The country on the shores of the Bosphorus offered a no less deplorable spectacle than the capital. Villages, churches, country-houses were all devastated and given over to pillage. A distracted crowd covered the roads, and wandered about at hazard, pursued by fear, bending under fatigue, and uttering cries of despair. Senators, patricians, the offspring of a family of emperors, strayed homeless about, covered with rags, seeking for any miserable asylum. When the church of St. Sophia was pillaged, the patriarch fled away, imploring the charity of passengers; all the rich fell into indigence, and inspired nothing but contempt; the most illustrious nobility, the highest dignities, the splendour of talents or virtues, possessed nothing to create respect or attract admiration. Misery, like inevitable death, effaced all distinctions, and confounded all ranks; the dregs of the people completed the spoliation of the fugitives, at the same time insulting their misfortunes. A senseless multitude rejoiced at the public evils, applauded the degradation of the noble and the rich, and called these disastrous days, days of justice and equality.

Nicetas describes his misfortune and his own deplorable adventures; the house he had inhabited under the reign of the emperors was consumed by the flames of the second conflagration: having retired with his family to another house, built near the church of St. Sophia, he soon found himself in danger in this last asylum, and only owed his safety to devoted friendship and gratitude. A Venetian merchant, whom he had saved from the fury of the Greeks before the flight of Alexius, was desirous, in his turn, of saving his benefactor; he armed himself with a sword and a lance, assumed the dress of a soldier of the cross, and as he spoke the languages of the West, he defended the entrance of the house of Nicetas, saying it was his, the price of his blood, shed in fight. This vigilant sentinel at first repulsed all aggressors, and braved a thousand perils; a model of fidelity and virtue, amidst the horrid disorders that desolated Constantinople.

The turbulent crowd of soldiers that filled the streets and penetrated everywhere, became indignant that a single house should be thus exempt from their brutal searches. The despairing Venetian at length came to Nicetas, and told him that it was totally out of his power to defend him any longer. “If you remain here,” said he, “to-morrow, perhaps, you will be loaded with chains, and your family become a prey to all the violences of the conquerors. Follow me, and I will conduct you out of the gates of Constantinople.” Nicetas, with his wife and children, followed the faithful Venetian: their liberator, in armour, marched at their head, and led them as if they were prisoners.

This unfortunate family proceeded, filled with fear, meeting at every step soldiers greedy of pillage, who ill-treated the Greeks they plundered, and threatened every woman with insult. Nicetas, and some of his friends who had come to join him, carried their children in their arms, the only wealth that Heaven had left them; and defended alone by the pity which their despair and misery inspired. They walked together, placing their wives and daughters in the centre, after having advised the youngest to blacken their faces with earth. In spite of this precaution, the beauty of one young girl attracted the attention of a soldier, and she was borne away from the arms of her father, weighed down by age and infirmities. Nicetas, touched by the tears of the old man, flew after the ravisher, and addressing himself to all the warriors he met, he implored their pity, and conjured them, in the name of Heaven, the protector of virtue, in the name of their own families, to snatch a daughter from dishonour, to save a father from despair. The Frank warriors were affected by his prayer, and the unfortunate father soon saw his daughter restored to him, the only hope of his exile, the last consolation of his grey hairs. Nicetas and his companions in trouble encountered still further dangers, but at length got safely out of Constantinople by the Golden Gate, happy at being able to quit a country so lately the object of all their affections. The generous Venetian received their blessings, and in return prayed Heaven to protect them in their exile.

Nicetas, with tears, embraced his liberator, whom he never had the good fortune to see again; then casting a look upon Constantinople, upon his unhappy country, he addressed to it these touching complaints, which express the griefs of his exile, and which he himself has transmitted to us:[135]—“O Queen of Cities, what power has been able to separate us from thee! What consolation shall we find on issuing from thy walls, as naked as we issued from the bosom of our mothers! Become the sport of strangers, the companions of wild animals that inhabit the forests, we shall never again visit thy august domes, and can only fly with terror around thee, like sparrows round the spot where their nest has been destroyed.”

Nicetas arrived with his family at Cylindria, and afterwards retired to Nice, where he employed himself in retracing the history of the misfortunes of his country.

Constantinople did not cease to be the theatre of the frightful deeds of violence that war brings in its train. Amidst the sanguinary sports of victory, the Latins, to insult the effeminate manners of the Greeks, clothed themselves in long flowing robes, painted of various colours; they fastened to the heads of their horses linen hoods with their silken cords, in which the Orientals dress themselves; whilst others paraded the streets carrying in their hands, instead of a sword, some paper and an ink-horn; thus ridiculing the conquered, whom they termed scribes and copyers.

The Greeks had on all occasions insulted the ignorance of the Latins; the knights, without seeking to retort upon the quiet occupations of peace. With these dispositions it was not likely they should spare the monuments that decorated the public places, the palaces, or the edifices of Byzantium. Constantinople, which to this period had stood erect amidst the ruins of several empires, had collected within its walls the scattered relics of the arts, and was proud to exhibit the masterpieces that had been saved from the destruction of barbarous ages. The bronze, in which breathed the genius of antiquity, was cast into the furnace, and converted into money, to satisfy the greedy soldiers. The heroes and gods of the Nile, those of ancient Greece and of ancient Rome, the masterpieces of Praxiteles, Phidias, and the most celebrated artists, fell beneath the strokes of the conquerors.

Nicetas, who deplores the loss of these monuments, has left us a description, from which the history of art may derive some advantage.[136] The historian of Byzantium informs us that in the Place of Constantine stood, before the siege, the statue of Juno, and that of Paris offering to Venus the prize of beauty, or the apple of discord. The statue of Juno, which had formerly adorned the temple of the goddess at Samos, was of so colossal a size, that when it was destroyed by the Crusaders, eight harnessed oxen were required to drag the gigantic head to the palace of Bucoleon. In the same place was erected an obelisk of a square form, which astonished the spectator by the multitude and variety of the objects it presented to his view. On the sides of this obelisk the artist had represented, in basso-relievo, all sorts of birds saluting the return of the sun, villagers employed in their rustic labours, shepherds playing on their pipes, sheep bleating, lambs bounding on the grass; further on, a tranquil sea and fishes of a thousand sorts, some taken alive, others breaking the nets and regaining their deep retreats; at the back of the landscape, naked cupids playing and throwing apples at each other; at the top of the obelisk, which terminated in a pyramidal form, was the figure of a woman that turned with the least breath of air, which was called the attendant of the winds.

An equestrian statue[137] ornamented the place of Mount Taurus; the horse appeared to throw up the dust with his feet, and outspeed the winds in his course. As the horseman had his arm extended towards the sun, some supposed it to represent Joshua, commanding the star of day to stand still, on the plains of Gabaon; others believed the artist meant to describe Bellerophon mounted on Pegasus.[138]

A colossal statue of Hercules,[139] attributed to Lysippus, was one of the ornaments of the Hippodrome; the demigod had neither his bow nor his club; he was seated on a bed of osier;[140] his left knee bent, sustained his elbow; his head reclining on his left hand; his pensive looks and air expressing the vexation and sorrow caused by the jealousy of Eurystheus. The shoulders and chest of Hercules were broad, his hair was curled, and his limbs were large and muscular; his leg alone exceeded in height the stature of an ordinary man. The skin of the Nemean lion, exhibited over the shoulders of the son of Alemena, the erected mane and the head of the animal, which might be fancied still to roar and terrify the passers by, who stopped to contemplate the statue.

Not far from the terrible Hercules, was a group of an ass and its driver, which Augustus placed in his colony of Nicopolis, to perpetuate the remembrance of a singular circumstance that had foretold the victory of Actium to him. Near this were the hyena or she-wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus, a monument from the old nations of the West;[141] the sphinx, with the face of a woman, dragging frightful animals behind her; the crocodile, an inhabitant of the Nile, with his tail covered with horrible scales; a man fighting with a lion; an elephant with his supple trunk; and the antique Scylla, showing before, the features of a woman, with large breasts and a deformed figure; and behind, such monsters as those that pursued Ulysses and his companions. In the same place was an eagle clutching a serpent in his talons, and bearing it away towards the azure vault; the bronze beautifully exhibited the pain of the reptile, and the haughty fierceness of the bird of Jupiter. When the sun shone on the horizon, the extended wings of the king of the air denoted, by lines skilfully traced, the twelve hours of the day.

All who, in that gross age, preserved any taste for the arts, admired the figure of a young woman, her hair plaited on her brow, and gathered into a knot behind, placed upon a column of the Circus; this young woman, as if by enchantment, bore in her right hand a horseman, whose horse she held by one foot; the horseman covered with his cuirass, and the spirited, neighing steed, seemed listening to the warlike trumpet, and to breathe nothing but eagerness for the fight. Near the eastern boundary of the Circus were represented in bronze, the charioteers who had gained prizes, and whose triumphs, in times gone by, had often divided the empire into two factions; they appeared standing in their chariots, running in the lists, pulling and loosening by turns the reins of their coursers, and encouraging them by gesture and voice. Not far from this, upon a basis of stone, were several Egyptian animals, the aspic, the basilisk, and the crocodile, all engaged in mortal combat,—an image of the war made by the wicked on each other; the hideous forms of these animals, the rage and pain expressed throughout their bodies, the livid poison which seemed to exhale with their bites, altogether inspired a feeling of disgust and terror. Another masterpiece, made to charm the sight, ought, at least, to have touched and disarmed the conquerors. Among the statues described by Nicetas, none is more conspicuous than a Helen with her charming smile and her voluptuous attitude; a Helen, with perfect regularity of features, her hair floating at the pleasure of the winds, her eyes full of languor, her lips, which even in the bronze were rosy; her arms, of which even the same bronze showed the whiteness; Helen, in short, with all her beauty, and such as she appeared before the old men of Ilium, who were ravished at her presence.

Constantinople contained many other splendid objects of art, which preceding ages had admired; almost all such as were of bronze were condemned to perish, the Crusaders seeing in these monuments nothing but the metal of which they were composed. “That which antiquity had judged,” says Nicetas, “of inestimable value, became, all at once, a common matter; and that which had cost immense sums, was changed by the Latins into pieces of coin of very little value!” The statues of marble held out less temptation for the cupidity of the conquerors, and received no other injuries than such as were inseparable from the tumult and disorders of war.

The Greeks, who appeared so proud of their knowledge, themselves neglected the fine arts. The sciences of Greece, the profane wisdom of the Academy and the Lyceum, had given place among them to the debates of scholastic theology, they passed by the Hippodrome with indifference, and held nothing in reverence but relics and images of saints. These religious treasures, preserved with care in the churches and palaces of Byzantium, had, during several ages, attracted the attention of the Christian world; in the days that followed the conquest, they tempted the pious cupidity of the Crusaders. Whilst the greater part of the warriors bore away the gold, the jewels, the carpets, and the rich stuffs of the East, the more devout of the pilgrims, particularly the ecclesiastics, collected a booty much more innocent and appropriate to the soldiers of Christ. Many braved the prohibitions of their leaders and their superiors, and did not disdain to employ by turns supplications and menaces, stratagem or violence, to procure relics that were the objects of their respect and veneration. Contemporary history relates several examples of this, which serve to make us acquainted with the spirit of the pilgrim conquerors of Byzantium. Martin Litz, abbot of Paris, in the diocese of Bâle, entered into a church that had been given up to pillage, and penetrated, without being observed, into a retired place, where numerous relics were deposited, under the guardianship of a Greek monk.[142] This Greek monk was then at prayers, with his hands raised supplicatingly towards heaven. His old age, his white hairs, his fervent piety, and the grief impressed upon his brow, were calculated to inspire both respect and pity; but Martin, approaching the venerable guardian of the treasures with an angry manner, exclaimed in a threatening tone, “Miserable old man, if thou dost not instantly conduct me to the place where thy relics are hidden, prepare to die on the spot!” The monk, terrified by this menace, immediately and tremblingly arose, and pointed to a large iron coffer, into which the pious abbot eagerly plunged both his hands, and seized everything precious that he could grasp. Delighted with this conquest, he ran to conceal his treasures on board a vessel, and contrived, by a holy fraud, to keep them for several days from the knowledge of the leaders and prelates of the army, who had strictly ordered the pilgrims to bring to an appointed place all the relics that fell into their hands.

Martin Litz, at first, returned to the Christians of Palestine, who had sent him to Constantinople; and, a short time after, came back to Europe, loaded with spoils obtained from the clergy of Byzantium. Among the relics he exhibited on his return, were, a piece of the true cross, the bones of St. John the Baptist, and an arm of St. James. The miraculous translation of this treasure is celebrated with much pomp by the monk Gunther, in whom it created more surprise and joy than the conquest of a great empire. If we may credit the account of the German monk, angels descended from heaven to watch over the relics of Martin Litz. On the route of the holy abbot, the tempests of the ocean were silent, pirates were struck motionless, and robbers, those pests of travellers, stopped short, seized with respect and fear. At length Martin Litz was received in triumph at Bâle, and the treasures he had preserved through so many perils, were distributed among the principal churches of the diocese.

Another priest, named Galon de Dampierre, of the diocese of Langres, less adroit or less fortunate than Martin Litz, had not been able to obtain any share of the spoils of the churches; he went and threw himself at the feet of the pope’s legate, and implored him, with tears in his eyes, to permit him to carry back to his country the head of St. Mames. A third ecclesiastic of Picardy, having found the head of St. George, and the head of St. John the Baptist, concealed among the ruins, hastened to quit Constantinople, and, laden with such a rich prize, presented to the cathedral of Amiens, his country, the inestimable relics of which Providence had made him the possessor.

The princes and barons did not despise these holy spoils. Dandolo, receiving as his share[143] a piece of the true cross, which the emperor Constantine was accustomed to have borne before him to battle, made a present of it to the republic of Venice. Baldwin kept for himself the crown of thorns of Christ, and several other relics found in the palace of Bucoleon. He sent Philip Augustus, king of France, a portion of the true cross, a foot in length; some of the hair of Jesus Christ, when an infant; and the linen in which the Man-God was enveloped in the stable in which he was born.

The Greek priests and monks, thus plundered by the conquerors, parted with tears from the remains of the saints that had been confided to their keeping, and which every day cured the sick, made the lame to walk, restored sight to the blind, and strength to the paralytic. These holy spoils, that the devotion of the faithful had gathered together from all the countries of the East, went to illustrate the churches of France and Italy, and were received by the Christians of the West as the most glorious trophies of the victories God had enabled the Crusaders to obtain.

Constantinople fell into the power of the Latins on the 10th of April, towards the end of Lent. The marshal of Champagne, after relating some of the scenes we have described, says with great simplicity, “Thus passed the splendid festivities of Easter.” The clergy called the Crusaders to penitence; the voice of religion made itself heard in hearts hardened by victory; the soldiers crowded to the churches they had devastated, and celebrated the sufferings and death of Christ upon the wrecks of his own altars.

This solemn epoch without doubt inspired some generous sentiments; all the Latins were not deaf to the language of the charity of the Gospel. We feel bound here to admit that the greater part of the knights and ecclesiastics protected the liberty and lives of the citizens, and the honour of matrons and virgins; but such was the spirit that then possessed the warriors, that all the Crusaders allowed themselves to be overcome by the thirst for booty; and the leaders, equally with the soldiers, exercised, without hesitation or scruple, the right which their victory had given them of plundering the conquered. It was agreed that all the spoils should be deposited in three churches, selected for the purpose; and the leaders commanded the Crusaders to bring, in common, the whole of the booty, and threatened with death and excommunication all who should abstract anything from the prize of the valour, and the recompense due to the labours of the whole army. Many soldiers, and even some knights, allowed themselves to be led away by avarice, and retained valuable objects that fell into their hands. “Which,” says the marshal of Champagne, “made the Lord to begin to love them less.” The justice of the counts and barons was inflexible towards the guilty; the count of St. Pol ordered one of his knights, who had withheld something from the common stock of booty, to be hung, with his escutcheon suspended from his neck.[144] Thus the Greeks, plundered by violence, might be present at the punishment of some of the ravishers of their property, and might contemplate with surprise the regulations of stern equity mingled with the disorders of victory and pillage. After the festival of Easter, the Crusaders shared the captured riches; the fourth part of the spoil was set aside for him who should be chosen emperor, and the rest was divided among the French and the Venetians. The French Crusaders, who had conquered Zara, to the sole advantage of the Venetians, were not the less called upon to pay the fifty thousand silver marks they owed to the republic; the amount was deducted beforehand from the portion of the booty that belonged to them. In the division that was made among the warriors of Lombardy, Germany, and France, each knight had a part equal to that of two horsemen, and every horseman one equal to that of two foot-soldiers. All the plunder of the Greeks only yielded[145] four hundred thousand silver marks; but although this sum far exceeded the revenues of all the kingdoms of the West, it did not by any means represent the value of the riches accumulated in Byzantium. If the princes and barons, upon making themselves masters of the city, had been satisfied with imposing a tribute upon the inhabitants, they might have received a much larger sum; but this pacific manner of obtaining wealth agreed neither with their character nor the humour they were in. History asserts that the Venetians, in this circumstance, offered them some very prudent advice, and made propositions that were rejected with scorn. The Frank warriors could not condescend to submit the advantages of victory to commercial calculations; the produce of pillage was always, in their eyes, the most worthy fruit of conquest, and the most noble reward of valour.

When they had thus shared the rich plunder of the Eastern empire, the Crusaders gave way to the most extravagant joy, without perceiving that they had committed a great fault in exhausting a country which was about to become their own; they did not reflect that the ruin of the conquered might one day bring on that of the conquerors, and that they might become as poor as the Greeks they had just despoiled. Without regrets, as without foresight, hoping everything from their own good swords, they set about electing a leader who should reign over a people in mourning and a desolated city. The imperial purple had still the same splendour in their eyes, and the throne, though shaken by their arms, was still the object of their ambition. Six electors were chosen from among the Venetian nobles, and six others from among the French ecclesiastics, to give a master to Constantinople; the twelve electors assembled in the palace of Bucoleon, and swore, upon the Gospel, to crown only merit and virtue.

Three of the principal leaders of the crusade had equal claims to the suffrages of the electors. If the purple was to be the reward of experience, of ability in council, and of services rendered to the cause of the Latins, Henry Dandolo, who had been the moving spirit, the very soul of the enterprise, certainly had the first claim to it. The marquis of Montferrat, likewise, had titles worthy of great consideration; the Latins had chosen him for their leader, and the Greeks already acknowledged him as their master. His bravery, proved in a thousand fights, promised a firm and generous support to a throne that must rise from amidst ruins. His prudence and moderation might give the Latins and the people of Greece reason to hope that, when once raised to empire, he would repair the evils of war. The claims of Baldwin to the imperial crown were not less cogent than those of his concurrents. The count of Flanders was related to the most powerful monarchs of the West, and was descended, in the female line, from Charlemagne. He was much beloved by his soldiers, whose dangers he was always ready to share; he had deservedly obtained the esteem of the Greeks, who, even amidst the disorders of conquest, celebrated him as the champion of chastity and honour. Baldwin was the protector of the weak, the friend of the poor; he loved justice, and had no dread of truth. His youth, which he had already illustrated by brilliant exploits and solid virtues, gave the subjects of the new empire hopes of a long and happy reign; the rank he held among the warriors, his piety, his intelligence, his love of study and learned men, rendered him worthy of ascending the throne of Augustus and Constantine.

The electors at first turned their attention towards the venerable Dandolo; but the republicans of Venice trembled at the idea of seeing an emperor among their fellow-citizens: “What shall we not have to dread,” said they, “from a Venetian, become master of Greece, and of part of the East? Shall we be subject to his laws, or will he remain subject to the laws of our country? Under his reign, and under that of his successors, who will assure us that Venice, the Queen of the Seas, will not become one of the cities of this empire?” The Venetians, whilst speaking thus, bestowed just eulogiums upon the virtue and character of Dandolo: they added, that their doge, who was approaching the end of a life filled with great actions, had nothing left him but to finish his days with glory, and that he himself would find it more glorious to be the head of a victorious republic, than the sovereign of a conquered nation. “What Roman,” cried they, “would have been willing to lay down the title of citizen of Rome, to become king of Carthage?”

On terminating their speeches, the Venetians conjured the assembly to elect an emperor from among the other leaders of the army. After this, the choice of the electors could only be directed towards the count of Flanders and the marquis of Montferrat; the most wise dreading that the one of the two concurrents who should not obtain the empire, would be sure to give vent to his dissatisfaction, and would desire the fall of the throne occupied by his rival. They still remembered the violent debates which, in the first crusade, had followed the election of Godfrey of Bouillon; and the troubles excited in the young kingdom of Jerusalem, by the jealous ambition of Raymond de St. Gilles. To prevent the effects of such a fatal discord, it was judged best to decree, at once, that the prince that should gain the suffrages for the imperial throne, should yield to the other, under the condition of fealty and homage, the property of the island of Candia, and all the lands of the empire situated on the other side of the Bosphorus. After this decision, the assembly turned their whole attention to the election of an emperor. Their choice was for a long time uncertain. The marquis of Montferrat at first appeared to have the majority of the suffrages; but the Venetians were fearful of seeing upon the throne of Constantinople a prince who had any possessions in the neighbourhood of their territories, and represented to the assembly that the election of Baldwin would be much more advantageous to the Crusaders, particularly as it would interest the warlike nations of the Flemings and French in the glory and support of the new empire. The interests and jealousies of policy, and, without doubt, also wisdom and equity, at length united all voices in favour of the count of Flanders.

The Crusaders, assembled before the palace of Bucoleon, awaited with impatience the decision of the electors. At the hour of midnight, the bishop of Soissons came forward under the vestibule, and pronounced, in a loud voice, these words: “This hour of the night, which witnessed the birth of a Saviour of the world, gives birth to a new empire, under the protection of the Omnipotent. You have for emperor, Baldwin, count of Flanders and Hainault.” Loud cries of joy arose from among the Venetians and the French. The people of Constantinople, who had so often changed masters, received, without repugnance, the new one just given to them, and mingled their acclamations with those of the Latins. Baldwin was elevated upon a buckler, and borne in triumph to the church of St. Sophia. The marquis of Montferrat followed in the train of his rival; the generous submission, of which he presented an example, was much admired by his companions in arms, and his presence drew scarcely less attention than the warlike pomp that surrounded the new emperor.

The ceremony of the coronation was postponed till the fourth Sunday after Easter. In the mean time the marriage of the marquis of Montferrat with Margaret of Hungary, the widow of Isaac, was celebrated with much splendour. Constantinople beheld within its walls the festivities and spectacles of the West, and, for the first time, the Greeks heard in their churches the prayers and hymns of the Latins. On the day appointed for the coronation of the emperor, Baldwin repaired to St. Sophia, accompanied by the barons and the clergy. Whilst divine service was being performed, the emperor ascended a throne of gold, and received the purple from the hands of the pope’s legate, who performed the functions of patriarch. Two knights carried before him the laticlavici tunica of the Roman consuls, and the imperial sword, once again in the hands of warriors and heroes. The head of the clergy, standing before the altar, pronounced, in the Greek language, these words: “He is worthy of reigning;” and all persons present repeated in chorus, “he is worthy! he is worthy!” The Crusaders shouting their boisterous acclamations, the knights clad in armour, the crowd of miserable Greeks, the sanctuary despoiled of its ancient ornaments, and decked with foreign pomp, presented altogether a spectacle solemn and melancholy—all the evils of war amidst the trophies of victory. Surrounded by the ruins of an empire, reflective spectators could not fail to remark among the ceremonies of this day, that in which, according to the custom of the Greeks, were presented to Baldwin a little vase filled with dust and bones, and a lock of lighted flax,[146] as symbols of the shortness of life and the nothingness of human grandeur.

Before the ceremony of his coronation, the new emperor distributed the principal dignities of the empire among his companions in arms. Villehardouin, marshal of Champagne, obtained the title of marshal of Romania; the count de St. Pol, the dignity of constable; the charges of master of the wardrobe, great cupbearer and butler, were given to Canon de Bethune, Macaire de St. Ménéhoult, and Miles de Brabant. The doge of Venice, created despot or prince of Romania, had the right of wearing purple buskins, a privilege, among the Greeks, reserved for members of the imperial family. Henry Dandolo represented the republic of Venice at Constantinople; half the city was under his dominion and recognised his laws; he raised himself, by the dignity of his character as well as by his exploits, above all the princes and all the nobles of the court of Baldwin; he alone was exempt from paying fealty and homage to the emperor for the lands he was to possess.

The barons began to be impatient to share the cities and provinces of the empire. In a council composed of twelve of the patricians of Venice and twelve French knights, all the conquered lands were divided between the two nations. Bithynia, Romania or Thrace, Thessalonica, all Greece from Thermopylæ to Cape Sunium, with the larger isles of the Archipelago, fell to the share and under the dominion of the French. The Venetians obtained the Cyclades and the Sporades, in the Archipelago; the isles and the oriental coast of the Adriatic Gulf; the coasts of the Propontis and the Euxine Sea; the banks of the Hebrus and the Vardas; the cities of Cypsedes, Didymatica, and Adrianople; the maritime countries of Thessalonica, &c. &c. Such was at first the distribution of the territories of the empire. But circumstances that could not be foreseen, the diversity of interests, the rivalries of ambition, all the chances of fortune and of war, soon produced great changes in this division of dominions. History would in vain endeavour to follow the conquerors into the provinces allotted to them; it would be more easy to mark the banks of an overflowing torrent, or to trace the path of the storm, than to fix the state of the uncertain and transitory possessions of the conquerors of Byzantium.

The lands situated beyond the Bosphorus were erected into a kingdom, and, with the island of Candia, given to the marquis of Montferrat. Boniface exchanged them for the province of Thessalonica, and sold the island of Candia to the republic of Venice for thirty pounds weight of gold. The provinces of Asia were abandoned to the count of Blois, who assumed the title of duke of Nice and Bithynia. In the distribution of the cities and lands of the empire, every one of the lords and barons had obtained domains proportionate with the rank and services of the new possessor. When they heard speak of so many countries of which they scarcely knew the names, the warriors of the West were astonished at their conquests, and believed that the greater part of the universe was promised to their ambition. In the intoxication of their joy, they declared themselves masters of all the provinces that had formed the empire of Constantine. They cast lots for the countries of the Medes and Parthians, and the kingdoms that were under the domination of the Turks and Saracens;[147] several barons expressed a great desire to reign at Alexandria; others disputed for the palace of the sultans of Iconium; some knights exchanged that which had been assigned to them for new possessions, whilst others complained of their share, and demanded an augmentation of territory. With the money which arose from the plunder of the capital, the conquerors purchased the provinces of the empire; they sold, they played at dice, for whole cities and their inhabitants. Constantinople was during several days a market, in which seas and their islands, nations and their wealth, were trafficked for; in which the Roman world was put up to sale, and found purchasers among the obscure crowd of the Crusaders.

Whilst the barons were thus distributing cities and kingdoms, the ambition of the Latin clergy was by no means idle, but was busy in invading the property of the Greek Church. All the churches of Constantinople were divided between the French and the Venetians; they named priests of the two nations, to minister in the temples torn from the conquered; and no other religious ceremonies were celebrated within the walls of the city but those of the West. The leaders of the crusade had agreed among themselves, that if the emperor of Constantinople should be chosen from the French, the patriarch should be a Venetian. According to this convention, which had preceded the conquest, Thomas Morosini[148] was elevated to the chair of St. Sophia; priests and Latin bishops were, at the same time, sent into the other conquered cities, and took possession of the wealth and the privileges of the Greek clergy. Thus the Romish worship associated itself with the victories of the Crusaders, and made its empire acknowledged wherever the banners of the conquerors floated.

Nothing now opposed the arms of the Crusaders; all trembled before them; fame wafted everywhere the accounts of their exploits and their power; but, on casting a glance into the future the leaders had great reason to fear that the retreat or death of their warriors would leave the empire they had founded destitute of defenders. The population, weakened and dispersed, were not sufficient for either the cultivation of the lands or the work of the cities. In this conjuncture, the counts and barons, who always expected with fear the judgments of the head of the Church, redoubled their submission to the sovereign pontiff, and sought his support, in the hope that the Holy See would bring the West to pronounce in their favour, and that at the voice of the father of the faithful, a great number of French, Italians, and Germans would come to people and defend the new empire.

After his coronation, Baldwin wrote to the pope, to announce to him the extraordinary victories by which it had pleased God to crown the zeal of the soldiers of the cross. The new emperor, who assumed the title of knight of the Holy See, recalled to the mind of the sovereign pontiff the perfidies and the long revolt of the Greeks. “We have brought under your laws,” said he, “that city, which, in hatred for the Holy See, would scarcely hear the name of the prince of the apostles, and did not afford a single church to him who received from the Lord the supremacy over all churches.” Baldwin, in his letter, invited the vicar of Jesus Christ to imitate the example of his predecessors, John, Agapetus, and Leo, who visited in person the Church of Byzantium. To complete the justification of the pilgrims who had made themselves masters of the Greek empire, the emperor invoked the testimony of all the Christians of the East. “When we entered into this capital,” added he, “many inhabitants of the Holy Land, who were there, expressed greater joy than any others, and asserted aloud that we had rendered God a more agreeable service than if we had retaken Jerusalem.”

The marquis of Montferrat at the same time addressed a letter to the sovereign pontiff, in which he protested his humble obedience to all the decisions of the Holy See. “As for me,” said the king of Thessalonica, “who only took up the cross for the expiation of my sins, and not to obtain an opportunity of sinning with more license under the pretext of religion, I submit myself blindly to your will. If you judge that my presence in Romania may be useful, I will die there, contending against your enemies and those of Christ: if you think, on the contrary, I ought to abandon these rich countries, pay no regard to the wealth or dignities I possess there, I am ready to return to the West; for I am not willing to do anything that will draw upon me the anger of the sovereign judge.”

The doge of Venice, who till that time had braved with so much haughtiness the threats and thunders of the Church, acknowledged the sovereign authority of the pope, and joined his protestations with those of Baldwin and Boniface. To disarm the anger of Innocent, they represented to him that the conquest of Constantinople had prepared the deliverance of Jerusalem, and boasted of the wealth of a country which the Crusaders had at length brought under the laws of the Holy See. In all their letters to the pope or the faithful of the West, the conquerors of Byzantium spoke of the Greek empire as of a new land of promise, which awaited the servants of God and the soldiers of Christ.

Innocent had been for a long time irritated by the disobedience of the Crusaders; in his reply, he reproached with bitterness the victorious army of the Latins for having preferred the riches of the earth to those of heaven;[149] he reprimanded the leaders for having exposed to the outrages of the soldiers and followers of the army, the honour of matrons and maidens, and virgins consecrated to the Lord; for having ruined Constantinople, plundered both great and small, violated the sanctuary, and put forth a sacrilegious hand upon the treasures of the churches. Nevertheless, the father of the faithful would not take upon him to fathom the judgments of God; he was satisfied to believe that the Greeks had been justly punished for their faults, and that the Crusaders were recompensed as the instruments of Providence, as the avengers of divine justice. “Dread,” said he, “the anger of the Lord; hope with fear that he will pardon the past, if you govern the nations with equity; if you are faithful to the Holy See, and, above everything, if you entertain a firm resolution to accomplish your vow for the deliverance of the Holy Land.”

Notwithstanding this outward show of anger, the sovereign pontiff was gratified to the depths of his heart by the prayers and submission of the heroes and princes whose exploits made the Eastern world tremble. Cardinal Peter of Capua had given absolution to the Venetians excommunicated after the siege of Zara. Innocent at first blamed the indulgence of his legate, but finished by confirming the pardon granted to Dandolo and his compatriots. The pope approved the election of Baldwin, who took the title of knight of the Holy See, and consented to recognise an empire to which he was to give laws. The more submissive the Crusaders showed themselves to his authority, the more plainly it appeared to him that their conquests must concern the glory of God and that of the vicar of Christ upon earth. He wrote to the bishops of France, that God had been willing to console the Church by the conversion of heretics; that Providence had humbled the Greeks, an impious, proud, and rebellious people; and again placed the empire in the hands of the Latins, a pious, humble, and submissive nation. The sovereign pontiff invited, in the name of the emperor Baldwin, the French of both sexes and all conditions, to repair to Greece to receive lands and riches proportioned to their merit and their quality. He promised the indulgences of the crusade to all the faithful, who, sharing the glory of the Crusaders, should go to defend and promote the prosperity of the new empire of the East.

The pope did not, however, lose sight of the Syrian expedition, and appeared persuaded that succours sent to Constantinople must contribute to the deliverance of the holy places. The king of Jerusalem implored more earnestly than ever, both by letters and ambassadors, the effective protection of the Holy See, as well as that of the princes of the East.

The new emperor of Byzantium did not renounce the hope of assisting the Christian colonies of Syria; and to raise the courage of his brethren of the Holy Land, he sent to Ptolemaïs the chain of the port and the gates of Constantinople. When these trophies reached Palestine, scarcity, famine, and all the evils of an unfortunate war ravaged both cities and plains. At the news of approaching aid, the people of Ptolemaïs passed at once from excessive grief and despondency to all the transports of joy. Fame, whilst publishing the miraculous conquests of the companions of Baldwin and Boniface, carried the hope of safety into all the Christian cities of Syria, and spread terror among the Mussulmans. The sultan of Damascus had recently concluded a truce with the Christians, and trembled lest it should be broken, when, all at once, he owed his safety to the very event that had caused his alarms.

The greater part of the defenders of the Holy Land, who had experienced nothing but the evils of war, became desirous of partaking of the glory and the good fortune of the French and Venetians. They even who had quitted the victorious army at Zara, who had so severely blamed the expedition to Constantinople, believed that the will of God called them to the shores of the Bosphorus, and they abandoned the Holy Land. The legate of the pope, Peter of Capua, was drawn away by the example of the other Crusaders, and went to animate with his presence the zeal of the Latin clergy, who were labouring for the conversion of the Greeks; the knights of St. John and the Temple also directed their course towards Greece, where glory and rich domains were the reward of valour; and the king of Jerusalem was left almost alone at Ptolemaïs, without means of making the truce he had entered into with the infidels respected.

Baldwin warmly welcomed the defenders of the Holy Land; but the joy he experienced at their arrival was much troubled by the intelligence of the death of his wife, Marguerite of Flanders. This princess had embarked in the fleet of John de Nesle, in the belief that she should meet her husband in Palestine; sinking under the fatigue of a long voyage, and perhaps the pains of disappointment, she fell sick at Ptolemaïs, and died at the moment she learnt that Baldwin had been crowned emperor of Constantinople. The vessel destined to convey the new empress to the shores of the Bosphorus only brought back her mortal remains. Baldwin, amidst his knights, wept for the loss of a princess he had loved tenderly, and who, by her virtues and the graces of her youth, he had hoped would be the ornament and example of the court of Byzantium. He caused her to be buried with great pomp in the same church in which, but a few days before, he had received the imperial crown. Thus the people of Constantinople witnessed, almost at the same time, the coronation of an emperor and the funeral of an empress;—days of joy and triumph mingled with days of mourning. This contrast of the pageantry of death and the pomps of victory and of a throne, appeared to offer a faithful image of the glory of conquerors, and the future destiny of the empire.

The emperor and his barons, with all the succours they had received from the East, had scarcely twenty thousand men to defend their conquests and restrain the people of the capital and the provinces. The sultan of Iconium and the king of the Bulgarians had long threatened to invade the lands contiguous to their states, and they thought that the dissensions and subsequent fall of the Greek empire presented a favourable opportunity for the outbreak of their jealousy and ambition. The nations of Greece were conquered without being subdued. As in the disorder which accompanied the conquest of Byzantium, no other right had been acknowledged but that of force and the sword, all the Greeks, who had still arms in their hands, were desirous of forming a principality or a kingdom. On all sides new states and empires sprang up from the bosom of the ruins, and already threatened that which the Crusaders had so recently established.

A grandson of Andronicus founded in a Greek province of Asia Minor the principality of Trebizonde; Leo Sgurre, master of the little city of Napoli, had extended his dominions by injustice and violence, and, to employ a comparison offered by Nicetas, he had grown greater, like the torrent that swells in the storm and is enlarged by the waters of the tempest. A barbarous conqueror, a fierce and cruel tyrant, he reigned, or rather he spread terror, over Argos and the isthmus of Corinth. Michael-Angelus Comnenus, employing the arms of treachery, gained the kingdom of Epirus, and subdued to his laws a wild and warlike people. Theodore Lascaris, who, like Æneas, had fled from his burning country, collected some troops in Bithynia, and caused himself to be proclaimed emperor at Nice, whence his family was destined at a future day to return in triumph to Constantinople.

If despair had imparted any degree of courage to the two fugitive emperors, they might have obtained a share of their own spoils, and preserved a remnant of power; but they had not profited by the lessons of misfortune. Mourzoufle, who had completed all the crimes begun by Alexius, did not hesitate to place himself in the power of his unfortunate rival, whose daughter he had married: the wicked sometimes take upon themselves the duty of punishing one another. Alexius, after having loaded Mourzoufle with caresses, inveigled him into his house, and caused his eyes to be put out. In this condition, Mourzoufle, abandoned by his followers, for whom he was now nothing but an object of disgust, went to conceal his existence and his misery in Asia; but on his road fell into the hands of the Latins. Being led to Constantinople, and condemned to expiate his crimes by an ignominious death, he was precipitated from the top of a column raised by the emperor Theodosius in the Place of Taurus. The multitude of Greeks that had offered the purple to Mourzoufle were present at his tragical end, and appeared terrified at a punishment that was much more new to them than the crimes for which it was inflicted. After the execution, the crowd contemplated with surprise a basso-relievo on the column of Theodosius,[150] which represented a king falling from a very elevated place, and a city stormed by sea. In these times of troubles and calamities, presages were discovered everywhere. Everything, even to marble and stone, appeared to have told of the misfortunes of Constantinople. Nicetas was astonished that such great misfortunes had not been announced by a shower of blood, or some sinister prodigies; the most enlightened Greeks explained the fall of the empire of Constantine by the verses of poets and sibyls, or by the prophecies of the Scriptures; the common people read the death of tyrants and their own miseries in the looks of statues, and upon the columns that remained standing in the capital.

The perfidy and cruelty of Alexius did not remain long unpunished; the usurper was obliged to wander from city to city, and, not unfrequently, to conceal the imperial purple under the garb of a mendicant. For a considerable time he only owed his safety to the contempt in which he was held by the conquerors. After having long strayed about in a state of destitution, he was given up to the marquis of Montferrat, who sent him a prisoner into Italy; escaping thence, he again passed into Asia, and found an asylum with the sultan of Iconium. Alexius could not be satisfied to live in peace in his retreat, but joined the Turks in an attack upon his son-in-law Lascaris, whom he could not pardon for having saved a wreck of the empire, and reigning over Bithynia. As the Turks were beaten, the fugitive prince fell at length into the hands of the emperor of Nice, who compelled him to retire to a monastery, where he died, forgotten by both Greeks and Latins.

Thus four emperors were immolated to ambition and vengeance:—a deplorable spectacle, and most worthy of pity! Amidst the convulsions and fall of an empire, we behold princes of the same family quarrelling for a phantom of authority, snatch from each other by turns both the sceptre and life, surpass the populace in fury, and leave them no crime, no parricide, to commit.

If we could believe Nicetas, Alexius was a model of mildness and moderation: he never made a woman put on mourning for her husband, he never caused a citizen to weep for the loss of his fortune. This eulogy of Nicetas throws a far greater light upon the nature of the government than upon the qualities of the monarch. If it be true that we ought to be thankful to despotism for every ill that it has not committed, we must not forget that Alexius only obtained the throne by infamous means; that he did not redeem his parricide by any public virtue; and that the crime of his usurpation gave birth to a thousand other crimes, brought about a horrible revolution, and caused the ruin of a nation. Nicetas treats Mourzoufle with much more severity; but some modern historians, dazzled by a few actions of bravery, have undertaken to justify a prince who sacrificed everything to his ambition. They have not hesitated to point out to us in a cruel, unscrupulous tyrant, a model and a martyr of the patriotic virtues, as if love of country was the same thing as a boundless love of power, and could possibly ally itself with treachery and parricide.

Whilst the Greek princes were thus making war against each other, and quarrelling for the wrecks of the empire, the French counts and barons quitted the capital to go and take possession of the cities and provinces that had fallen to their share. Many of them were obliged to conquer, sword in hand, the lands that had been assigned to them. The marquis of Montferrat set out on his march to visit the kingdom of Thessalonica, and receive the homage of his new subjects. The emperor Baldwin, followed by his brother Henry of Hainault, and a great number of knights, made a progress through Thrace and Romania, and everywhere on his passage, was saluted by the noisy acclamations of a people always more skilful in nattering their conquerors than in combating their enemies. When he arrived at Adrianople, where he was received in triumph, the new emperor announced his intention of pursuing his march as far as Thessalonica. This unexpected resolution surprised the marquis of Montferrat, who entertained the desire of going alone to his own kingdom. Boniface promised to be faithful to the emperor, to be always ready to employ his forces against the enemies of the empire; but he feared the presence of Baldwin’s army in his cities, already exhausted by war. A serious quarrel broke out between the two princes. The marquis of Montferrat accused the emperor of wishing to get possession of his states; Baldwin fancied he could perceive in the resistance of Boniface the secret design of denying the sovereignty of the head of the empire. Both loved justice, and were not wanting in moderation; but now one had become king of Thessalonica, and the other emperor of Constantinople, they had courtiers, who endeavoured to exasperate their quarrel and inflame their animosity. Some told Boniface that Baldwin was entirely in the wrong, and that he abused a power that ought to have been the reward of virtues very different from his. Others reproached the emperor with being too generous to his enemies, and, in the excess of their flattery, said he was guilty of only one fault, and that was of having too long spared an unfaithful vassal. In spite of all the representations of the marquis of Montferrat, Baldwin led his army into the kingdom of Thessalonica. Boniface considered this obstinacy of the emperor as a flagrant outrage, and swore to take vengeance with his sword. Impelled by passion, he departed suddenly with several knights who had declared in his favour, and got possession of Didymatica, a city belonging to the emperor.

The marquis of Montferrat took with him his wife, Mary of Hungary, the widow of Isaac; and the presence of this princess, with the hopes of keeping up the division among the Latins, drew many Greeks to the banner of Boniface. He declared to them that he fought for their cause, and clothed in the imperial purple a young prince, the son of Isaac and Mary of Hungary. Dragging in his train this phantom of an emperor, around whom the principal inhabitants from all parts of Romania rallied, he resumed the road to Adrianople, and made preparations for besieging that city. Boniface, daily becoming more irritated, would listen to neither the counsels nor the prayers of his companions in arms; and discord was about to cause the blood of the Latins to flow, if the doge of Venice, the count of Blois, and the barons that remained at Constantinople, had not earnestly employed their authority and credit to prevent the misfortunes with which the new empire was threatened. Deeply afflicted by what they learnt, they sent deputies to the emperor and the marquis of Montferrat. The marshal of Champagne, the envoy to Boniface, reproached him, in plain terms, with having forgotten the glory and honour of the Crusaders, of whom he had been the leader; with compromising, to gratify a vain pride, the cause of Christ and the safety of the empire, and preparing days of triumph and joy for the Greeks, the Bulgarians, and the Saracens. The marquis of Montferrat was touched by the reproaches of Villehardouin, who was his friend, and who spoke in the name of all the Crusaders. He promised to put an end to the war, and to submit his quarrel with Baldwin to the judgment of the counts and barons.

In the meanwhile Baldwin had taken possession of Thessalonica. As soon as he heard of the hostilities of the marquis of Montferrat, he hastily marched back to Adrianople. He was brooding over projects of vengeance, and threatening to repel force by force, and oppose war to war, when he met the deputies, who came in the name of the leaders of the crusade, to speak to him of peace, and recall to his heart the sentiments of justice and humanity. A knight of the train of the count of Blois addressed a speech to the emperor, that Villehardouin has preserved, in which our readers will be pleased, without doubt, to meet with a picture of the noble frankness of the conquerors of Byzantium. “Sire,” said he, “the doge of Venice, the Count Louis of Blois, my very honoured lord, and all the barons who are at Constantinople, salute you as their sovereign, and make complaint to God and you against those who, by their evil counsels, have created fatal discords. You did, certes, very wrong to lend an ear to these perfidious counsellors, for they are our enemies and yours. You know that the Marquis Boniface has submitted his quarrel to the judgment of the barons; the lords and princes hope that you will do as he has done, and that you will not hold out against justice. They have sworn, and we are charged to declare so in their name, not to suffer any longer the scandal of a war kindled between Crusaders.”

Baldwin did not at first answer this speech, and appeared surprised at such language; but they spoke to him thus in the name of the doge of Venice, whose old age he respected, and whom he loved tenderly; in the name of the counts and barons, without whose help he could not hope to preserve his empire, and, at length, he listened to the united voices of reason and friendship. He promised to lay down his arms, and repair to Constantinople, to adjust the quarrel between him and the marquis of Montferrat. On his arrival, the counts and barons spared neither complaints nor prayers, and they found him docile to all their counsels. The marquis of Montferrat, who very shortly followed him, entered the capital with a degree of mistrust; he was accompanied by a hundred knights, with their men-at-arms; but the welcome he received from Baldwin and the other leaders completely appeased all his resentments, and dissipated all his misgivings. From that time the re-establishment of harmony and peace became the sincere object of the Crusaders. The doge of Venice, the counts and barons, with the most respected of the knights, who reminded the masters of the new empire of the redoubtable institution of the PEERS of the West, gave judgment in the quarrel that was submitted to them, and pronounced, without appeal, between the king of Thessalonica and the emperor of Constantinople. The two princes swore never to listen again to perfidious counsels, and embraced in presence of the army, who rejoiced at the return of concord, as they would have done at a great victory obtained over the enemies of the empire. “Great evil might they have done,” says Villehardouin, “who excited this discord; for if God had not taken pity on the Crusaders, they were in danger of losing their conquests, and Christianity might have perished.”

As soon as peace was re-established, the knights and barons again quitted the capital to pass through the provinces, and subdue such as were refractory. The count of Blois, who had obtained Bithynia, sent his knights across the Bosphorus; the troops of the Crusaders gained several advantages over those of Lascaris. Penamenia, Lopada, Nicomedia, and some other cities, opened their gates to the conquerors, after a feeble resistance. The Latins brought under their dominion all the coasts of the Propontis and the Bosphorus, as far as the ancient Eolis. Henry of Hainault was not idle in this new war; whilst the warriors of the count of Blois were pushing their conquests towards Nice, he led his men-at-arms into Phrygia, unfurled his triumphant banners in the plains where Troy once stood, fought at the same time both Greeks and Turks, in the fields which had been trod by the armies of Xerxes and Alexander, and took possession of all the country that extends from the Hellespont to Mount Ida.

At the same time the marquis of Montferrat, now the peaceable master of Thessalonica, undertook the conquest of Greece.[151] He advanced into Thessaly, passed the chain of mountains of Olympus and Ossa, and took possession of Larissa. Boniface and his knights, without fear and without danger, passed through the narrow straits of Thermopylæ, and penetrated into Bœotia and Attica. They put to flight Leo Sgurre, who was the scourge of a vast province; and their exploits might have reminded the Greeks of those heroes of the early ages who travelled about the world fighting monsters and subduing tyrants. As all the Greeks, for so long a time oppressed, sighed for a change, the heroes of the crusades were everywhere received as liberators. Whilst Boniface was becoming possessed of the beautiful countries of Greece, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, nephew of the marshal of Champagne, established the authority of the Latins in the Peloponnesus. After having driven the troops of Michael Comnenus to the mountains of Epirus, he occupied, without fighting, Coronea and Patras, and met with no resistance except in the canton of Lacedæmonia. The conquered lands and cities were given to the barons, who rendered fealty and homage to the king of Thessalonica and the emperor of Constantinople.[152] Greece then beheld lords of Argos and Corinth, grand sieurs of Thebes, dukes of Athens, and princes of Achaia. French knights dictated laws in the city of Agamemnon, in the city of Minerva,[153] in the country of Lycurgus, and in that of Epaminondas. Strange destiny of the warriors of this crusade, who had quitted the West to conquer the city and lands of Jesus Christ, and whom fortune had conducted into places filled with the remembrances of the gods of Homer and the glory of profane antiquity!

The Crusaders were not allowed to felicitate themselves long upon their conquests. Possessors of an empire much more difficult to be preserved than invaded, they had not the ability to master fortune, who soon took from them all that victory had bestowed. They exercised their power with violence, and conciliated neither their subjects nor their neighbours. Joannice, king of the Bulgarians, had sent an ambassador to Baldwin, with offers of friendship; Baldwin replied with much haughtiness, and threatened to compel Joannice to descend from his usurped throne. When despoiling the Greeks of their property, the Crusaders shut out from themselves every source of prosperity, and reduced men to whom they left nothing but life, to despair. To fill up the measure of their imprudence, they received into their armies the Greeks, whom they loaded with contempt, and who became their implacable enemies. Not content with reigning over cities, they were desirous of subjugating hearts to their will, and awakened fanaticism. Unjust persecutions exasperated the minds of the Greek priests, who declaimed with vehemence against tyranny, and who, reduced to misery, were listened to as oracles and revered as martyrs.

The new empire of the Latins, into which the feudal laws had been introduced, was divided into a thousand principalities or lordships, and was nothing but a species of republic, governed with great difficulty. The Venetians had their particular jurisdiction, and the greater part of the cities were regulated by turns by the legislation of Venice and the code of feudalism. The lords and barons had among themselves opposite interests and rivalries, which, every day, were likely to bring on discord and civil war. The Latin ecclesiastics, who had shared the spoils of the Greek Church, did not at all conciliate peace by their example, but carried the scandals of their dissensions even into the sanctuary. It was their constant wish and endeavour to exalt the laws and authority of the court of Rome over those of the emperors. Many of them had usurped the fiefs of the barons, and as the fiefs they possessed were exempted from military service, the empire thus became weakened in its natural defences.

The delicious climate and the riches of Greece, with the long sojourn at Constantinople, enervated the courage of the conquerors, and fostered corruption among the soldiers of the cross. The nations in the end ceased to respect the power and the laws of those whose morals and manners they despised. As the Latins had separated, some to go into Greece, and others into Asia Minor, the Greeks, who no longer beheld great armies, and who had sometimes resisted their enemies with advantage, began to fancy that the warriors of the West were not invincible.

In their despair, the conquered people resolved to have recourse to arms; and, looking around them to find enemies for the Crusaders, they implored the alliance and protection of the king of the Bulgarians. There was formed a widely-extended conspiracy, into which all entered to whom slavery was no longer tolerable. All at once the storm burst forth by the massacre of the Latins; a war-cry arose from Mount Hemus to the Hellespont; the Crusaders, dispersed in the various cities and countries, were surprised by a furious and pitiless enemy. The Venetians and French, who guarded Adrianople and Didymatica, were not able to resist the multitude of the Greeks; some were slaughtered in the streets; others retired in disorder, and, in their flight, beheld with grief their banners torn down from the towers, and replaced by the standards of the Bulgarians. The roads were covered with fugitive warriors, who found no asylum in a country which lately trembled at the fame of their arms.

Every city besieged by the Greeks was ignorant of the fate of the other cities confided to the defence of the Latins; communications were interrupted; sinister rumours prevailed in the provinces, which represented the capital in flames, all the cities given up to pillage, and all the armies of the Franks dispersed or annihilated. The old chronicles, whilst speaking of the barbarity of the Greeks, also describe the terror that took possession of some of the barons and knights. The sense of danger appears to have stifled in their hearts every other feeling. In the hour of peril, crusaders abandoned their companions in arms, brothers abandoned brothers. An old knight, Robert de Trils, who, in spite of his grey hairs, had insisted upon following his son to the crusade, was besieged by the Greeks in Philippolis; the city was surrounded by enemies, and Robert had but slender hopes of safety. Even in such circumstances, his prayers and tears could not prevail upon either his son or his son-in-law to remain with him. Villehardouin informs us that these recreant warriors were slain in their flight; for God would not save those who had refused to succour their own father.

When the report of these disasters reached Constantinople, Baldwin assembled the counts and barons; it was determined to apply the promptest remedy to so many evils, and to put into action all the energies of the empire to stop the progress of the revolt. The Crusaders who were engaged in warlike expeditions on the other side of the Bosphorus, received orders to abandon their conquests, and to return immediately to the standards of the main army. Baldwin waited for them several days, but as he was impatient to begin the war, and wished to astonish the enemy by the promptitude of his proceedings, he set out at the head of the knights that remained in the capital, and, five days after his departure, appeared before the walls of Adrianople.

The leaders of the crusade, accustomed to brave all obstacles, were never checked or restrained by the small number of their own soldiers, or the multitude of their enemies. The capital of Thrace, surrounded by impregnable ramparts, was defended by a hundred thousand Greeks, in whom thirst of vengeance supplied the want of courage. Baldwin mustered scarcely eight thousand men around his banners. The doge of Venice soon arrived with eight thousand Venetians. The Latin fugitives came from all parts to join this small army. The Crusaders pitched their tents, and prepared to lay siege to the city. Their preparations proceeded but slowly, and provisions were beginning to fail them, when the report reached them of the march of the king of the Bulgarians. Joannice, the leader of a barbarous people, himself more barbarous than his subjects, was advancing with a formidable army. He concealed his ambitious projects and his desire for vengeance under an appearance of religious zeal, and caused a standard of St. Peter, which he had received from the pope, to be borne before him. This new ally of the Greeks boasted of being a leader of a holy enterprise, and threatened to exterminate the Franks, whom he accused of having assumed the cross for the purpose of ravaging the provinces and pillaging the cities of Christians.

The king of the Bulgarians was preceded in his march by a numerous troop of Tartars and Comans, whom the hopes of pillage had drawn from the mountains and forests near the banks of the Danube and the Borysthenes. The Comans, more ferocious than the nations of Mount Hemus, drank, it was said, the blood of their captives, and sacrificed Christians on the altars of their idols. Like the warriors of Scythia, accustomed to fight whilst flying, the Tartar horsemen received orders from Joannice to provoke the enemy, even in their camp, and to endeavour to draw the heavy cavalry of the Franks into an ambuscade. The barons were aware of this danger, and forbade the Crusaders to quit their tents, or go beyond their intrenchments. But such was the character of the French warriors, that prudence, in their eyes, deprived valour of all its lustre, and it appeared disgraceful to shun the fight in the presence and amidst the scoffs of an enemy.

Scarcely had the Tartars appeared near the camp, when the sight of them made even the leaders themselves forget the orders they had issued only the night before. The emperor and the count of Blois flew to meet the enemy, put them to flight, and pursued them with ardour for the space of two leagues. But all at once the Tartars rallied, and in their turn charged the Christians. The latter, who believed they had gained a victory, were obliged to defend themselves in a country with which they were unacquainted. Their squadrons, exhausted by fatigue, were surprised and surrounded by the army of Joannice; pressed on all sides, they made useless efforts to recover their line of battle, but had no power either to fly, or resist the barbarians.

The count of Blois endeavoured to retrieve his fatal imprudence by prodigies of valour; when seriously wounded he was thrown from his horse amidst the enemy’s ranks, one of his knights raised him up, and wished to draw him out of the mêlée: “No,” cried this brave prince, “leave me to fight and die. God forbid I should ever be reproached with having fled from battle.” As he finished these words, the count of Blois fell, covered with wounds, and his faithful squire died by his side.

The emperor Baldwin still disputed the victory; the bravest of his knights and barons followed him into the mêlée, and a horrible carnage marked their progress through the ranks of the barbarians. Peter bishop of Bethlehem, Stephen count of Perche, Renaud de Montmirail, Mathieu de Valencourt, Robert de Ronçai, and a crowd of lords and valiant warriors lost their lives in defending their sovereign. Baldwin remained almost alone on the field of battle, and still continued fighting bravely; but at length, overpowered by numbers, he fell into the hands of the Bulgarians, who loaded him with chains. The wreck of the army retired in the greatest disorder, and only owed their safety to the prudent bravery of the doge of Venice and the marshal of Champagne, who had been left to guard the camp.

In the night that followed the battle, the Crusaders raised the siege of Adrianople, and retook the route to the capital, amidst a thousand dangers. The Bulgarians and the Comans, proud of their victory, pursued without intermission the army they had conquered; this army, which had lost half of its numbers, was in great want of provisions, and had great difficulty in dragging along the wounded and the baggage. The Crusaders were plunged in a melancholy silence, their despair was evident in their actions and on their countenances. At Rodosto they met Henry of Hainault, and several other knights, who were on their way from the provinces of Asia, to join the army of Adrianople. The retreating leaders related with tears their defeat and the captivity of Baldwin. All these warriors, who knew not what it was to be conquered, expressed at once their astonishment and their grief; they mingled their lamentations and tears, and raised their hands and eyes towards heaven, to implore the divine mercy. The Crusaders who returned from the shores of the Bosphorus, addressed the marshal of Romania, and weeping, said to him: “Order us where the greatest danger exists, for we no longer wish to live: are we not sufficiently unfortunate in not having come in time to succour our emperor?” Thus the knights of the cross, though pursued by a victorious enemy, were still strangers to fear; the grief caused by the remembrance of their defeat scarcely allowed them to be sensible of the perils by which they were threatened.