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 WEAKENING OF THE EMPIRE BY THE CRUSADES. 123 to preserve order, but neither his precautions, nor those of Manuel, were sufficient to prevent continual attacks, with the object of plunder, on the inhabitants of the country throu<;h which the army was passing. Before long the provinces were ransacked by pilgrims and troops alike for provisions — as if they formed part of an enemy's country. The Bulgarians and other subjects of the empire retaliated. A relation of Conrad was plundered and murdered in a monastery at Adrianople by Byzantine soldiers. Conrad, who had advanced two days' journey beyond that city, sent back a body of troops under his nephew, the celebrated Frederic Barbarossa, to punish the offenders. The monastery was burned. The Byzantine troops were attacked, and it was not until after several men had been killed that the commander of the imperial troops succeeded in preventing a general engagement. The incident served to in- crease the ill-feeling that existed between the two armies. At length the Crusaders reached Constantinople, and behaved in its vicinity as if they were in an enemy's country. The beautiful villas of the Byzantine nobles and merchants exist- ing in the neighborhood of the capital were ruthlessly plun- dered and destroyed. After passing the Bosphorus the army began to encounter more serious difficulties, and met with a series of disasters. The latter were due partly to bad manage- ment and partly to the difficulties inherent to the enterprise itself. The difficulty of finding provisions in a country which was already thinly inhabited, and the inhabitants of which were treated as enemies, was the first cause of these disasters. The fact that the journey was made in summer through a country which was even then largely troubled with malarial fever added much to the difficulties. All their misfortunes were attributed by the Crusaders to the Greeks, and a dispo- sition began to develop itself very early among the former to conquer Christian people when they were unable to subdue the Mahometans. The division of Crusaders under Louis YII. met that under the leadership of Conrad at Nicsea. The feeling of hostility created among the French division was not less than that which had been aroused among the Teutons. Louis found