and attacking the city with the blind courage of madness, succeeded in
making a breach in the walls. At this moment of victory an
unaccountable fear came over them. Throwing down their arms they fled
panic-stricken, no one knew why, and no one knew whither. The
Hungarians followed, sword in hand, and cut them down without remorse,
and in such numbers, that the stream of the Danube is said to have
been choked up by their unburied bodies.

This was the worst paroxysm of the madness of Europe; and this
passed, her chivalry stepped upon the scene. Men of cool heads, mature
plans, and invincible courage stood forward to lead and direct the
grand movement of Europe upon Asia. It is upon these men that romance
has lavished her most admiring epithets, leaving to the condemnation
of history the vileness and brutality of those who went before. Of
these leaders the most distinguished were Godfrey of Bouillon Duke of
Lorraine, and Raymond Count of Toulouse. Four other chiefs of the
royal blood of Europe also assumed the Cross, and led each his army to
the Holy Land: Hugh, Count of Vermandois, brother of the King of
France; Robert, Duke of Normandy, the elder brother of William Rufus;
Robert Count of Flanders, and Boemund Prince of Tarentum, eldest son
of the celebrated Robert Guiscard. These men were all tinged with the
fanaticism of the age, but none of them acted entirely from religious
motives. They were neither utterly reckless like Gautier sans Avoir,
crazy like Peter the Hermit, nor brutal like Gottschalk the Monk, but
possessed each of these qualities in a milder form; their valour being
tempered by caution, their religious zeal by worldly views, and their
ferocity by the spirit of chivalry. They saw whither led the torrent
of the public will; and it being neither their wish nor their interest
to stem it, they allowed themselves to be carried with it, in the hope
that it would lead them at last to a haven of aggrandizement. Around