sion, as they
arrived, take the oath of allegiance to him as their suzerain. One way or
another he exacted from each the barren homage on which he had set his
heart, and they were then allowed to proceed into Asia Minor. One only,
Raymond de St. Gilles count of Toulouse, obstinately refused the homage.

[5] Wilken.

Their residence in Constantinople was productive of no good to the armies
of the cross. Bickerings and contentions on the one hand, and the
influence of a depraved and luxurious court on the other, destroyed the
elasticity of their spirits, and cooled the first ardour of their
enthusiasm. At one time the army of the Count of Toulouse was on the point
of disbanding itself; and, had not their leader energetically removed them
across the Bosphorus, this would have been the result. Once in Asia, their
spirits in some degree revived, and the presence of danger and difficulty
nerved them to the work they had undertaken. The first operation of the
war was the siege of Nice, to gain possession of which all their efforts
were directed.

Godfrey of Bouillon and the Count of Vermandois were joined under its
walls by each host in succession as it left Constantinople. Among the
celebrated Crusaders who fought at this siege we find, besides the leaders
already mentioned, the brave and generous Tancred, whose name and fame
have been immortalised in the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, the valorous Bishop
of Puy, Baldwin, afterwards king of Jerusalem, and Peter the Hermit, now
an almost solitary soldier, shorn of all the power and influence he had
formerly possessed. Kilij Aslaun the sultan of Roum and chief of the
Seljukian Turks, whose deeds, surrounded by the false halo of romance, are
familiar to the readers of Tasso, under the name of Soliman, marched to
defend this city, but was defeated after several obstinate engagements, in
which the Christians shewed a degree of heroism that quite astonished him.
The Turkish chief had expected to find a wild undisciplined multitude,
like that under Peter the Hermit, without leaders capable of enforcing
obedience; instead of which, he found the most experienced leaders of the
age at the head of armies that had just fanaticism enough to be ferocious,
but not enough to render them ungovernable. In these engagements, many
hundreds fell on both sides; and on both sides the most revolting
barbarity was practised: the Crusaders cut off the heads of the fallen
Mussulmans, and sent them in pa