusion with the Sultan of Iconium. Louis hardly restrained his people from taking vengeance by assaulting the Greek capital, and forced them onward to the relief of the Germans. Conrad did not await their coming, but returned to Constantinople and made temporary fellowship with his betrayer. The French, thus deserted, continued their route alone. The Moslems massed against them on the bank of the Meander, only to be scattered by the fury of the French onset, or, if we may believe some of the spectators, by the appearance of the familiar celestial knight clad in white armor, who headed the Christian army.