In the year that preceded the expedition to Constantinople the Flemish and Champenois Crusaders, who had embarked at the ports of Bruges and Marseilles, landed at Ptolemaïs. At the same time came many English warriors, commanded by the earls of Northumberland, Norwich, and Salisbury; and a great number of pilgrims from Lower Brittany, who had chosen for leader the monk Hélain, one of the preachers of the crusade. These Crusaders, when united with those who had quitted the Christian army after the siege of Zara, became impatient to attack the Saracens, and as the king of Jerusalem was averse to breaking the truce made with the infidels, the greater part of them left Palestine, to fight under the banners of the prince of Antioch, who was at war with the prince of Armenia. Having refused to take guides, they were surprised and dispersed by a body of Saracens, sent against them by the sultan of Aleppo;[115] the few that escaped from the carnage, among whom history names two seigneurs de Neuilly, Bernard de Montmirail, and Renard de Dampierre, remained in the chains of the infidels. Hélain, the monk, had the grief to see the bravest of the Breton Crusaders perish on the field of battle, and returned almost alone to Ptolemaïs, to announce the bloody defeat of the soldiers of the cross. A horrible famine had, during two years, desolated Egypt, and extended its ravages into Syria. Contagious diseases followed the famine; the plague swept away the inhabitants of the Holy Land; more than two thousand Christians had received the rights of sepulture in the city of Ptolemaïs, in one single day! The deputies from the Holy Land, after rendering their melancholy account, invoked by tears and groans the prompt assistance of the army of the Crusaders; but the barons and knights could not abandon the enterprise they had begun; they promised the envoys from Palestine that they would turn their arms towards Syria, as soon as they had subdued the Greeks; and, pointing towards the walls of Constantinople, said: “_This is the road to salvation; this is the way to Jerusalem._” Alexius was bound to pay the Latins the sums he had promised; if he was faithful to his word, he had to apprehend a revolt of the Greeks; if he did not fulfil his engagements, he dreaded the arms of the Crusaders. Terrified by the general agitation that prevailed, and restrained by a double fear, the two emperors remained inactive in their palace, without daring to seek for peace, or prepare for war.