Then the Franks, who had redeemed the city with their blood, eager to see their parents, sons, and wives, and perhaps confident in their number and bravery, decided to return to their own sweet home by the same land route they had taken when they came. Although they thought that they would be able to pass freely through the land surrounding Nicea, which they had seized earlier, the Turks, who had been placed there by the emperor once the city had been turned over to him to impede the Franks when the occasion arose, put up strenuous resistance to them. Unless I am mistaken, my priest[263] says that they cut to pieces 100,000 men, but I fear that the man is wrong in offering such a number, because it is the case that he is eager to offer such guesses elsewhere. For example, he dares to estimate that those who set out for Jerusalem numbered 6,000,000.[264] I would be surprised if all the land this side of the Alps, indeed if all the kingdoms of the West, could supply so many men, since we know for a fact that at the first battle before the walls of Nicea scarcely 100, 000 fully-equipped knights are reported to have been present. And if he was concerned with including all those who had gone on the journey, but who died, on land and on the sea, of sickness or hunger, in the various regions through which they passed, they still would not amount to such a great number of men. After the Franks, then, had suffered hideous carnage, most of those who had survived returned to Jerusalem, having lost what they owned. The generous king genuinely commiserated with them, gave them many gifts, and persuaded them to return to their homeland by sea.