From the earliest period of the siege the Crusaders could scarcely procure the common necessaries of life at their weight in gold. A loaf of moderate size sold at a bezant, an egg was worth six Lucquese deniers, whilst a pound of silver was given for the head of an ox, a horse, or an ass. Godfrey bought for fifteen silver marks a half-starved camel, and gave three marks for a goat, which at other times would have been rejected by the poorest soldiers of his army. Surrounded by the vast riches conquered from the Saracens, the Crusaders were thus condemned to all the horrors and miseries of famine. After having killed most of their horses, they were compelled to make war upon unclean animals. The soldiers and the poor who followed the army supported themselves on roots and leaves; some went so far as to devour the leather of their bucklers and shoes, whilst the most wretched exhumed the bodies of the Saracens, and, to support their miserable existence, disputed with death for his prey. In this frightful distress, disconsolate mothers could no longer nourish their babes, and died with famine and despair. Princes and knights, whose pride and haughtiness had been the most conspicuous, were brought to the necessity of asking alms. The count of Flanders went begging to the houses and in the streets of Antioch for the commonest and coarsest orts, and often obtained none. More than one leader sold his arms and all his appointments for food to support him a single day. As long as the duke of Lorraine had any provisions he shared them with his companions; but at length he made the sacrifice of his last war-horse, and found himself, as were all the other Crusaders, reduced to the most cruel necessities. Many of the Crusaders endeavoured to fly from a city which presented to them nothing but the image and the prospect of death; some fled by sea, through a thousand dangers, whilst others cast themselves amongst the Mussulmans, where they purchased a little bread by the abandonment of Christ and his religion. The soldiers necessarily lost courage when they saw that count de Melun, who so often defied death in the field, a second time fly from famine and misery. His desertion was preceded by that of the count de Blois, who bore the standard of the Crusaders, and presided at their councils. He had quitted the army two days before the taking of Antioch, and when he learned the arrival of Kerboghâ, he, with his troops, immediately marched towards Constantinople.