Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/137

A.D 1096.] fever, but "immediately he shook disease from his limbs, and rising, as it were, with expanded breast, from years of decrepitude, he shone with renovated vigour." In order to furnish money for the expedition he had undertaken, he sold to the Church of Liege his beautiful domain and castle of Bouillon; and the standard which he raised was joined by his brother Baldwin, his relation Baldwin de Bourg, and many other knights of fame.



The army of Godfrey commenced its march from the Moselle in August, 1096, and followed the course previously taken by Peter the Hermit. The order and moderation which marked the conduct of the disciplined troops of Godfrey was as remarkable as the violence and excesses committed by the rabble which had preceded them. The march was conducted peaceably, and without incident, to the frontiers of Hungary, where the army came in sight of the unburied corpses of the multitude slain near Merseburg.

Godfrey called a halt, and proceeded to investigate the causes of the spectacle which lay before him. He wrote a firm but temperate letter to the King of Hungary, demanding an account of the carnage, and Carloman sent envoys with a reply which proved satisfactory. An Interview subsequently took place between the duke and the king, at the fortress of Posen. Godfrey went towards this place accompanied by an escort of 300 knights, and conversed with the Hungarian monarch on the reconciliation of the Christians, The rights of hospitality, which were