THE
HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES

Joseph Francois Michaud.

TRANSLATED BY W. ROBSON.

A New Edition,

WITH PREFACE AND SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER BY HAMILTON W. MABIE.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

NEW YORK.
A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON,
714 Broadway.

CONTENTS TO VOL. II.

BOOK IX.—A.D. 1195-1198.
FOURTH CRUSADE.
The empire of Saladin divided among his successors—The civil warsthence arising—Dynasty of the Ayoubites—Extensive empire of Afdhal,son of Saladin—His civil contests—Alaziz, sultan of Egypt, takes armsagainst his brother—Nazr-Allah, vizier of the sultan Afdhal—Malek-Adel—Civilcommotions of Palestine—Agitated state of the Christiancolonies—Bohemond III. governor of Antioch, taken prisoner—Hospitallersand Templars—Pope Celestine III. instigates the fourth crusade—HenryVI., emperor of Germany, engages to assist—Diet of Worms—Hostilitiesat Ptolemaïs—Death of Henry of Champagne—Jaffa capturedby the Mussulmans—Siege and battle of Berytus—Malek-Adel defeated—Fallandus,the Sicilian historian—Henry VI. of Germany conquersNaples and Sicily—Progress of his arms in Palestine—The Saracensdefeated—Death of Henry VI.—Massacre of the garrison of Jaffa—St.Martin—Causes of the failure of this crusade, and its mischievous consequences—Cruelcharacter of Henry VI	pp. [1-35.]
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BOOK X.—A.D. 1198-1204.
FIFTH CRUSADE.
Rousseau’s opinion of the Crusaders—Enthusiasm and valour of theChristian troops—Causes which led to the fifth crusade—Instigated byPope Innocent III.—His quarrel with Philip of France—Death ofRichard I. of England—Preaching of Foulkes in favour of the crusade—ThibaultIV., count of Champagne, engages in the crusade—Louis,count of Chartres—Preaching of Martin Litz—Villehardouin, marshalof Champagne—Baldwin, count of Flanders—Commercial greatness ofVenice—Dandolo, the doge of Venice—He engages to assist the Crusaders—Gauthierde Brienne—Sums advanced by Venice—Death andcharacter of Thibault—Count le Bar—Death of Eude III., duke ofBurgundy—Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, elected commander of thecrusade—Famine in Egypt and Europe—Death of Foulkes—Pecuniaryexactions of Venice—Revolt of the city of Zara—Dandolo’s address tothe Venetians in favour of the Crusaders—Isaac, emperor of Constantinople,dethroned—Siege of Zara—The Abbot de Cernay—Quarrelsbetween the Venetians and the French Crusaders—Address of Philip ofSwabia to the French barons—Policy of Malek-Adel—Reproaches ofInnocent III. against the Crusaders at Zara—Character of the emperorAlexius—Capture of Corfu—Conquests of the younger Alexius, son ofIsaac—Description of Constantinople—Besieged by the Crusaders—TheVarangians—Speeches of Rossi and Conon de Bethune—Capture ofConstantinople—Alexius dethroned—Isaac and his son Alexius restoredto the sovereignty—The Crusaders become the allies of the Greeks, andthe protectors of the Greek empire—Their communications with thepope	pp. [36-99.]
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BOOK XI.—A.D. 1198-1204.
Character of the Greeks—Position of Alexius the younger—His proposalsto the Crusaders—Disputes between the Greeks and the Latins onarticles of faith—Contentions with the Bulgarians—Conflagration ofConstantinople—Imbecility and bigotry of the emperor Isaac—Statue ofMinerva destroyed—Insurrectionary spirit in Constantinople—Famine inEgypt—Contests between the Greeks and the Latins—Greek fire—Treacheryof Mourzouffle—He murders young Alexius, and ascends thethrone—Character of Alexius—Mourzouffle’s contests with the Latins—Isdethroned—Death of Isaac—Lascaris chosen emperor—Abandons thecity—Constantinople taken possession of, and plundered by the Latins—Destructionof the works of art—Statues of Bellerophon, Hercules, andHelen, destroyed—Reverence for relics and images—Fanaticism ofMartin Litz—Fragment of the “true cross”—Virtues of Dandolo, thedoge of Venice—Baldwin, count of Flanders, elected emperor of Constantinople—Theconquered lands distributed among the Crusaders—ThomasMorasini elected patriarch of Constantinople—Correspondencebetween Baldwin and the pope—Death of Marguerite of Flanders, wife ofBaldwin—Conquests of Leo Sguerre—Michael Angelus Comnenus gainsthe kingdom of Epirus—Lascaris proclaimed emperor at Nice—Mourzoufflecaptured and executed—Column of Theodosius—Quarrels betweenBoniface, marquis of Montferrat, and Baldwin—Boniface invades Greece—TheGreeks rebel against the domination of the Latins—Victories of theBulgarians—Defeat and Massacre of the Latins—Bravery of Henry ofHainault—Incidents of Baldwin’s life—Death of Dandolo—Boniface isslain—Characters of the Greeks and the Franks—Their different historians—Disputesrespecting the sovereignty of Cyprus—Death ofGauthier de Brienne—Policy of Innocent III.—Knowledge of Greekdiffused in the West—Refinement of the Venetians, and commercial greatnessof Venice	pp. [100-184.]
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BOOK XII.—A.D. 1200-1215.
SIXTH CRUSADE.
Famine in Egypt, and its frightful consequences—Destructive earthquake—Saadi,the Persian poet—Earthquake and famine in Palestine—Agitatedstate of Palestine—Death of Amaury, king of Jerusalem—Deathof Bohemond III.—Pope Innocent III. stimulates the westernworld to the deliverance of the Holy Land—State of Palestine andJerusalem—John of Brienne accepts the young queen of Jerusalemin marriage—Agitated state of Europe—Malek-Adel renews hostilitiesagainst the Christians—John of Brienne takes possession of Ptolemaïs—Firstdawnings of the Reformation—The Albigeois, the Vaudois, andother reforming sects—Papal crusade against them—Spain at war withthe Saracens and Moors—Cardinal de Courçon preaches the crusade—PhilipAugustus king of France, and John king of England, engage inthe crusade—Dominant spirit and political contentions of Pope InnocentIII.—Battle of Bouvines—The pope assembles the council ofLateran, and stimulates all Europe to the holy war—His death andcharacter—Censius Savelli chosen pope, under the title of Honorius III.—Heurges the crusade—Andrew II., king of Hungary, engages in it—Paganismof Prussia in the thirteenth century—Political state of Palestine—Thethrone of Syria abdicated by Malek-Adel—Melik-Kamel, thesultan of Cairo—Mount Tabor—Political state of Hungary—Her kingreturns from Palestine—The tower of Damietta captured by the Crusaders—Deathand character of Malek-Adel—Decline of the empireof the Ayoubites—Cardinal Pelagius instigates the prosecution of thecrusade, and proceeds to Egypt—Panic amongst the Mohammedans—Conspiracyto dethrone the sultan of Cairo—Battle before the walls ofDamietta—Piety of St. Francis—The Mohammedans propose conditionsof peace—Damietta captured, and the inhabitants destroyed by famine—Thecity assigned to John of Brienne—His speech against the invasion ofEgypt—Obstinacy of Cardinal Pelagius—The Mohammedans burn thefleet of the Crusaders on the Nile, and compel them to capitulate—Melik-Kamelenters into a treaty of peace, by which Damietta is surrendered tothe Mussulmans—Death of Philip Augustus of France—John of Briennerevisits Europe—Oppressions of the Christians of Palestine—TheGeorgians—Invasions of the Tartars—Marriage of Frederick II., emperorof Germany, with the heiress of the king of Jerusalem—Acknowledgedto be king—Persecutions of the Albigeois—Contests with the Moors inSpain—War of factions in Italy—The Guelphs and Ghibellines—Frederickof Germany engages in the holy war, sets sail, and returns to Otranto—GregoryIX. succeeds Pope Honorius—His rage against Frederick of Germany—Frederickarrives at Ptolemaïs, and concludes a treaty with Melik-Kamel—Deathof Conraddin, sultan of Damascus—Frederick acknowledgedking of Jerusalem—Hostility of the Christians—He quits Palestinefor Europe—His victories in Lombardy—Excommunicated by GregoryIX.—Treaty with his holiness—The pope determines on renewingthe holy war—Thibault V., king of Navarre, and Pierre de Dreux, engagein it—Council of Tours for promoting the cause of the Crusaders—Deathsof Peter and of Robert Courtenay—Decline of the Latin empirein Constantinople—John of Brienne called to the throne—His death—Baldwin,his son-in-law, driven from the throne—Frederick of Germanyexcommunicated—He invades Italy and besieges Rome—Desolating civilwar—Death of Melik-Kamel—Agitated state of Palestine—Battle ofGaza—Death of Gregory IX.—Richard, duke of Cornwall, joins theCrusaders at Ptolemaïs, but soon returns to Italy—Pope Celestine IV.—Disturbancesin the reign of Innocent IV.—Pilgrims buy off their vows—Wretchedstate of Palestine—Political pretensions of the popes—Stateof Europe—General reflections on the crusades—Songs of the Troubadours—Leprosyin the West—Crusades against Prussia and the Albigeois—Thesanguinary wars in the name of religion	pp. [185-311.]
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BOOK XIII.—A.D. 1242-1245.
SEVENTH CRUSADE.
The Tartars of the middle ages—Their history and conquests—Gengiskhan,the Tartar chief—Temugin—Prester John—Khan of the Karaites—Conquestof China, Carismia, and other extensive countries in Asiaand Europe, by Gengiskhan—His death—Victorious career of Octaï,khan of the Tartars—Hungary conquered—The warriors of Carismiajoin the sultan of Cairo, and capture Jerusalem—The Mohammedansof Syria defeated by the Carismians, and Damascus captured—TheCarismians rebel against the sultan of Cairo—They are defeated anddispersed—Barbarous hordes of the Comans—Distress of the Christians—Valeran,bishop of Berytus—Innocent IV., at the council of Lyonsdetermines on the seventh crusade, and excommunicates Frederick, emperorof Germany—Cardinals first clothed in scarlet—Louis IX., kingof France, recovers from a dangerous malady, and determines on prosecutingthe seventh crusade against the infidels—The illustrious namesengaged in it—Blanche, the queen-mother—Agitated state of Germanyand Italy—Frederick of Germany deposed by the pope—Civil conteststhence arising—The nobles of France form a league to resist the exactionsof the pope—Louis makes extensive preparations for the holy war—Theearl of Salisbury, and Haco king of Norway, engage in it—Amelioratedstate of society resulting from the crusades—Louis embarks and arrivesat Cyprus—Pope Innocent IV. takes charge of his kingdom—Marguerite,wife of Louis—Archambault de Bourbons—Sieur de Joinville—Antiochravaged by the Turcomans—Louis receives an embassy from theTartar prince, Ecalthai—Political discord among the Mohammedans—Familyof the Ayoubites—Malek-Salek Negmeddin, sultan of Egypt—Militaryand political state of Egypt at the time of the crusade—Louis IX.and the Christian forces arrive before Damietta—His address to the Crusaders—Hebesieges Damietta—Fakreddin, the Egyptian leader—Louisattacks and defeats the infidel troops—Damietta captured—Negociationswith Negmeddin—Livre Tournois—Bravery of the Bedouin Arabs—Sidoncaptured by the Mohammedans	pp. [312-392.]
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BOOK XIV.—A.D. 1248-1255.
Alphonse count of Poictiers, and Hugh Lebrun count of Angoulêmeengage in the holy war—Opposition of Henry III. of England to hisbarons and the pope—Raymond, count of Thoulouse—Count d’Artois—Deathof Negmeddin—Beauty and genius of Chegger-Eddour, sultanaof Egypt—Scharmesah captured by the Crusaders—Fakreddin takes thecommand of the Egyptian forces—Treachery of the Mamelukes—Militaryoperations on the canal of Aschmoum—Terrific effects of the Greek fire—Fakreddinslain, and the Saracens defeated—Rashness of Countd’Artois, and his death—Battle of Mansourah—The Crusaders defeatedby the Mamelukes—The earl of Salisbury, Robert de Vair, and otherillustrious warriors slain—Continued contests with the Egyptians, andsevere losses of the Crusaders—Instances of devoted heroism and individualbravery—The Crusaders exposed to famine and pestilence, and theSaracens victorious—The canal of Mehallah fatal to the Crusaders—-Sufferingsand losses of the Christian army—Guy du Chatel, Gaucher deChatillon, and other distinguished Crusaders slain—Louis attempts toregain Damietta—Is defeated, and surrenders as a prisoner of war—Hisentire army annihilated by the Saracens—Sieur de Joinville taken prisoner—Agonizingsituation of Marguerite, queen of Louis—30,000 Crusadersmassacred, or taken into slavery—Religious resignation of Louis—Heenters into an abject treaty for his ransom—Revolt of the Mamelukes—Deathof Almoadan—Octaï, chief of the Mamelukes—The emirs ofEgypt—Chegger-Eddour elected sultana of Egypt, and Ezz-EddinAybek the governor—Extinction of the Ayoubite dynasty—Damiettadelivered up to the Mussulmans—Ransom paid for Louis—Consternationin France on hearing of his capture—He arrives at Ptolemaïs—Deliberateswith his knights as to their future operations—The Syrians refuseto acknowledge the authority of the Mamelukes—Civil commotions inEgypt—Chegger-Eddour marries Ezz-Eddin, and yields her regal authority—Deathof Frederick II. of Germany—Conrad, his successor, excommunicated—Jacobof Hungary—“Pastors”—Pope Innocent IV.urges the preaching of a fresh crusade—Singular message of the “OldMan of the Mountain” to Louis—A visit to his court—Cities of Palestinefortified by Louis—War between the sultans of Cairo and Damascus—Treatybetween them, and hostilities resumed against the Christians—TheTurcomans surprise Sidon, and slaughter the inhabitants—Belinas pillagedby the Crusaders—Pious devotedness of Louis—He fortifies Sidon—Deathof Blanche, queen-regent of France—Louis quits Palestine, andarrives at Paris—Excellence of Joinville’s history—On the character andmisfortunes of Louis—Damietta destroyed by the Mussulmans, and themouth of the Nile filled with stones—Rise and fall of the Mamelukes—Hospitalof Quinze-Vingts—The Tartars and Moguls—“Assizes ofJerusalem”—Characters of Frederick II. of Germany and Pope InnocentIV.—Papal crusade against Eccelino de Romano	pp. [393-493.]

HISTORY

THE CRUSADES.

BOOK IX.

——

FOURTH CRUSADE.

A.D. 1195-1198.

When we cast a retrospective glance over the periods we have described, we congratulate ourselves upon not having lived in those times of war and trouble; but when we look around us, and reflect upon the age of which we form a part, we fear we have little reason to boast over the epochs commonly termed barbarous. During twenty-five years a revolution, born of opinions unknown to past ages, has pervaded cities, agitated nations, and shaken thrones. This revolution has for auxiliaries war and victory; it strengthens itself with all the obstacles that are opposed to it; it is for ever born again from itself, and when we believe we can perceive the end of its ravages, it re-appears more terrible and menacing than ever. At the moment in which I resume the account of the Crusades,[1] the spirit of sedition and revolt, the fanaticism of modern doctrines, which seemed to slumber, all at once awake, and again threaten the world with universal disorder; nations which tremble for their liberty and their laws, are aroused, and spring up in arms; a coalition of all kings and of all nations, a general crusade is formed not to defend the tomb of Christ, but to preserve that which Europe possesses of its ancient civilization. It is amidst the rumours of a new revolution, of a formidable war, that I am about to describe the revolutions and wars that disturbed the East and the West in the middle ages. May I, whilst deploring the calamities of my country, profit by the events of which I am a witness, and by the frightful spectacle which is before my eyes, to paint with greater truth the passions and the troubles of a remote age, and revive in the hearts of my contemporaries a love of concord and peace.

The death of Saladin was followed by that which almost always is to be observed in the dynasties of the East,—a reign of agitation and trouble succeeding a reign of strength and absolute power. In these dynasties, which have no other support but victory, and the all-powerful will of a single man, as long as the sovereign, surrounded by his soldiers, commands, he is tremblingly obeyed; but as soon as he has closed his eyes, his people precipitate themselves towards license with the same ardour that they had yielded to servitude; and passions, long restrained by the presence of the despot, only blaze forth with the greater violence when there remains nothing of him but a vain remembrance.

Saladin gave no directions respecting the order of succession, and by this want of foresight prepared the ruin of his empire. One of his sons, Alaziz,[2] who commanded in Egypt, caused himself to be proclaimed sultan of Cairo; another [3] took possession of the sovereignty of Aleppo, and a third of the principality of Amath.[4] Malek-Adel, the brother of Saladin, assumed the throne of Mesopotamia, and the countries in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates. The principal emirs, and all the princes of the race of the Ayoubites, made themselves masters of the cities and provinces of which they held the command.[5]

Afdhal,[6] eldest son of Saladin, was proclaimed sultan of Damascus. Master of Syria, and of the capital of a vast empire, sovereign of Jerusalem and Palestine,[7] he appeared to have preserved something of the power of his father; but all fell into disorder and confusion. The emirs, the old companions of the victories of Saladin, endured with reluctance the authority of the young sultan. Several refused to take the oath of obedience,[8] drawn up by the cadis of Damascus; others consented to take it, but on condition that their fiefs should be secured to them, or that new ones should be bestowed upon them. Far from labouring to reduce the power of this haughty soldiery, Afdhal neglected the duties of his throne for the pleasures of debauchery, to which he gave himself up entirely, abandoning the welfare of his empire to a vizier,[9] who rendered him odious to the Mussulmans. The army demanded the dismissal of the vizier, whom they accused of having usurped the authority of the prince: the vizier, on his part, advised his master to banish the seditious emirs. The weak sultan, who only saw with the eyes of his minister, annoyed by the presence and complaints of a discontented army, dismissed from his service a great number of soldiers and emirs, who went among all the neighbouring princes, complaining of his ingratitude, and accusing him of forgetting, in the bosom of idleness and effeminacy, the holy laws of the prophet and the glory of Saladin.

The greater number of them, who went into Egypt, exhorted Alaziz to take arms against his brother. The sultan of Cairo gave ear to their advice, and under the pretence of avenging the glory of his father, conceived the project of possessing himself of Damascus. He assembled his forces, and marched into Syria at the head of an army. At the approach of danger, Afdhal invoked assistance from the princes that reigned over the countries of Amath and Aleppo. Soon a formidable war blazed forth, into which was dragged the whole of the family of the Ayoubites. Alaziz laid siege to Damascus. The hopes of an easy conquest animated his emirs, and made them believe that they were fighting in a just cause; but as they at first had but little success, and as victory seemed every day to fly further from their banners, the war began to appear to them unjust. At first they murmured; then they revolted from Alaziz, and at length rejoined the troops of Syria. The sultan of Cairo, upon being thus abandoned, was obliged to raise the siege disgracefully, and return into Egypt. The sultans of Damascus and Aleppo pursued him across the desert, with the design of attacking him in his capital. Afdhal, at the head of a victorious army, soon carried terror to the banks of the Nile. Alaziz was about to be dethroned, and Egypt to be conquered by the Syrians, if the brother of Saladin, guided by a policy, whose motive might be easily divined, had not opposed the authority of his counsels to the arms of the conqueror, and re-established peace in the family of the Ayoubites.

The princes and emirs respected the experience of Malek-Adel, and allowed him to be the arbitrator of their differences. The warriors of Syria and Egypt, accustomed to see him in camps, looked upon him as their leader, and followed him with joy to battle; whilst nations, that he had often astonished by his exploits, invoked his name in their reverses and dangers. The Mussulmans now perceived with surprise that he had been in a manner exiled in Mesopotamia, and that an empire, founded by his valour, was abandoned to young princes who bore no name among warriors: he himself grew secretly indignant at not having received due recompense for his labours, and was aware of all that the old soldiers, he had so often led to victory, might one day do to further his ambitious views. It was important to his designs that too much of the empire should not be in the same hands, and that the provinces should remain for some time longer shared by two rival powers. The peace which he had brought about could not be of long duration and the discord ever on the point of breaking out among his nephews, must soon offer him an opportunity of reaping the rich harvest of the vast heritage of Saladin.

Afdhal, warned by the dangers he had run, resolved to change his conduct. Hitherto he had scandalized all faithful Mussulmans by his intemperance in the use of wine. Aboulfeda, who was descended from the family of Saladin,[10] says, in his history, that the sultan of Damascus, during the early years of his reign, passed his life amidst banquets and indulgence, taking delight in nothing but listening to songs and composing verses. On his return from Egypt, Afdhal exhibited an entire alteration in his manners; but he only fell from one excess into another; he was now constantly at prayers, or employed in the most minute practices of the Mussulman religion; but, in his excessive devotion, as in his dissipated life, he was perfectly inattentive to the duties of a monarch, and submitted himself, without reserve, to the counsels of the same vizier who had already nearly cost him his dominions. “Then,” says Aboulfeda, “complaints against him were heard from all quarters, and tongues that had been loud in his praise became silent.”

Alaziz thought this opportunity favourable for again taking up arms against his brother; and Malek-Adel, persuaded that war was most likely to minister to his ambition, no longer advocated peace, but placed himself at the head of the army of Egypt. Having intimidated by his threats, or won by his presents, the principal emirs of Afdhal, he at once took possession of Damascus in the name of Alaziz, and soon governed as sovereign the richest provinces of Syria.

Every day fresh quarrels broke out among the emirs and princes; all those who had fought with Saladin, thought the moment was come at which to put forth and establish their pretensions; and the princes who still remained of the family of Noureddin began to entertain hopes of regaining the provinces wrested from the unfortunate Attabeks by the son of Ayoub. All the East was in a state of fermentation. Bloody divisions desolated Persia, a prey to the various claims of the feeble remains of the race of the Seljoucides. The empire of the Carismians, which conquest was every day extending, threatened at the same time the capital of Corosan and the city of Bagdad, in which the pontiff of the Mussulman religion lived in perpetual fear. For a long time the caliphs had been unable to take any active part in the events that changed the face of Syria; and the only authority they possessed was exercised in consecrating the victories of the triumphant party, whoever that might be. Afdhal, driven from Damascus, called in vain upon the caliph of Bagdad for protection; all that shadow of power could afford him was a recommendation to exercise patience, and an assurance “that his enemies would have to render an account to God of what they had done.”

Among the rivalries that convulsed the Mussulman states, Malek-Adel met with no obstruction to his projects; the troubles and disorders which his usurpation gave birth to, even the wars undertaken against him, all contributed to the consolidation and extension of his unjustly-obtained power. It became evident that he must soon unite under his sway the greater part of the provinces conquered by Saladin. Thus was verified, for the second time within a few years, the observation of an Arabian historian, who expressed himself in the following words when speaking of the succession of Noureddin: “The greater part of the founders of empires have not been able to leave them to their posterity.” This instability of power is not a thing to be wondered at in countries where success renders everything legitimate, where the caprices of fortune are frequently laws, and where the most formidable enemies of an empire founded by arms, are the very men whose bravery has assisted in raising it. The historian we have quoted, deplores the revolutions of military despotism, without duly searching for the natural causes of them; and can explain so many changes only by referring to the justice of God, always ready to punish, at least in their children, all who have employed violence or shed the blood of man to attain empire.

Such were the revolutions which, during many years, agitated the Mussulman states of Syria and Egypt. The fourth crusade, which we are about to describe, and in which the Christians might have greatly profited by the troubles of the East, only served to reunite the scattered members of the empire of Saladin. Malek-Adel owed the progress of his power not only to the divisions of the Mussulmans, but to the spirit of discord that reigned among the Christians.

After the departure of the king of England, as was always the case at the termination of every crusade, the Christian colonies, surrounded by perils, advanced more rapidly to their fall. Henry of Champagne, charged with the government of Palestine, disdained the title of king, as he was impatient to return to Europe, and looked upon his kingdom as a place of exile. The three military orders, detained in Asia by their vows, constituted the principal strength of a state which but lately had had all the warriors of Europe for its defenders. Guy of Lusignan retired to Cyprus, took no more interest in the fate of Jerusalem, and had full occupation in keeping himself on his new throne, shaken by the continual revolts of the Greeks and threatened by the emperors of Constantinople.

Bohemond III., grandson of Raymond of Poictiers, and descended, in the female line, from the celebrated Bohemond, one of the heroes of the first crusade, governed the principality of Antioch and the county of Tripoli. Amidst the misfortunes that afflicted the Christian colonies, the sole aim of this prince was the extension of his dominions, and every means appeared to him good and just that could forward his designs. Bohemond pretended to have claims to the principality of Armenia; and employed by turns force and stratagem to get possession of it. After several useless attempts, he succeeded in decoying into his capital Rupin of the Mountain, one of the princes of Armenia, and detained him prisoner. Livon, the brother of Rupin, determined to take signal vengeance for such an outrage; and, under the pretence of treating for peace, invited Bohemond to repair to the frontiers of Armenia. The two princes engaged by oath to come without escort or train to the place of conference; but each formed a secret design of laying a snare for his adversary. The Armenian prince, better seconded by either his genius or fortune, remained conqueror in this disgraceful contest. Bohemond was surprised, loaded with chains, and carried away to a fortress of Lesser Armenia. The war was instantly renewed with fury; the people of both Armenia and Antioch rushed to arms, and the countries and cities of the two principalities were speedily by turns invaded and ravaged. At length peace became desirable, and after some disputes upon the conditions, the prince of Antioch was sent back to his states, and Rupin of the Mountain was restored to the nations of Armenia. By an agreement entered into by the two princes, Alice, the daughter of Rupin, married the eldest son of Bohemond. This union promised to be the pledge of a durable peace; but the germ of so many divisions still subsisted; the two parties retained a strong feeling of the outrage they had received; and every treaty of peace becoming a fresh subject of discussion, war was always ready to be rekindled.

In another direction, ambition and jealousy set at variance the orders of the Temple and St. John. At the period of the third crusade, the Hospitallers and the Templars were as powerful as sovereign princes; they possessed in Asia and Europe villages, cities, and even provinces.[11] The two orders, rivalling each other in power and glory, attended far less to the defence of the holy places than to the augmentation of their own renown and riches. Every one of their immense possessions, every one of their prerogatives, the renown of the knights, the credit of the leaders, all, even to the trophies of their valour, were for them subjects of rivalry, and, at length, this spirit of discord and jealousy produced an open, war. A French gentleman, established in Palestine, possessed, as a vassal of the Hospitallers, the castle of Margat, situated towards the frontiers of Arabia. The Templars pretended that this castle belonged to them, and took possession of it by main force. Robert,—that was the name of the gentleman,—carried his complaints to the Hospitallers, who immediately flew to arms and drove the Templars from the castle. From that time the knights of the two orders never met without provoking each other to the combat most of the Franks and Christians always taking a part in the quarrel, some for the order of St. John, others for that of the Temple. The king of Jerusalem and the most prudent of the barons made many useless attempts to restore peace; and several Christian princes endeavoured in vain to reconcile the two rival orders. The pope himself had much difficulty in getting his sacred mediation to be accepted; and it was only after long debates that the Holy See, sometimes armed with evangelical thunders, sometimes employing the paternal language of the head of the Church, terminated, by its wisdom and supreme ascendancy, a contest which the knights themselves would have preferred deciding with sword and lance.

During these fatal divisions none thought of defending themselves against the general enemy, the Saracens. One of the most melancholy consequences of the spirit of faction is, that it always leads to a lamentable indifference for the common cause. The more violently the parties attacked each other, the less perception they seemed to have of the dangers that threatened the Christian colonies; neither the knights of the Temple or of St. John, nor the Christians of Antioch or Ptolemaïs, ever thought of asking for succour against the infidels; and history does not say that one person was sent from the East to make Europe aware of the griefs of Sion.

The situation of the Christians in Palestine was besides so uncertain and perilous, that the wisest could form no idea of coming events, or dare to adopt a resolution. If they appealed afresh to the warriors of the West, they broke the truce made with Saladin, and exposed themselves to all the resentment of the infidels; if they respected treaties, the truce might be broken by the Mussulmans, ever ready to profit by the calamities which fell upon the Christians. In this state of things, it appeared difficult to foresee a new crusade, which was neither called for by the wishes of the Christians of Asia, nor promoted by the interests of Europe. In fact, when we cast our eyes over the Christian colonies of the East, as they are described to us in these unhappy times, and see the spirit of ambition and discord displacing in all hearts the holy spirit of the Gospel, we cannot wonder that Christendom took so little interest in their fate. Again, when contemporary history represents to us these colonies a prey to license and division, and destitute of everything that could render them flourishing, we can scarcely believe that the West was again likely to lavish its wealth and its blood to support and defend them. But the great name of Jerusalem still produced a powerful effect upon the minds of all; the remembrance of the first crusade still aroused the enthusiasm of Christians; and the veneration for the holy places, which appeared to grow weaker in the kingdom of Christ itself, was yet cherished beyond the seas and in the principal countries of the West.

Celestine III. had, by his exhortations, encouraged the warriors of the third crusade; and, at the age of ninety, pursued with zeal all the projects of his predecessors; ardently wishing that the last days of his pontificate should be illustrated by the conquest of Jerusalem. After the return of Richard, the news of the death of Saladin had spread joy throughout the West, and revived the hopes of the Christians. Celestine wrote to all the faithful to inform them that the most formidable enemy of Christendom had ceased to live; and, without regarding the truce made by Richard Cœur de Lion, he ordered his bishops and archbishops to preach a new crusade in their dioceses.[12] The sovereign pontiff promised all who would take the cross the same privileges and the same advantages as in the preceding crusades. The profanation of the holy places; the oppression under which the faithful of the East groaned; the ever-increasing insolence and audacity of the Saracens—such were the motives by which he supported his holy exhortations. He addressed himself particularly to the bishops of England, and commanded them to use every persuasion to induce Richard again to take up arms against the infidels.

Richard, although returned, had never laid aside the cross, the symbol of pilgrimage; and it might be supposed he still intended to repair again to the Holy Land; but, scarcely escaped from an unjust captivity, taught by his own experience how great were the difficulties and perils of a distant enterprise, his thoughts and time were engrossed by his endeavours to remedy his losses, to defend or aggrandize his states, and to be on his guard against the insidious attempts of Philip Augustus. His knights and barons, whom he himself exhorted to resume the cross, professed, as he did, a warm devotion for the cause of Jerusalem; but they could not make up their minds to return to a country which had been to them a place of suffering and exile.

Although the appearance of the preachers of the crusade everywhere inspired respect, they had no better success in France, where, only a few years before, a hundred thousand warriors had been roused by the summons to defend the holy places. If the fear of the enterprises of Philip was sufficient to detain Richard in the West, the dread of the vindictive and jealous disposition of Richard exercised the same influence over Philip. The greater number of his knights and nobles followed his example, and contented themselves with shedding tears over the fate of Jerusalem. The enthusiasm for the crusade was communicated to only a small number of warriors, amongst whom history names the count de Montfort, who afterwards conducted the cruel war against the Albigeois.

From the commencement of the crusades, Germany had never ceased to send its warriors to the defence of the Holy Land. It deplored the recent loss of its armies, destroyed or dispersed in Asia Minor, and the death of the Emperor Frederick, who had gained nothing but a grave in the plains of the East; but the remembrance of so great a disaster did not extinguish in all hearts the zeal for the cause of Jerusalem. Henry VI., who occupied the imperial throne, had not partaken, as the kings of France and England had, the perils and reverses of the last expedition. Unpleasant remembrances or fears of his enemies in Europe could have no effect in preventing him from joining in a new enterprise, or deter him from a holy pilgrimage which so many illustrious examples seemed to point out as a sacred duty.

Although this prince had been excommunicated by the Holy See, only the preceding year, the Pope sent an embassy to him, charged with the duty of recalling to his mind the example of his father Frederick, and urging him to assume the cross. Henry, who sought every occasion to conciliate the head of the Church, and who likewise entertained vast projects in which a new crusade might be very serviceable, received the envoy of Celestine with great honours.

Of all the princes of the middle ages, no one evinced more ambition than Henry VI.; his imagination, say historians was filled with the glory of the Cæsars, and he wished to be able to say with Alexander, all that my desires can embrace belongs to me. Tancred, a natural son of William II., king of Sicily, chosen by the Sicilian nobility to succeed his father, was recently deceased; and the emperor, who had espoused Constance, the heiress of a throne founded by Norman Crusaders, and desirous of establishing his claims, judged that the time was come to carry out his designs and achieve his conquests. The expedition of which the Holy See desired him to be the leader, was exceedingly favourable to his ambitious projects; when, promising to defend Jerusalem, he only thought of the conquest of Sicily; and the conquest of Sicily had no value in his estimation but as opening the road to Greece and Constantinople.[13] At the same time that he professed entire submission to the will of the head of the Church, he endeavoured to form an alliance with the republics of Genoa and Venice, promising them the spoils of the conquered; but in his mind he nourished the hope that he should one day overthrow the Italian republics and lower the authority of the Holy See, and upon their remains revive, for himself and his family, the empire of Augustus and Constantine.

Such was the prince to whom Celestine sent an embassy, and whom he wished to persuade into a holy war. After having announced his intention of taking the cross, Henry convoked a general diet at Worms, in which he himself exhorted the faithful to take up arms for the defence of the holy places. Since Louis VII., king of France, who harangued his subjects to induce them to join in the crusade, Henry was the only monarch that had mingled his voice with that of the preachers of the holy war, to make his subjects acquainted with the sufferings and complaints of the Church of Jerusalem. His eloquence, celebrated by the historians of his time, but above all, the spectacle presented of a great emperor himself preaching a holy war against the infidels, made a profound impression upon the multitude of his auditors.[14] After this solemn address, the most illustrious of the prelates assembled at Worms ascended the evangelical pulpit to keep up the rapidly increasing enthusiasm of the faithful; during eight hours nothing was heard but the groans of Sion and the city of God. Henry, surrounded by his court, assumed the symbol of the Crusaders; a great number of German nobles followed his example, some to please God, and others to please the emperor. Among those who took the oath to combat the Saracens, history names Henry duke of Saxony; Otho marquis of Brandenburgh; Henry count palatine of the Rhine; Herman landgrave of Thuringia; Henry duke of Brabant; Albert count of Apsburg; Adolphus count of Schwemburg; Henry count of Pappenhein, marshal of the empire; the duke of Bavaria; Frederick, son of Leopold, duke of Austria; Conrad marquis of Moravia; Valeran de Limbourg; and the bishops of Wurtzburg, Bremen, Verdun, Habbastadt, Passau, and Ratisbon.[15]

The crusade was preached in all the provinces of Germany, and the letters of the emperor and the pope kindled the zeal of the Christian warriors everywhere; never had an enterprise against the infidels been undertaken under more favourable auspices. As Germany undertook the crusade almost singly, the glory of the German nations seemed as much interested in this war as religion itself. Henry was to command the holy expedition; and the Crusaders, full of confidence and hope, were preparing to follow him to the East. But Henry entertained other views; several nobles of his court, some who penetrated his secret designs, and others who believed they offered him prudent advice, conjured him to remain in the West, and direct the crusade from the bosom of his dominions; and Henry, after a slight resistance, yielded to their prayers, and gave his whole attention to the hastening of the departure of the Crusaders.

The emperor of Germany placed himself at the head of forty thousand men and took the route for Italy, where everything was prepared for the conquest of Sicily; the remainder of the Crusaders were divided into two armies, which, proceeding by different roads, were to meet in Syria. The first, commanded by the duke of Saxony and the duke of Brabant, embarked at ports of the German Ocean and the Baltic; the second crossed the Danube, and directed its march towards Constantinople, whence the fleet of the Greek emperor Isaac was to transport it to Ptolemaïs. To this army, commanded by the archbishop of Mayence and Valeran de Limbourg, were joined the Hungarians, who accompanied their queen Margaret, sister to Philip Augustus. The queen of Hungary, after having lost Bela her husband, had made a vow to live only for Christ, and to end her days in the Holy Land.

The Crusaders under the command of the archbishop of Mayence and Valeran de Limbourg, were the first to arrive in Palestine. Scarcely were they landed when they expressed their desire and resolution to begin the war against the infidels. The Christians, who were then at peace with the Saracens, hesitated to break the truce signed by Richard, and were, further, unwilling to give the signal for hostilities before they could open the campaign with some hopes of success. Henry of Champagne and the barons of Palestine represented to the German Crusaders the danger to which an imprudent rupture would expose the Christians of the East, and conjured them to wait for the army of the dukes of Saxony and Brabant. But the Germans, full of confidence in their own strength, were indignant at having obstacles thrown in the way of their valour by vain scruples and chimerical alarms; they were astonished that the Christians of Palestine should thus refuse the assistance sent to them by Providence itself, and added, in a tone of anger and contempt, that warriors of the West were not accustomed to defer the hour of battle, and that the pope had not induced them to take up arms and the cross to remain in a state of shameful inactivity. The barons and knights of the Holy Land could not listen to such injurious speeches without indignation, and replied to the German Crusaders that they had neither solicited nor wished for their arrival; that they were better acquainted than the northern warriors of Europe with what was advantageous to the kingdom of Jerusalem; that they had without any foreign succour braved the greatest perils, and that when the proper moment should arrive they knew how to prove their valour otherwise than by words. Amidst such warm debates the minds of both parties became daily more exasperated, and the most cruel discord thus prevailed among the Christians before war was declared against the infidels.

All at once the German Crusaders marched out in arms from Ptolemaïs, and commenced hostilities by ravaging the lands of the Saracens. At the first signal of war the Mussulmans gathered together their forces; and the danger that threatened them putting an end to their discord, from the banks of the Nile and from the remotest parts of Syria crowded hosts of warriors but lately armed against each other, but who now, assembled under the same banners, acknowledged no other enemies but the Christians.

Malek-Adel, towards whom all Mussulmans turned their eyes when the defence of Islamism was the question, marched from Damascus at the head of an army and repaired to Jerusalem, where all the emirs of the adjoining provinces came to take his orders. The Mussulman army, after dispersing the Christians who had advanced towards the mountains of Naplouse, laid siege to Jaffa.

In the third crusade much importance had been attached to the conservation of this city. Richard Cœur de Lion had fortified it at great expense, and when that prince returned to Europe he left a numerous garrison in it. Of all the maritime places, Jaffa was nearest to the city which was the object of the wishes of the faithful; if it remained in the hands of the Christians, a road was always open for them to Jerusalem, and the means of laying siege to that place were rendered more easy; but if it fell into the power of the Mussulmans, it gave them proportionate advantages for the defence of the holy city.

When it was known at Ptolemaïs that the city of Jaffa was threatened, Henry of Champagne, with his barons and knights, immediately took arms to defend it, and joined the German Crusaders, giving all their energies to the prosecution of a war which they found could now no longer be deferred or avoided. The three military orders, with the troops of the kingdom, were about to set forward on their march, when a tragical accident once more plunged the Christians in grief, and retarded the effects of the happy harmony which had been re-established at the approach of peril. Henry of Champagne, leaning against a window of his palace, at which he had placed himself to see his army defile from the city, the window all at once gave way, and in its fall precipitated him with it.[16] The unfortunate prince expired in sight of his soldiers, who, instead of following him to battle, accompanied him to his grave, and lost several days in celebrating his funeral obsequies. The Christians of Ptolemaïs were still weeping the death of their king, when the misfortune they dreaded increased their grief and consternation; the garrison of Jaffa having attempted a sortie, had fallen into an ambuscade, and all the warriors that composed it were either killed or taken prisoners. The Mussulmans entered the city almost without resistance, and twenty thousand Christians were put to the sword.

These disasters had been foreseen by all who had dreaded the breaking of the truce; but the barons and knights of Palestine lost no time in vain regrets, or in the utterance of useless complaints, and looked with eager impatience for the arrival of the Crusaders who had set out from the ports of the Ocean and the Baltic. These troops had stopped on the coast of Portugal, where they had defeated the Moors, and taken from them the city of Silves. Proud of their triumph over the infidels, they landed at Ptolemaïs at the moment the people were lamenting the loss of Jaffa and crowding to the churches to implore the mercy of Heaven.

The arrival of the new Crusaders restored hope and joy to the Christians, and they resolved to lose no time, but to march at once against the infidels. The army left Ptolemaïs and advanced towards the coast of Syria, whilst a numerous fleet kept along shore, loaded with provisions and warlike stores. The Crusaders, without seeking the army of Malek-Adel, laid siege to Berytus.

The city of Berytus, at an equal distance between Jerusalem and Tripoli, by the commodiousness of its port, its large population, and its commerce, had become the rival of Ptolemaïs and Tyre. The Mussulman provinces of Syria acknowledged it as their capital, and it was in Berytus that the emirs, who contended for the lordship of the neighbouring cities, came to display the pomp of their coronations. After the taking of Jerusalem, Saladin was here saluted sovereign of the city of God, and crowned sultan of Damascus and Cairo. The pirates, who infested the seas, brought to this city all the spoils of the Christians; the Mussulman warriors there deposited the riches acquired by conquest or brigandage; and the Frank captives, made in late wars, were crowded together in the prisons of Berytus; so that the Christians had powerful motives for endeavouring to get possession of this place, and the Mussulmans had no less urgent ones for defending it.

Malek-Adel, after having destroyed the fortifications of Jaffa, advanced with his army as far as the mountains of Anti-Libanus, on the route to Damascus; but on hearing of the march and determination of the Crusaders, he crossed the mountains on his left, and drew near to the coast: the two armies met on the plain watered by the river Eleuthera, between Tyre and Sidon. The trumpets soon sounded to battle; the army of the Saracens, which covered an immense space, endeavoured at first to surround the Franks, and then to get between them and the coast; their cavalry precipitated itself by turns on the flanks, the van, and the rear of the Christians. The Christians closed their battalions and on all sides presented impenetrable ranks. Whilst their enemies showered arrows and darts upon them, their lances and swords were bathed in the blood of the Saracens. They fought with different arms, but with the same bravery and fury. The victory remained for a long time uncertain; the Christians were several times on the point of losing the battle; but their obstinate valour at length triumphed over all the resistance of the Mussulmans, and the sea-coast, the banks of the river Eleuthera, and the declivities of the mountains were covered with dead. The Saracens lost a great many of their emirs. Malek-Adel, who displayed, during the whole of this day, the skill of a great captain, was wounded on the field of battle, and only owed his safety to flight. All his army was dispersed; some fled towards Jerusalem, whilst others hurried along the road to Damascus, whither the news of this bloody defeat carried consternation and despair.[17]

In consequence of this victory, all the cities on the coast of Syria, which still belonged to the Mussulmans, fell into the power of the Christians; the Saracens abandoned Sidon, Laodicea, and Giblet. When the Christian fleet and army appeared before Berytus, the garrison was surprised, and did not venture to offer any resistance. This city contained, say historians, more provisions than would have sufficed for the inhabitants during three years; two large vessels, add the same chronicles, could not have contained the bows, arrows, and machines of war that were found in the city of Berytus. In this conquest immense riches fell into the hands of the victors, but the most precious reward of their triumph doubtless was the deliverance of nine thousand captives, impatient to resume their arms, and avenge the outrages of their long captivity. The prince of Antioch, who had joined the Christian army, sent a dove [18] to his capital to announce to all the inhabitants of the principality the miraculous victory gained by the soldiers of the cross. In all the Christian cities thanks were offered up to the God of armies. The historians, who have transmitted to us the account of these glorious events, in order to paint the transports of the Christian people, content themselves with repeating these words of holy writ: “Then Sion leaped with joy, and the children of Judah were filled with delight.”

Whilst the Crusaders were thus pursuing their triumphs in Syria, the emperor Henry VI. took advantage of all the means and all the powers that the crusade had placed in his hands, to achieve the conquest of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. Although, in the course of his victories, he unceasingly invoked religion, humanity, and justice, he only listened to the dictates of his ambition; and, tormented by the sentiment of an implacable revenge, he was neither touched by the misery of the conquered, nor the submission of his enemies. All who had shown any respect or any fidelity for the family of Tancred, were cast by his orders into dungeons, or perished in horrible tortures, which he himself had invented. The army he led but too well seconded his gloomy and savage policy; the peace which the conquerors boasted of having restored to the people of Sicily, caused them more evils, and made more victims than war itself. Falcandus, who died some years before this expedition, had deplored beforehand, in his history, the misfortunes that were about to desolate his country. He already saw the most flourishing cities and the rich country of Sicily laid waste by the irruption of the barbarians. “Oh! unfortunate Sicilians,” cried he, “it would be less frightful for you still to endure the tyrants of old Syracuse, than to live under the empire of this savage nation, which advances to invade your territory, and plunge you into all the horrors of misery and slavery.”[19]

Nevertheless, these pitiless soldiers wore the crosses of pilgrims; and their emperor, although not yet relieved from his excommunication, arrogated to himself glory as the first of the soldiers of Christ. Henry VI. was considered as the head of the crusade, and supreme arbiter of the affairs of the East. The king of Cyprus offered to become his vassal; Livon, prince of Armenia, begged the title of king of him. The emperor of Germany having no more enemies to dread in the West, gave his whole attention to the war against the Saracens, and in a letter addressed to all the nobles, magistrates, and bishops of his empire, exhorted them to hasten the departure of the Crusaders. The emperor undertook to keep up an army of fifty thousand men for one year, and promised to pay thirty ounces of gold to every one that should remain under his banners till the end of the holy war. A great number of warriors, seduced by this promise, entered into an engagement to cross the sea, and fight against the infidels. Henry had no further need of them for his own conquests, and therefore pressed their departure for the East. Conrad, bishop of Hildesheim, chancellor of the empire, whose counsels in the wars of Sicily had but too well aided the ambition and barbarous policy of his master, was charged with the task of leading the third army of the Crusaders into Syria.

The arrival of so powerful a reinforcement in Palestine rekindled the zeal and enthusiasm of the Christians, and it might be expected that they would signalize their arms by some great enterprise. The victory they had recently gained in the plains of Tyre, the taking of Berytus, Sidon, and Giblet, had struck the Mussulmans with terror. Some of the leaders of the Christian army proposed to march against Jerusalem. “That city,” said they, “cannot resist our victorious arms; her governor is a nephew of Saladin, who endures with impatience the authority of the sultan of Damascus, and has often appeared disposed to listen to the propositions [20] of the Christians.” Most of the barons did not, however, partake in this hope, and placed no confidence in the words of the Mussulmans. It was well known, that the infidels, after the departure of Richard Cœur de Lion, had very considerably augmented the fortifications of Jerusalem;[21] that a triple wall, and ditches of great depth, must render this conquest more perilous, and particularly more difficult, than in the time of Godfrey of Bouillon. Winter was approaching; the Christian army might be overtaken by the rainy season, and forced to raise the siege in face of the army of the Saracens. These considerations determined the Crusaders to put off the attack of the holy city to the following year.

It is not impertinent to remark here, that in the Christian armies they were constantly talking about Jerusalem, but that the leaders as constantly directed their efforts and their arms to the acquisition of other conquests. The holy city, situated far from the sea, contained within its walls no other treasures but religious relics and monuments. The maritime cities of Asia could boast of more worldly wealth, and held out far greater advantages to the conquerors; they afforded, likewise, more easy communication with Europe; and if the conquest of Jerusalem sometimes tempted the piety and devotion of the pilgrims, that of cities bordering upon the sea, constantly kept awake the ambition of the maritime and warlike nations of the West.

All the sea-coast from Antioch to Ascalon belonged to the Christians; the Mussulmans having only been able to keep possession of Thoron. The garrison of this fortress frequently made incursions into the neighbouring countries, and by continual hostilities, intercepted the communication between the Christian cities. The Crusaders resolved that before they set out for Jerusalem, they would lay siege to the castle of Thoron. This fortress, built by Hugh de Saint-Omer, in the reign of Baldwin II., was situated at some leagues from Tyre, on the summit of a mountain, between the chain of Libanus and the sea. It was only accessible across steep rocks, and by a narrow way bordered by precipices. The Christian army had no machines sufficiently lofty to reach the heights of the walls, and arrows or stones hurled from the foot of the mountain, could not injure the besieged; whilst beams and fragments of rock precipitated from the ramparts, made dreadful havoc among the besiegers. In the early attacks, the Saracens ridiculed the vain efforts of their enemies, and witnessed, almost without danger to themselves, prodigies of valour, and the most murderous inventions of the art of sieges, exercised ineffectually against their walls. But the almost insurmountable difficulties that might have been supposed likely to arrest the progress of the Christians, only redoubled their ardour and courage.[22] They every day made fresh attacks, each day seeming to increase their efforts, and their obstinate bravery was seconded by newly-invented machines of war. With incredible labour, they dug out the earth, and made themselves a way across the rocks; whilst some Saxons, who had worked in the mines of Rammesberg, were employed in opening the flank of the mountain. The Crusaders at length reached the bottom of the ramparts of the fortress; the walls, the foundations of which they demolished, began to shake in various parts, without being struck by the ram, and their fall, which seemed delayed by a miracle, filled the besieged with dread.

The Mussulmans now losing all hope of defending themselves, proposed to capitulate; but such was the disorder of the Christian army, with its multitude of leaders, that not one of them durst take upon himself to listen to the proposals of the infidels. Henry, palatine of the Rhine, and the dukes of Saxony and Brabant, who enjoyed great consideration among the Germans, could enforce obedience from none but their own soldiers. Conrad, chancellor of the empire, who represented the emperor of Germany, might have been able to exercise beneficial power; but, weakened by disease, without experience in war, always shut up in his tent, he awaited the issue of the contest, and did not even deign to be present at the councils of the princes and barons. When the besieged had come to the determination to capitulate, they remained several days without knowing to which prince it would be most proper to address themselves, and when their deputies came to the Christian camp, their propositions were heard in a general assembly, in which the spirit of rivalry, short-sighted zeal, and blind enthusiasm held much greater empire than reason and prudence.

The Saracens, in their speech, confined themselves to imploring the clemency of their conquerors; they promised to abandon the fort with all their wealth, and only asked life and liberty as the price of their submission. The suppliant attitude of the Saracens must have touched the pride of the Christian warriors; religion and policy united to procure a favourable answer to the proposals that were made to them, and the greater part of the leaders were disposed to sign the capitulation. But some of the most ardent could not see without indignation that it was wished to obtain by treaty that which they must soon gain by force of arms. “It is necessary,” said they, “that all our enemies should be struck with terror; and if the garrison of this place perish by the sword, the affrighted Saracens will not dare to wait for us either in Jerusalem or the other cities still in their possession.”

As their advice was not adopted, these ardent and inconsiderate soldiers resolved to employ every means to interrupt the negotiation, and whilst re-conducting the deputies to the fortress, said to them: “Defend yourselves, for if you surrender to the Christians, you will all perish in tortures.” In addition to this, they addressed the Christian soldiers, and informed them, with accents of anger and grief, that a disgraceful peace was about to be concluded with the enemies of Christ. At the same time, such of the leaders as inclined towards peace, spread themselves through the camp, and represented to the army that it was useless, and perhaps dangerous, to purchase by new contests that which fortune, or rather Providence itself, offered to the Crusaders. Among the Christian warriors, some yielded to the counsels of moderation, others were unwilling to trust to anything but the sword; such as preferred victory to peace, ran to arms, and they who accepted the capitulation, retired to their tents. The camp, in which some remained in inaction and repose, whilst others prepared for battle, presented, at the same time, an image of peace and war: but in this diversity of opinions, amidst so strange a spectacle as the army then presented, it was easy to foresee that they would very soon be unable either to treat with enemies or fight them.

The capitulation was, notwithstanding, ratified by the principal chiefs and by the chancellor of the empire. The hostages the Saracens were to send were looked for in the camp, and the Crusaders fancied they could see the gates of the castle of Thoron thrown open to them; but despair had all at once changed the resolutions of the Saracens. When the deputies to the Christian camp reported to their companions in arms what they had seen and what they had heard; when they told them of the menaces that had been made to them, and of the divisions that existed among the enemies, the besieged forgot that their walls were in ruins, that they wanted both arms and provisions; that they had to defend themselves against a victorious army; and they swore rather to die than treat with the Crusaders. Instead of sending hostages, they appeared in arms upon the ramparts, and provoked the besiegers to renew the contest. The Christians resumed the labours of the siege, and recommenced their attacks; but their courage grew weaker every day, whilst, in the same proportion, despair seemed to increase the bravery of the Mussulmans. The besieged laboured without intermission in repairing their machines and rebuilding their walls; sometimes the Christians were attacked in the subterranean passages they had dug, and perished, buried under masses of loosened earth; whilst arrows and stones were constantly showered upon them from the ramparts. Frequently the Saracens succeeded in surprising some of their enemies, whom they carried alive into the place, and then slaughtered without mercy; the heads of these unfortunate prisoners were exposed upon the walls, and afterwards hurled by the machines into the camp of the Christians. The Crusaders appeared to have sunk into a sort of dejection or apathy; some still fought and remembered their oaths; but others remained indifferent spectators of the dangers and death of their brethren. Many added the scandal of the most depraved morals to their indifference for the cause of God. There might be seen, says an historian, men who had quitted their wives to follow Christ, forgetting all at once the most sacred duties, and attaching themselves to vile prostitutes; in fact, the vices and disorders of the Crusaders were so disgraceful, that the authors of the old chronicles blush whilst they retrace the picture of them. Arnold of Lubec, after having described the corruption that reigned in the camp of the Christians, appears to ask pardon of his reader; and, that he may not be accused of writing a satire, he takes care to add that he does not recall such odious remembrances to confound the pride of men, but to warn sinners, and touch, if possible, the hearts of his brothers in Christ.[23]

Fame soon brought to the ears of the Christians that the kingdoms of Aleppo and Damascus were in arms, that Egypt had assembled an army, and that Malek-Adel, followed by a numberless multitude of warriors, was advancing by forced marches, impatient to avenge his late defeat.[24]

At this news, the leaders of the crusade resolved to raise the siege of Thoron; and to conceal their retreat from the enemy, they did not blush to deceive their own soldiers. On the day of the Purification of the Virgin, whilst the Christians were engaged in the offices of devotion, the camp was informed, by sound of trumpet, that it was intended to make a general assault on the morrow. The whole army passed the night in preparations for the fight; but, at break of day, they learnt that Conrad and most of the leaders had quitted the army and taken the road to Tyre. The men assembled in groups round their tents to ascertain the truth, and made inquiries of each other with the greatest inquietude. The blackest forebodings took possession of the minds of the Crusaders; as if they had been conquered in a great battle, their only thought was flight. Nothing had been prepared for the retreat, no order had been given; no man saw anything but his own danger, or listened to any advice but that suggested by his fear; some loaded themselves with everything valuable they possessed, whilst others abandoned even their arms. The sick and wounded dragged themselves along with pain in the steps of their companions; such as could not walk were abandoned in the camp. The confusion was general; the soldiers marched pêle-mêle with the baggage; they knew not what route to take, and many lost themselves in the mountains; nothing was heard but cries and groans, and, as if Heaven wished to denote its anger at this disorder, a frightful tempest came on; fierce lightning rent the clouds, the thunder rolled in awful peals, and torrents of rain inundated the country.[25] In their tumultuous flight, not one of the Crusaders ventured to turn his eyes to that fortress which, but a few days before, had offered to surrender to their arms: their terror was not abated till they beheld the walls of Tyre.

The army being at last re-assembled, it became a general inquiry, “What was the cause of the disorder they had experienced?” Then a new delirium took possession of the Christians; mistrust and mutual hatred succeeded to the panic terror of which they had been the victims; the most grave suspicions were attached to actions the most simple, and gave an odious meaning to words perfectly innocent. The Crusaders reproached each other, as with wrongs and proofs of treachery, with all the evils they had suffered or feared to suffer. The measures that an improvident zeal had counselled, as well as those that had been dictated by necessity and prudence, were the work of perfidy without example. The holy places, which so lately the Crusaders had contemplated with apparent indifference, now occupied their every thought; and the most fervent reproached the leaders with introducing none but profane views into a holy war; with having sacrificed the cause of God to their own ambition, and with having abandoned the soldiers of Christ to the fury of the Saracens. The same Crusaders proclaimed loudly, that God had been unfavourable to the Christians, because those whom he had appointed to lead the defenders of the cross, disdained the conquest of Jerusalem. Our readers may remember that after the siege of Damascus, in the second crusade, some Templars and Germans were accused of avarice, and of having sacrificed the zeal and bravery of the Christian warriors. Accusations quite as serious were renewed on this occasion, and with equal bitterness. If we are to believe the old chronicles, Malek-Adel had promised several leaders of the Christian army a great number of pieces of gold to engage them to raise the siege of Thoron; and the same chronicles add, that when the Mussulman prince paid them the sum agreed, he gave them nothing but false gold,—a worthy price of their cupidity and treachery.[26] The Arabian historians give no sanction to these odious accusations; but such was the spirit of animosity which then reigned among the Christian warriors, that they were judged with more severity by their brethren and companions in arms than by their enemies.

At length the rage of discord was carried so far that the Germans and the Syrian Christians would not remain under the same colours; the former retired to the city of Jaffa, the ramparts of which they restored, and the latter returned to Ptolemaïs. Malek-Adel, willing to profit by these divisions, marched towards Jaffa, and offered the Germans battle. A severe conflict took place at a short distance from the city. The duke of Saxony and the duke of Brabant both perished in the mêlée.[27] The Crusaders lost a great number of their bravest warriors; but the victory was in their favour. After a triumph which was due to their arms alone, the pride of the Germans knew no bounds; and they treated the Christians of Palestine with the greatest contempt. “We have,” said they, “crossed the seas to defend their country; and, far from taking any part in our labours, these warriors, without either gratitude or courage, abandoned us in the hour of peril.” The Christians of Palestine, on their side, reproached the Germans with having come into the East, not to fight but to command; not to assist their brethren, but to impose a yoke upon them more insupportable than that of the Saracens. “The Crusaders,” added they, “only quitted the West to make a pleasurable military progress into Syria; they there found peace, but they left war behind them; like those birds of passage that announce the season of storms and tempests.”

In these fatal divisions nobody had sufficient credit and power to restrain angry spirits, or reconcile discordant opinions. The sceptre of Jerusalem was in the hands of a woman; the throne of Godfrey, so often shaken, was destitute of support; the empire of religion and law was every day fading away, and violence alone possessed the privilege of making itself respected. Necessity and force were the only powers that commanded obedience; whilst the license and corruption that prevailed among the people, still called the people of God, made such frightful progress, that we are tempted to accuse contemporary authors and ocular witnesses of employing great exaggeration in their recitals.

In this state of decline, amidst such shameful disorders, the most wise and prudent of the prelates and barons thought the best step they could adopt would be to give an able and worthy leader to the Christian colonies, and they entreated Isabella, the widow of Henry of Champagne, to take a new husband, who might consent to be their sovereign. Isabella, by three marriages, had already given Palestine three kings. They proposed to her Amaury, who had recently succeeded Guy de Lusignan in the kingdom of Cyprus. An Arabian historian says that Amaury was a wise and prudent man, who loved God and respected humanity. He did not fear to reign, amidst war, troubles, and factions, over the poor remains of the unfortunate kingdom of Jerusalem, and came to share with Isabella the vain honours of royalty. Their marriage was celebrated at Ptolemaïs, with more pomp, say historians, than the posture of affairs warranted. Although this marriage might not remedy all the evils under which the Christians laboured, it at least afforded them the consolatory hope that their discords would be appeased, and that the colonies of the Franks, when better governed, might gather some fruit from so many victories gained over the infidels. But news which arrived from the West, soon spread fresh grief through the kingdom, and put an end to the barren exploits of the holy war. Amidst the festivities which followed the marriage and coronation of Amaury, the death of the emperor Henry VI. was announced.[28] The election of a new head of the empire would most probably produce a violent contest in Germany; and every one of the German princes or nobles then in Palestine, naturally turned his attention to that which he had to hope or fear in the events preparing in Europe: they determined to return immediately into the West.

The count de Montfort and several other French knights had but recently arrived in the Holy Land, and earnestly entreated the German princes to defer their return. The pope likewise, on receiving intelligence of the death of Henry VI., wrote to the leaders of the Crusaders, to implore them to finish their good work, and not to abandon the cause of Christ; but neither the prayers of the count de Montfort nor the exhortations of the pope could detain the Germans, impatient to return to their country. Of so many princes who had left the West to secure a triumph to the cause of God, the queen of Hungary alone was faithful to her vows, and remained with her knights in Palestine.[29] On quitting Syria, the Germans contented themselves with leaving a garrison in Jaffa. A short time after their departure, whilst celebrating the feast of St. Martin with every excess of drunkenness and debauchery, this garrison was surprised and massacred by the Saracens.[30] Winter was approaching; neither party could keep the field; discord reigned equally among Christians and Mussulmans; and both sides were desirous of peace, because they were incapable of carrying on the war. The count de Montfort concluded with the Saracens a truce for three years. Thus terminated this crusade, which only lasted a few months, and was really nothing but a pilgrimage for the warriors of the West. The victories of the Crusaders rendered the Christians masters of all the coasts of Syria; but their precipitate departure destroyed the fruits of their conquests. The cities they had obtained were left without defenders, and almost without inhabitants.

This fourth crusade, in which all the powers of the West miscarried in an attempt upon a little fortress of Syria, and which presents us with the strange spectacle of a holy war directed by an excommunicated monarch, furnishes the historian with fewer great events and a smaller number of great misfortunes than the preceding expeditions. The Christian armies, which made but a transient visit to the East, experienced neither the famine nor the diseases that had proved so fatal to the former enterprises. The foresight and attention of the emperor of Germany, who had become master of Sicily, provided for all the wants of the Crusaders, whose exploits were intended to assist his ambitious projects, and whom he considered as his own soldiers.

The German warriors that composed the Christian armies had not the requisite qualities to secure the advantages of victory.[31] Always ready to throw themselves blindly into danger; quite ignorant that it is possible to ally prudence with courage; listening to nothing but the violence of their own passions, and recognising no law but their own will; obedient to leaders of their own nation, and despising all others; full of an indomitable pride, which made them disdain the help of their allies and the lessons of experience, such men could neither make peace nor war.

When we compare these new Crusaders with the companions of Richard or Godfrey, we find in them the same ardour for fight, the same indifference for danger; but we find them very deficient in that enthusiasm which animated the first soldiers of the cross at the sight of the holy places. Jerusalem, which had never ceased to be open to the devotion of the faithful, no longer beheld within its walls that crowd of pilgrims which, at the commencement of the holy wars, repaired thither from all parts of the West. The pope and the leaders of the Christian army forbade Crusaders to enter the holy city without having conquered it; and they, who did not always prove so docile, obeyed the prohibition without pain. More than a hundred thousand warriors that had left Europe for the purpose of delivering Jerusalem, returned to their homes without having entertained perhaps one thought of visiting the tomb of Christ, for which they had taken up arms. The thirty ounces of gold promised by the emperor to all who should cross the sea to fight the infidels, very much increased the number of the Crusaders; this was not the case in former expeditions, in which the crowd of soldiers of the cross was influenced principally by religious motives. More religion than politics had entered into the other holy wars; in this crusade, although it had been directly promoted by the head of the Church, and was to a considerable extent directed by bishops, we may safely say there was more of politics than religion. Pride, ambition, jealousy, the most disgraceful passions of the human heart, did not make an effort, as in the preceding expeditions, to cover themselves with a religious veil. The archbishop of Mayence, the bishop of Hildesheim, with most of the other ecclesiastics who took the cross, attracted no admiration for either their wisdom or piety, or distinguished themselves by any personal quality. Conrad, the chancellor of the empire, on his return to Europe, was followed by the suspicions which had been attached to his conduct during the holy war; and when, a long time after, he was slain by several gentlemen of Wurtzburg, who conspired against him, the people considered his tragical death as a punishment from Heaven.

Henry VI., who had preached the crusade, only viewed this distant expedition as a means and an opportunity for increasing his power and extending his empire; whilst the West put up prayers for the success of a holy war, of which he was the life and soul, he prosecuted an impious war, desolated a Christian people for the purpose of subjecting them to his laws, and threatened the empire of Greece.[32] The son of Tancred was deprived of his sight, and cast into prison, and the daughters of the king of Sicily were carried away into captivity. Henry’s barbarities were so excessive, that he irritated his neighbours, and created enemies in his own family. When he died, a report prevailed in Europe that he had been poisoned; the nations that he had rendered miserable could not believe that so many cruelties could remain unpunished, and they asserted that Providence had employed the wife of the emperor to be his executioner, and to avenge all the calamities he had inflicted upon the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. At the approach of death, Henry remembered that he had persecuted Richard; that he had detained a prince of the Crusaders in chains, in spite of the solicitations of the father of the faithful; and he hastened to send ambassadors to the king of England, charged with the task of making him a solemn reparation for so great an outrage. After his death, as he had been excommunicated, it was thought necessary to address the sovereign pontiff to obtain permission to bury him in the Holy Land; and the pope coolly replied, that they were at liberty to bury him among Christians, but before they did so, they must offer up many prayers to mitigate the anger of God.

In taking possession of the beautiful and rich territories of Italy by perfidy and violence, Henry prepared for that unfortunate country a series of revolutions, to be renewed from age to age. The odious war he had made against the family of Tancred, naturally gave birth to other wars injurious to his own family.[33] In removing so far from Germany with his armies, Henry afforded opportunity for the formation of powerful parties, which, at his death, disputed the imperial sceptre with some success, and at length gave rise to a war in which the principal states of Europe were involved. Thus, whilst the other holy wars had contributed to maintain or establish public peace in Europe, this fourth crusade produced divisions among the states of Christendom, without at all diminishing the power of the Saracens, and only served to introduce trouble and confusion into many kingdoms of the West.

BOOK X.

——

FIFTH CRUSADE.

A.D. 1198-1204.

“Christian troops,” says J. J. Rousseau, in his “Contrat Social,” “are, as they say, excellent; I deny it; show me such; for my part, I know no Christian troops.” The events we have just related, and those we are about to make known, will, there is no doubt, suffice to refute this strange paradox of J. J. Rousseau. The author of the “Social Contract” does not dissemble, it is true, the objections that may be made to him from the history of the crusades; but, ever faithful to his system, and taking no account of historical truths, he answers, that “the Crusaders, far from being Christians, were citizens of the Church; that they fought for their spiritual country, which the Church had rendered temporal nobody knows how.” Strange abuse of reasoning, which confounds the sense of words, and refuses the title of Christians to those who fought in the name of Christ! In representing the Crusaders as citizens of the Church, Rousseau doubtless, meant to say that the popes were the origin of the crusades, and that the soldiers of the cross defended the temporal power of the popes. We at once reply that the crusades owed their birth and growth to the religious and warlike enthusiasm that animated the nations of the West in the twelfth century, and that without this enthusiasm, which was not the work of the heads of the Church, the preachings of the Holy See would not have been able to collect a single army under the banners of the cross. We may further add that, during the holy wars, the sovereign pontiffs were frequently driven from Rome and despoiled of their states, and that they did not summon the Crusaders to the defence of the power or temporal country of the Church. Not only were the Crusaders not always the blind instruments of the Holy See, but they sometimes resisted the will of the popes, and yet in their camps were no less models of valour united with Christian piety. No doubt, the leaders were often seduced by ambition, the love of glory, and a passion for war; but religion, well or ill understood, acted upon the greater number; the Christian religion which they defended, or believed they defended, by inspiring them with a desire for the blessings of heaven and a contempt for life, elevated them above all perils, and enabled them to brave death on every occasion. Here is the whole truth; but this truth is too simple for such as disdain common routes, and cannot form a judgment upon human affairs without displaying all the parade of a proud and austere philosophy. For ourselves, who are persuaded that true philosophy consists in studying the human heart and the spirit of societies, not in vain theories, but in the faithful history of past ages; we will not refute brilliant sophisms by long arguments; but to show in all its splendour the valour of Christian soldiers, we will content ourselves with pursuing our recital, and making known with impartiality the labours, the reverses, and the victories of the soldiers of the cross.[34]

The departure of the German Crusaders plunged the eastern Christians into grief and consternation; the colonies, when left to their own resources, were only protected by the truce concluded between the count de Montfort and Malek-Adel. The infidels had too great a superiority over their enemies to respect, for any length of time, a treaty which they considered as an obstacle to the progress of their power. The Christians, threatened by new perils, again turned their eyes to the West. The bishop of Ptolemaïs, accompanied by several knights, embarked for Europe, in order to solicit the aid of the faithful. The vessel in which he embarked had scarcely quitted the port, when it was swallowed up by the waves, and the bishop and every person of his suite perished. Other ships, that set sail a short time afterwards, were surprised by the tempest, and forced to return to the port of Tripoli; so that the prayers and complaints of the Christians of Palestine could not reach the ears of their brethren of the West. Nevertheless, the afflicting news of the situation of the feeble kingdom of Jerusalem soon became generally known; some pilgrims, escaping from the perils of the sea, described, on their return, the triumphs and threats of the Saracens; but in the state of Europe at that moment, nothing could be more difficult than to induce nations to undertake a new crusade. The death of the Emperor Henry VI. divided the princes and prelates of Germany, and Philip Augustus was still at war with Richard of England. One of the sons of Bela, king of Hungary, who pretended to take the cross, only assembled an army to agitate the kingdom, and get possession of the crown. Amidst the fierce contentions that disturbed Europe, the Christian people seemed to have forgotten the tomb of Christ: a single man was touched with the misfortunes of the faithful of the East, and was not without hope of alleviating them.

Innocent III., at the age of thirty-three, had recently gained the suffrages of the conclave.[35] At a period of life in which the passions are generally masters, devoted to the most austere retirement, constantly occupied with the study of holy books, and ready at all times to confound new heresies by the force of reason, the successor of St. Peter shed tears on being informed of his elevation; but when seated on the pontifical throne, Innocent all at once exhibited a new character: the same man, who had appeared to dread the splendour of a lofty position, became most eager, by any means, to increase his power, and displayed all the ambition and inflexible obstinacy of Gregory VII. His youth, which promised him a long reign; his ardour in the defence of justice and truth; his eloquence, his knowledge, his virtues, which drew upon him the respect of the faithful, all united to give birth to the hope that he would assure the triumph of religion; and that he would one day accomplish the projects of his predecessors.

As the power of the pope was founded upon the progress of the faith and the holy enthusiasm of the Christians, Innocent gave his first attention to the suppression of the dangerous innovations and imprudent doctrines that began to corrupt his age and menace the sanctuary; he particularly endeavoured to reanimate the ardour for the crusades: and, to master the minds of kings and nations, to rally all Christians, and make them concur in the triumph of the Church, he spoke to them of the captivity of Jerusalem; he pointed to the tomb of Christ, and the holy places profaned by the presence and the domination of infidels.

In a letter [36] addressed to the bishops, the clergy, the nobles, and people of France, England, Hungary, and Sicily, the sovereign pontiff made known the will, the menaces, and the promises of God. “Since the lamentable loss of Jerusalem,” said he, “the Holy See has never ceased to cry towards Heaven, and to exhort the faithful to avenge the injury done to Christ, thus banished from his heritage. Formerly Uriah would not enter into his house, or see his wife, whilst the ark of the Lord was in the camp; but now our princes, in this public calamity, abandon themselves to illegitimate amours; immerse themselves in voluptuousness; abuse the blessings that God has given them; and pursue each other with implacable hatred; only thinking of revenging their own personal injuries, they never consider that our enemies insult us, saying: ‘Where is your God, who cannot deliver himself out of our hands? We have profaned your sanctuary, and the places in which you pretend your superstition had its birth; we have crushed the arms of the French, the English, the Germans, and subdued a second time the proud Spaniards: what remains then for us to do? to drive out those you have left in Syria, and to penetrate into the West to efface for ever both your name and your memory.’” Assuming then a more paternal tone: “Prove,” cried Innocent, “that you have not lost your courage; be prodigal, in the cause of God, of all you have received from him; if, on an occasion so pressing, you refuse to serve Christ, what excuse will you be able to offer at his terrible tribunal? If God died for man, shall man fear to die for his God? Will he refuse to give up his transitory life and the perishable goods of this world for him who lays before us the treasures of eternity?”

Prelates were at the same time sent through all the countries of Europe, to preach peace among princes, and exhort them to unite against the common enemies of God. These prelates, clothed in the full confidence of the Holy See, were to engage cities and nobles to equip, at their own expense, for the Holy Land, a certain number of warriors, to serve there during two years at least. They promised remission of sins,[37] and the special protection of the Church [38] to all that would take up the cross and arms, or would contribute to the equipment and support of the soldiers of Christ. To receive the pious tribute of the faithful, boxes were placed in all the churches. At the tribunal of penitence, the priests were ordered to command all sinners to concur in the holy enterprise; no error could find grace before God, without the sincere will of participating in the crusade; zeal for the deliverance of the holy places appeared to be at that time the only virtue the pope required of Christians, and even charity itself lost some of its value, if not exercised in promoting the crusades. As the Church of Rome was reproached with imposing upon the people burdens to which she only applied the tip of her own finger, the pope exhorted the heads of the clergy, and the clergy themselves, to set an example of devotedness and sacrifices. Innocent ordered his gold and silver plate to be melted to defray the expenses of the holy war, and would allow none but vessels of wood and clay to be seen on his table whilst the crusade lasted.

The sovereign pontiff was so satisfied of the zeal and piety of the Christians, that he wrote to the patriarch and king of Jerusalem, to announce to them the coming succours from the West. He neglected nothing that could augment the numbers of the soldiers of Christ; he addressed himself to the emperor of Constantinople, and reproached him with indifference for the deliverance of the holy places. The emperor Alexius endeavoured, in his answer, to show his zeal for the cause of religion; but he added that the time of deliverance was not yet arrived, and that he feared to oppose himself to the will of God, irritated by the sins of the Christians. The Greek prince adroitly reminded him of the ravages committed in the territories of the empire by the soldiers of Frederick, and conjured the pope to direct his reproofs against those who, feigning to labour for Jesus Christ, acted against the will of Heaven. In his correspondence with Alexius, Innocent III. did not at all conceal his pretensions to universal empire, and spoke in the character of sovereign arbiter of the kings of the East and West. He applied to himself these words addressed to Jeremiah: “I have placed thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pull up and scatter, to edify and to plant.” When speaking of the power of the popes and that of princes, he compared the one to the sun, which lights the universe during the day, and the other to the moon, which lights the earth during the night.

The pretensions that Innocent put forth, and the haughtiness with which he sought to establish them, were, no doubt, injurious to the effect of his exhortations, and must have weakened the zeal of the Christian princes whom he wished to persuade to undertake the crusade. The princes and bishops of Germany were divided between Otho of Saxony and Philip of Swabia; the sovereign pontiff pronounced strongly for Otho, and threatened with the thunders of the Church all who assisted the opposite party. In the dissensions occasioned by this momentous affair, some availed themselves of the opportunity to gain the favour of the pope, and others to secure themselves from the effects of his anger; but all Germany being engaged in the quarrel, nobody took the cross.

One of the pope’s legates, Peter of Capua, succeeded in re-establishing peace between Richard Cœur de Lion and Philip Augustus. Richard, who was desirous of conciliating the good-will of the Holy See, constantly promised to equip a fleet and collect an army to go and make war against the infidels. He proclaimed a tournament in his capital, in the midst of which he called upon the barons and knights to follow him into the East; but all these demonstrations, the sincerity of which was very suspicious, remained unproductive. It was not long before war again broke out between France and England; and Richard, who on all occasions repeated his vow of combating the infidels, was killed in a petty quarrel with Christians.

Philip Augustus repudiated Ingeburge, daughter of the king of Denmark, to marry Agnes de Meranie. The sovereign pontiff, in a letter addressed to the faithful, strongly censured princes who gave themselves up to illegitimate amours; he ordered Philip Augustus to take back Ingeburge, and as Philip refused to obey, the kingdom of France was placed under an interdict. During several months all religious ceremonies were suspended; the pulpits of the Gospel ceased to give forth the holy word; church bells and the voice of prayer were silenced; Christian burial was refused to the dead; the sanctuary was closed against the faithful; a long mourning veil seemed to hang over cities and plains, from which the Christian religion was banished, and which might almost be fancied to be invaded by the Saracens. Although such as took the cross were exempt from the interdict, the spectacle which France presented discouraged and saddened its inhabitants. Philip Augustus, irritated against the pope, showed very little disposition to revive their zeal; and the clergy, whose influence might have had a powerful effect, had less reason to deplore the captivity of Jerusalem than the unhappy state of the kingdom.

At length a curé of Neuilly-sur-Maine began to fill France with the fame of his eloquence and his miracles. Foulques had at first led a very dissipated life, but, touched with sincere repentance, he was not satisfied with expiating his irregularities by penitence, but became desirous of bringing back all sinners to the paths of salvation, and travelled through the provinces endeavouring to awaken in the people a contempt for the things of this life. God, to try him, permitted that, in his early sermons, Foulques should be exposed to the ridicule of his auditors; but the truths he uttered soon obtained a marvellous ascendancy over all that came to hear him. Bishops invited him to preach in their dioceses; he received everywhere extraordinary honours, and both people and clergy flocked out to meet him, as if he had been an envoy of God. Foulques, says the chronicle of St. Victor, had nothing remarkable in his vestments or manner of living; he travelled on horseback, and ate that which was given to him. He preached sometimes in churches, at others in public places, and not unfrequently amidst the excitement of tournaments. His eloquence was simple and natural; safe, by his ignorance, from the bad taste of his age, he neither astonished his auditors by the vain subtleties of the schools, nor by an absurd mixture of passages from the Scriptures and profane quotations from antiquity. His words, from being unadorned by the erudition then so much admired, were the more persuasive, and found their way more directly to the heart.[39] The most learned preachers ranked themselves among his disciples, and declared that the Holy Ghost spoke by his mouth. Animated by that faith which performs prodigies, he enchained at his pleasure the passions of the multitude, and caused to resound, even in the palaces of princes, the thunders of evangelical denunciations.[40] At his voice, all that had enriched themselves by fraud, brigandage, or usury, hastened to restore that which they had unjustly acquired; libertines confessed their sins, and devoted themselves to the austerities of penitence;[41] prostitutes, following the example of Madeline, deplored the scandal of their lives, cut off their hair, exchanged their gaudy apparel for haircloth and mean garments, and made vows to sleep upon ashes and die in retirement. In short, the eloquence of Foulques of Neuilly effected such miracles, that contemporaries speak of him as of another St. Paul, sent for the conversion of his age. One of them even goes so far as to say that he dares not relate all he knows of him, fearing the incredulity of men.[42]

Innocent III. cast his eyes upon Foulques of Neuilly, and confided to him the mission that, fifty years before, had been given to St. Bernard. The new preacher of the crusade himself assumed the cross at a general chapter of the order of Citeaux. At the sound of his voice, the zeal for the holy war, which had appeared extinct, blazed out again in all parts. In every city he passed through, the people crowded to listen to him; and all who were in a condition to bear arms, took the oath to combat the infidels.

Several holy orators were associated with Foulques of Neuilly; Martin Litz, of the order of Citeaux, in the diocese of Bâle, and on the banks of the Rhine; Herloin, a monk of St. Denis, took his cause through the still wild countries of Bretagne and the lower Poitou; and Eustace, abbot of Flay, crossed the sea twice, to awaken the enthusiasm and holy ardour of the provinces of England.

These pious orators were not all endowed with the same eloquence; but all were animated by the most ardent zeal. The profanation of the holy places, the evils suffered by the Eastern Christians, and the remembrance of Jerusalem, imparted the most lively interest to their discourses, and touched all hearts.[43] Such was the spirit spread through Europe, that simply to mention the name of Christ, or to speak of the city of God, held in captivity by the infidels, melted auditors to tears, and gave birth to transports of enthusiasm. The people everywhere evinced the same piety and the same feelings; but the cause of Christ still wanted the example and courage of princes and nobles. As a celebrated tournament had been proclaimed in Champagne, at which the boldest warriors of France, Germany, and Flanders were expected to be present, Foulques repaired to the castle of Ecry-sur-Aisne,[44] which was the rendezvous of the knights. His eloquence procured attention to the complaints of Sion, even amidst the profane and violent amusements of chivalry; when Foulques spoke of Jerusalem, knights and barons neglected their jousts, the shivering of lances, or high feats of arms; they became insensible of the presence of dames and demoiselles, who accorded the prizes to valour; and turned a deaf ear to the gay minstrels who celebrated la prouesse achetée et vendue au fer et à l’acier. All took the oath to fight against the infidels; and it must have been surprising to see numerous defenders of the cross come forth from these warlike festivals that were so severely reprehended by the Church.

Among the princes and lords who enrolled themselves in the crusade, the most conspicuous were Thibault IV., count of Champagne, and Louis, count of Chartres and Blois, both relations of the kings of France and England. The father of Thibault had followed Louis VII. to the second crusade, and his elder brother had been king of Jerusalem. Two thousand five hundred knights owed him homage and military service, and the nobility of Champagne excelled in all the noble exercises of arms.[45] The marriage of Thibault with the heiress of Navarre brought to his standard a great number of warriors from the countries bordering on the Pyrenees. Louis, count of Chartres and Blois, reckoned among his ancestors one of the most illustrious chiefs of the first crusade, and was master of a province abounding in warriors of name. After the example of these two princes, the following distinguished leaders took the cross:—The count of St. Paul, the counts Gauthier and Jean de Brienne, Manassès de l’Isle, Renard de Dampièrre, Mathieu de Montmorency, Hugh and Robert de Boves, d’Amiens, Renaud de Boulogne, Geoffrey de Perche, Renaud de Montmirail, Simon de Montfort, who had just signed a treaty with the Saracens, but was no less ready on that account to take an oath to fight against them; and Geoffrey de Villehardouin,[46] marshal of Champagne, who has left us an account of this crusade in the unadorned language of his time.

Among the ecclesiastics, history names Nivelon de Chérisi, bishop of Soissons; Garnier, bishop of Langres; the abbot of Looz, and the abbot of Veaux-de-Cernai. The bishop of Langres, who had been the object of the censures of the pope, expected to find in the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, an opportunity of reconciling himself with the Holy See. The abbot of Looz and the abbot of Veaux-de-Cernai were both remarkable for their piety and learning; the former full of wisdom and moderation, the latter animated by a holy enthusiasm and an ardent zeal, which afterwards he but too strongly displayed against the Albigeois and the partisans of the count of Thoulouse.

When the knights and barons returned to their homes, bearing a red cross upon their baldrics and their coats of mail,[47] they aroused by their presence the enthusiasm of their vassals and brothers in arms. The nobility of Flanders, after the example of those of Champagne, were anxious to prove their zeal for the recovery of the holy places. Baldwin, who had taken the part of Richard against Philip Augustus, sought beneath the standard of the cross an asylum against the anger of the king of France, and swore, in the church of St. Donatien of Bruges, to go into Asia to combat the Saracens. Mary, countess of Flanders, sister of Thibault, count of Champagne, would not live separated from her husband; and although she was still in the flower of her youth, and was several months advanced in her pregnancy, took an oath to follow the Crusaders beyond the seas, and to quit a home she was doomed never to see again. The example of Baldwin was followed by his two brothers,[48] Eustace and Henry, count of Sarbuck; by Canon de Bethune, whose piety and eloquence were held in high estimation, and by Jacques d’Avesnes, son of him who, under the same name, had made himself so famous in the third crusade. Most of the knights and barons of Flanders and Hainault also took the oath to share the labours and perils of the holy war.

The principal leaders first met at Soissons, and afterwards at Compiègne. In their assembly, they gave the command of the expedition to Thibault, count of Champagne. It was decided also that the Crusaders should repair to the East by sea; and, in consequence of this determination, six deputies were sent to Venice,[49] in order to obtain from the republic the vessels required to transport the men and horses.

The Venetians were at that period in the highest state of their greatness and prosperity. Amidst the convulsions that had preceded and followed the fall of the Roman power, these industrious people had taken refuge in the islands that border the extremity of the Adriatic Gulf; and, placed upon the waves, had directed all their views to the empire of the sea,[50] of which the barbarians took no heed. Venice was at first under the dominion of the emperors of Constantinople; but, in proportion with the decline of the Greek empire, the republic acquired territory, strength, and splendour, which necessarily produced independence. From the tenth century, palaces of marble had replaced the humble huts of fishermen, scattered over the island of the Rialto. The cities of Istria and Dalmatia obeyed the sovereigns of the Adriatic Sea. The republic, become formidable to the most powerful monarch, was able, at the least signal, to arm a fleet of a hundred galleys, which it employed successively against the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Normans. The power of Venice was respected by all the nations of the West; and the republics of Genoa and Pisa in vain contended with her for the domination of the seas. The Venetians remembered with pride these words of Pope Alexander III., when the republic had protested against the emperor of Germany, who presented a ring to the doge, saying, “Espouse the sea with this ring, that posterity may know that the Venetians have acquired the empire of the waves, and that the sea has been subjected to them as a woman is to her husband.”

The fleets of the Venetians constantly visited the ports of Greece and Asia; they transported pilgrims to Palestine, and returned laden with the rich merchandise of the East. The Venetians entered into the crusades with less eagerness and enthusiasm than other Christian nations, but knew well how to profit by them for their own interests; whilst the warriors of Christendom were fighting for glory, for kingdoms, or for the tomb of Christ, the merchants of Venice fought for counting-houses, stores, and commercial privileges; and avarice often made them undertake that which other nations could not have been able to effect but by an excess of religious zeal. The republic, which owed all its prosperity to its commercial relations, sought without scruple the friendship and protection of the Mussulman powers of Syria and Egypt; and often, even when all Europe was arming against the infidels, the Venetians were accused of supplying the enemies of the Christian nations with both arms and provisions.

When the deputies of the Crusaders arrived at Venice, the republic had for doge Dandolo, so celebrated in its annals. Dandolo had for a length of time served his country in important missions, and in the command of its fleets and armies; now, placed at the head of its government, he watched over its liberties and the operations of its laws. His labours in war and peace, his useful regulations of the money currency, with his administration of justice and public security, deservedly procured him the esteem and gratitude of his fellow-citizens. He had acquired the power of mastering, by words, the passions of the multitude, even in the stormy disputes of a republic.

Nobody was more skilful in seizing a favourable opportunity, or in taking advantage of the least circumstance for the furtherance of his designs. At the age of ninety, the doge of Venice exhibited no symptoms of senility but virtue and experience.[51] Everything that could save his country aroused his activity and inflamed his courage; with the spirit of calculation and economy which distinguished his compatriots, Dandolo mingled passions the most generous, and threw an air of grandeur over all the enterprises of a trading people. His patriotism, always sustained by the love of glory, appeared to possess something of that sentiment of honour, and that chivalric greatness of soul which formed the predominant characteristic of his age.

Dandolo [52] praised with warmth an enterprise that appeared glorious to him, and in which the interests of his country were not opposed to those of religion. The deputies required vessels to transport four thousand five hundred knights and twenty thousand foot, with provisions for the Christian army for nine months. Dandolo promised, in the name of the republic, to furnish the necessary provisions and vessels, on condition that the Crusaders should engage to pay the Venetians the sum of eighty-five thousand silver marks.[53] As he was not willing that the people of Venice should be unconnected with the expedition of the French Crusaders, Dandolo proposed to the deputies to arm, at the expense of the republic, fifty galleys, and demanded for his country half of the conquests that might be made in the East.

The deputies accepted without hesitation the more interested than generous proposals of the doge. The conditions of the treaty were first examined in the doge’s council,[54] composed of six patricians; it was afterwards ratified in two other councils,[55] and at last presented for the sanction of the people, who then exercised supreme power.[56]

A general assembly was convoked in the church of St. Mark, and when the mass of the Holy Ghost had been celebrated, the marshal of Champagne, accompanied by the other deputies, arose, and addressing the people of Venice, pronounced a discourse, the simple and unaffected expressions of which paint, better than we possibly can, the spirit and feelings of the heroic periods of our history.[57] “The lords and barons of France, the most high and the most powerful, have sent us to you to pray you, in the name of God, to take pity on Jerusalem, which the Turks hold in bondage; they cry to you for mercy, and supplicate you to accompany them to avenge the disgrace of Jesus Christ. They have made choice of you, because they know that no people that be upon the sea have so great power as your nation. They have commanded us to throw ourselves at your feet, and not to rise until you shall have granted our request, until you shall have had pity on the Holy Land beyond the seas.” At these words the deputies were moved to tears,[58] and feeling it no degradation to humble themselves in the cause of Christ,[59] they fell upon their knees and held up their hands in a supplicating manner towards the assembly of the people. The strong emotion of the barons and knights communicated itself to the Venetians, and ten thousand voices replied as one, “We grant your request.” The doge, ascending the tribunal, praised highly the earnestness and loyalty of the French barons, and spoke with enthusiasm of the honour God conferred upon the people of Venice in choosing them from amongst all other nations,[60] to partake in the glory of the most noble of enterprises, and associate them with the most valiant of warriors. He then read the treaty entered into with the Crusaders, and conjured his assembled fellow-citizens to give their consent to it in the forms ordained by the laws of the republic. Then the people arose, and cried with an unanimous shout, “We consent to it.” All the inhabitants of Venice were present at this meeting; an immense multitude covered the place of St. Mark and filled the neighbouring streets. Religious enthusiasm, love of country, surprise and joy were manifested by acclamations so loud and general, that it might be said, according to the expression of the marshal of Champagne, “that the world was about to engage in one common conflict.”

On the morrow of this memorable day, the deputies of the barons repaired to the palace of St. Mark, and swore on their swords and the Gospel, to fulfil all the engagements they had made. The preamble of the treaty recalled the faults and the misfortunes of the princes who had to that time undertaken the deliverance of the Holy Land, and praised the wisdom and prudence of the French lords and knights, who neglected nothing to assure the success of an enterprise full of difficulties and perils. The deputies were charged to endeavour to cause the conditions they had sworn to to be adopted by their brothers in arms the barons and knights, by the whole of their nation, and if possible, by their sovereign lord the king of France. The treaty was written on parchment and sent immediately to Rome, to receive the approbation of the pope; and, full of confidence in the future, as well as in the alliance they had contracted, the French knights and the patricians of Venice exchanged the most touching protestations of friendship.[61] The doge lent the barons the sum of ten thousand silver marks, and the latter swore never to forget the services the republic had rendered to Jesus Christ. “There were then shed,” says Villehardouin, “many tears of tenderness and joy.”

The government of Venice was a new spectacle for the French nobles; deliberations of the people were perfectly unknown to them, and must have struck them with astonishment. On the other side, the embassy of the knights and barons could not fail to flatter the pride of the Venetians; the latter felicitated themselves upon being thus acknowledged as the greatest maritime nation, and, never separating their glory from their commercial interests, rejoiced at having made so advantageous a bargain. The knights, on the contrary, only thought of honour and the cause of Christ; and although the treaty was ruinous to the Crusaders, they bore back the news to their companions in arms with the greatest joy and satisfaction.[62]

The preference given to the Venetians by the Crusaders naturally excited the jealousy of the other maritime powers of Italy; thus the French deputies, upon going to Pisa and Genoa to solicit the aid of the two republics in the name of Jesus Christ, met with a cold reception and a perfect indifference for the deliverance of the holy places.

The account of what had taken place at Venice, and the presence of the barons, did not fail, however, to arouse the enthusiasm of the inhabitants of Lombardy and Piedmont; a great number of them took the cross and arms, and promised to follow Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, to the Holy Land.

The marshal of Champagne, whilst crossing Mount Cenis, met Gauthier de Brienne, who had taken the cross at the castle of Ecry, and was on his way to Apulia. He had married one of the daughters of Tancred, last king of Sicily. Followed by sixty knights of Champagne, he was going to endeavour to make good the claims of his wife, and conquer the kingdom founded by the Norman knights. The marshal Villehardouin and Gauthier de Brienne congratulated each other upon the brilliant prospects of their expeditions, and promised to meet again in the plains of Egypt and Syria. Thus the future presented nothing to the knights of the cross but victories and trophies; and the hope of conquering distant kingdoms redoubled their ardour.

When the deputies arrived in Champagne, they found Thibault dangerously ill. The prince was so delighted at learning the success of their embassy, that, heedless of the disease that had confined him to his bed, he insisted upon putting on his armour and mounting on horseback; but “this was great pity and misfortune,” says Villehardouin; “for the malady increased, and gathered such strength, that he declared his will, took leave of his friends, and got no more on horseback.” Thibault, the model and hope of the Christian knights, died in the flower of his age, deeply regretted by his vassals and companions in arms. He deplored before the barons the rigorous destiny that condemned him thus to die without glory, at the moment that he was about to gather the palms of victory or of martyrdom in the plains of the East; he exhorted them to perform the vow he had made to God to deliver Jerusalem, and left them all his treasures to be employed in this holy enterprise. An epitaph in Latin verse, which still exists, celebrates the virtues and pious zeal of Count Thibault, recalls the preparations for his pilgrimage,[63] and terminates by saying, that this young prince found the heavenly Jerusalem, when about to seek the earthly Jerusalem.

After the death of the count of Champagne, the barons and knights who had taken the cross, assembled to choose another leader, and their election fell upon the count de Bar and the duke of Burgundy. The count de Bar refused to take the command of the Christian army. Eudes III., duke of Burgundy, still mourned the death of his father, who had died in Palestine after the third crusade, and could not be induced to quit his duchy to undertake the pilgrimage to the East. The refusal of these two princes was a subject of scandal for the soldiers of the cross; and contemporary history informs us that they afterwards repented of the indifference they had evinced for the cause of Christ.[64] The duke of Burgundy, who died within a few years, was desirous of taking the cross on his bed of death, and, to expiate his fault, sent several of his warriors into Palestine.

The knights and barons then offered the command to Boniface, marquis of Montferrat.[65] Boniface belonged to a family of Christian heroes; his brother Conrad had rendered himself famous by the defence of Tyre, and he himself had already fought many times against the infidels: he did not hesitate in complying with the wishes of the Crusaders. He came to Soissons, where he received the cross from the hands of the curé of Neuilly, and was proclaimed leader of the crusade in the church of Notre Dame, in the presence of the clergy and the people.

Two years had passed away since the sovereign pontiff had ordered the bishops to preach the crusade in their dioceses. The situation of the Christians of the East became every day more deplorable; the kings of Jerusalem and Armenia, the patriarchs of Antioch and the holy city, and the grand masters of the military orders, addressed day after day their complaints and lamentations to the Holy See. Touched by their prayers, Innocent again exhorted the faithful, and conjured the Crusaders to hasten their departure; warmly censuring the indifference of those who, after having taken the cross, appeared to be forgetful of their vow. The Christian father, above all, reproached the ecclesiastics with their tardiness in paying the fortieth part of their revenues, destined to the expenses of the holy war: “and you and we,” said he, “and all persons supported by the goods of the Church, ought we not all to fear that the inhabitants of Nineveh should appear against us at the day of judgment, and pronounce our condemnation? for they were made penitent by the preaching of Jonas; and you, not only you have not rent your hearts, you have not even opened your hands to succour Christ in his poverty, and repulse the opprobrium with which the infidels load him.” The epoch of a holy war being for Christians a season of penitence, the sovereign pontiff proscribed, in his letters, sumptuousness in living, splendour in dress, and public amusements; and although the new crusade had been first preached at the tournament of Ecry, tournaments were in the number of diversions and spectacles forbidden to all Christians by the holy father during the space of five years.

To reanimate the courage and confidence of those who had taken the cross, Innocent told them of the new divisions that had sprung up among the Mussulman princes, and of the scourges with which God had recently afflicted Egypt. “God,” cried the pontiff, “has struck the country of Babylon with the rod of his power; the Nile,[66] that river of Paradise, which fertilizes the land of the Egyptians, has not had its accustomed course. This chastisement has given them up to death, and prepared the triumph of their enemies.” The letters of the pope had the desired effect. The marquis of Montferrat went into France, towards the autumn of the year 1201, and the whole winter was devoted to preparations for the holy war. These preparations were unaccompanied by disorder, and the princes and barons refused to receive under their banners any but disciplined soldiers and men accustomed to the use of the lance and the sword. Some voices were raised against the Jews, whom they desired to force to contribute to the expenses of the holy war;[67] but the pope took them under his protection, and threatened all who made attempts upon their lives or liberty with excommunication.

Before they left their homes, the Crusaders had to deplore the loss of the holy orator who had awakened their zeal and animated their courage. Foulques fell sick, and died in his parish of Neuilly. Some time before, loud murmurs had been heard respecting his conduct, and his words had ceased to exercise their accustomed power over the minds of his auditors. Foulques had received considerable sums of money destined for the expenses of the holy war, and as he was accused of appropriating these to his own use, the more money he amassed, says James of Vitri,[68] the more consideration and credit he lost. The suspicions attached to his conduct were not, however, generally credited. The marshal of Champagne informs us, in his history, that the knights and barons were deeply affected by the death of the curé of Neuilly. Foulques was buried in the church of his parish with great pomp; his tomb, a monument of the piety of his contemporaries, attracted, even in the last century the respect and veneration of the faithful.[69]

With the earliest days of spring the Crusaders prepared to quit their homes, “and knew,” says Villehardouin, “that many tears were shed at their parting, and at taking leave of their relations and friends.” The count of Flanders, the counts of Blois and St. Paul, followed by a great number of Flemish warriors and their vassals; the marshal of Champagne, accompanied by several Champenois knights, advanced across Burgundy, and passed the Alps to repair to Venice. The Marquis Boniface soon joined them, bringing with him the Crusaders of Lombardy, Piedmont, Savoy, and the countries situated between the Alps and the Rhone. Venice also received within its walls the warriors from the banks of the Rhine, some under the command of the bishop of Halberstadt, and others under that of Martin-Litz, who had persuaded them to take arms, and still continued to animate them by the example of his virtues and piety.

When the Crusaders reached Venice,[70] the fleet that was to transport them into Asia, was ready to set sail: they were at first received with every demonstration of joy; but amidst the festivities that followed their arrival,[71] the Venetians called upon the barons to redeem their word, and pay the sum agreed upon for transporting the Christian army; and then it was that, with deep grief, the barons became aware of the absence of a great number of their companions in arms. Jean de Nesle, châtelain of Bruges, and Thierri, son of Philip, count of Flanders, had promised Baldwin to bring to him, at Venice, Marguerite, his wife, and a chosen band of Flemish warriors: they did not keep their appointment, for having embarked upon the ocean, they had directed their course to Palestine. Renaud de Dampierre, to whom Thibault, count of Champagne, had left all his treasures to be employed in the voyage to the Holy Land, had embarked with a great number of Champenois knights at the port of Bari. The bishop of Autun, Gilles, count of Ferez, and several other leaders, after having sworn upon the Gospel to join the other Crusaders, had set out from Marseilles, and others from Genoa. Thus half the Crusaders did not come to Venice, which had been agreed upon as the general rendezvous of the Christian army: “by which,” says Villehardouin, “they received great shame, and many misadventures afterwards befell them in consequence of it.”

This breach of faith might prove very injurious to the enterprise; but what most grieved the princes and barons assembled at Venice, was the impossibility of fulfilling their engagements with the republic without the concurrence of their unfaithful companions. They sent messengers into all parts to warn the Crusaders that had set out, and to implore them to join the main army; but whether most of the pilgrims were dissatisfied with the agreement entered into with the Venetians, or whether it appeared to them more convenient and safe to embark at ports in their own vicinity, a very small number of them could be prevailed upon to repair to Venice. Those who were already in that city, were neither sufficiently numerous nor sufficiently rich to pay the promised amount, or fulfil the engagements made in their names. Although the Venetians were more interested in the crusade than the French knights, as they possessed a part of the cities of Tyre and Ptolemaïs, which they were going to defend, they were unwilling to make any sacrifice, and the barons, on their side, were too proud to ask any favour, or to solicit the Venetians to change or moderate the conditions of the treaty. Each of the Crusaders was required to pay the price of his passage. The rich paid for the poor; soldiers as well as knights being eager to give all the money they possessed, persuaded, they said, that God was powerful enough to return it to them a hundred-fold, when it should please him. The count of Flanders, the counts of Blois and St. Paul, the marquis of Montferrat, and several other leaders despoiled themselves of their plate, their jewels, and everything they had that was most valuable,[72] and only retained their horses and arms. Notwithstanding this noble sacrifice, the Crusaders still were indebted to the republic a sum of fifty thousand silver marks. The doge then assembled the people, and represented to them that it was not honourable to employ too much rigour, and proposed to demand of the Crusaders the assistance of their army for the republic, until they could discharge their debt.

The city of Zara had been for a length of time under the dominion of the Venetians; but thinking the government of a king less insupportable than that of a republic, it had given itself up to the king of Hungary, and, under the protection of a new master, braved the authority and menaces of Venice. After having obtained the approbation of the people, Dandolo proposed to the Crusaders to assist the republic in subduing a revolted city, and promised to put off the entire execution of the treaty until God, by their common conquests, should have given them the means of fulfilling their promises. This proposition was received with much joy by the greater part of the Crusaders, who could not support the idea of being unable to keep their word; the barons and knights deemed it prudent to conciliate the Venetians, who were so serviceable to them in carrying out their enterprise, and thought they did but little to pay their debts by an affair in which they should expend nothing but their blood.

Some murmurs, however, arose in the Christian army; many of the Crusaders recollected the oath they had taken to fight the infidels, and could not make up their minds to turn their arms against a Christian people. The pope had sent the Cardinal Peter of Capua to Venice, to deter the pilgrims from an enterprise which he termed sacrilegious. “The king of Hungary had taken the cross, and by doing so had placed himself under the especial protection of the Church; and to attack a city belonging to him was to declare themselves enemies of the Church itself.” Henry Dandolo braved menaces and reproaches that he deemed to be unjust. “The privileges of the Crusaders,” said he, “could not screen the guilty from the severity of laws divine and human. Crusades were not undertaken to promote the ambition of kings or protect rebellious nations.[73] The pope had not the power to enchain the authority of sovereigns, or turn the Crusaders aside from a legitimate enterprise; from a war made against revolted subjects, against pirates whose brigandage perilled the freedom of the seas, and jeopardized the safety of pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land.”

To complete his conquest over all scruples, and dissipate all fears, the doge resolved to associate himself with the perils and labours of the crusade, and to engage his fellow-citizens to declare themselves the companions in arms of the Crusaders. The people being solemnly convoked, Dandolo ascended the pulpit of St. Mark, and demanded of the assembled Venetians permission to take the cross. “Seigneurs,” said he to them, “you have made an engagement to concur in the most glorious of enterprises; the warriors with whom you have contracted a holy alliance, surpass all other men in piety and valour. For myself, you see that I am laden with years, and have need of repose; but the glory that is promised to us restores me courage and strength to brave all the perils, to support all the labours of war. I feel by the ardour that leads me on, by the zeal which animates me, that nobody will merit your confidence, nobody will conduct you so well as the man you have chosen as head of your republic. If you will permit me to fight for Jesus Christ, and allow my son to perform the duties you have confided to me, I will go and live or die with you and the pilgrims.”

At this discourse, his whole auditory was much affected, and the people loudly applauded the resolution of the doge. Dandolo descended from the tribunal, and was led in triumph to the foot of the altar, where the cross was attached to his ducal cap. A great number of Venetians followed his example, and swore to die for the deliverance of the holy places. By this skilful policy, the doge completely won the Crusaders, and placed himself, in a manner, at the head of the crusade. He soon found himself sufficiently powerful to deny the authority of the cardinal of Capua, who spoke in the name of the pope, and pretended to have a right to direct the holy war, in his character of legate of the Holy See. Dandolo told the envoy of Innocent, that the Christian army stood in no need of leaders to conduct it, and that the legates of the sovereign pontiff ought to content themselves with edifying the Crusaders by their examples and discourses.

This bold, free language very much astonished the French barons, accustomed to respect the will of the Holy See; but the doge, by taking the cross, had inspired them with a confidence nothing could shake. The cross of the pilgrims was, for the Venetians and French, a pledge of alliance, a sacred tie, which united all their interests, and made of them, in a manner, but one same nation. From that time no one listened to those who spoke in the name of the Holy See,[74] or persisted in raising scruples in the minds of the Crusaders. The barons and knights showed the same zeal and ardour for the expedition against Zara as the Venetians themselves. The army of the Crusaders was ready to embark, when there happened, says Villehardouin, “a great wonder, an unhoped-for circumstance, the strangest that ever was heard of.”[75]

Isaac, emperor of Constantinople, had been dethroned by his brother Alexius. Abandoned by all his friends, deprived of sight, and loaded with irons, this unhappy prince languished in a dungeon. The son of Isaac, named also Alexius, who shared the captivity of his father, having deceived the vigilance of his guards and broken his chains, had fled into the West, in the hope that the princes and kings would one day undertake his defence, and declare war against the usurper of the imperial throne. Philip of Swabia, who had married Irene, the daughter of Isaac,[76] received the young prince kindly; but he was not then in a position to undertake anything in his favour, being fully engaged in defending himself against the arms of Otho and the menaces of the Holy See. Young Alexius next in vain threw himself at the feet of the pope, to implore his assistance. Whether the pontiff saw in the son of Isaac only the brother-in-law of Philip of Swabia, then considered an enemy to the court of Rome, or whether all his attention was directed towards the East, he gave no ear to the complaints of Alexius, and seemed to dread countenancing a war against Greece. The fugitive prince had in vain solicited most of the Christian monarchs, when he was advised to address himself to the Crusaders, the noblest warriors of the West. The arrival of his ambassadors created a lively sensation at Venice; the knights and barons were impressed with generous pity by the account of his misfortunes; they had never defended a more glorious cause. To avenge injured innocence, to remedy a great calamity, stirred the spirit of Dandolo; and the proud republicans, whose head he was, feelingly deplored the fate of a fugitive emperor. They had not forgotten that the usurper preferred to an alliance with them one with the Genoese and Pisans; it appeared to them that the cause of Alexius was their own, and that their vessels ought to bear him back to the ports of Greece and Byzantium.

Nevertheless, as everything was prepared for the conquest of Zara, the decision of this business was deferred to a more favourable opportunity; and the fleet, with the Crusaders on board, set sail amidst the sounds of martial music and the acclamation of the whole population of Venice. Never had a fleet so numerous or so magnificently equipped been seen in the Adriatic Gulf. The sea was covered with four hundred and eighty ships; the number of the combatants, horse and foot, amounted to forty thousand men. After having subdued Trieste and some other maritime cities of Istria that had shaken off the yoke of Venice, the Crusaders arrived before Zara on the 10th day of November, 1202, the eve of St. Martin. Zara,[77] situated on the eastern side of the Adriatic Gulf, sixty leagues from Venice, and five leagues north of Jadera, an ancient Roman colony, was a rich and populous city, fortified by high walls, and surrounded by a sea studded with rocks. The king of Hungary had sent troops to defend it, and the inhabitants had sworn to bury themselves beneath the ruins of the place rather than surrender to the Venetians. At the sight of the ramparts of the city, the Crusaders perceived all the difficulty of the enterprise, and the party opposed to this war again ventured to murmur. The leaders, however, gave the signal for the assault. As soon as the chains of the port were broken, and the machines began to make the walls shake, the inhabitants forgot the resolution they had formed of dying in defence of their ramparts, and, filled with dread, sent deputies to the doge, who promised to pardon them on account of their repentance. But the deputies charged with the petition for peace, met with several Crusaders among the besiegers, who said to them, “Why did you surrender? you have nothing to fear from the French?” These imprudent words rekindled the war; the deputies, on their return, announced to the inhabitants that all the Crusaders were not their enemies, and that Zara would preserve its liberty if the people and soldiers were willing to defend it. The party of the malcontents, whose object was to divide the army, seized this opportunity for reviving their complaints; the most ardent amongst them, insinuating themselves into the tents of the soldiers, and endeavouring to disgust them with a war which they termed impious.

Guy, abbot of Vaux de Cernai, of the order of Citeaux, made himself conspicuous by his endeavours to secure the failure of the enterprise against Zara; everything that could divert the march of the Crusaders from the route to the holy places,[78] was, in his eyes, an attack upon religion. The most brilliant exploits, if not performed in the cause of Christ, could command neither his esteem nor his approbation. The abbot of Cernai was deficient in neither subtlety nor eloquence, and knew how to employ both prayers and menaces effectively; he had that influence over the pilgrims that an inflexible mind and an ardent, obstinate character always obtains over the multitude. In a council, he arose, and forbade the Crusaders to draw their swords against Christians, and was about to read a letter from the pope, when he was interrupted by threats and cries.

Amidst the tumult which followed in the council and the army, the abbot of Cernai would have been in danger of his life, if the count de Montfort, who partook his sentiments, had not drawn his sword in his defence. The barons and knights could not, however, forget the promise they had made to fight for the republic of Venice; nor could they think of laying down their arms in presence of an enemy that had promised to surrender, and who now defied their attacks. The greater the efforts of the count de Montfort and the abbot of Cernai to interrupt the war, the more they conceived their honour and glory to be engaged to continue the siege they had begun. Whilst the malcontents were giving vent to their scruples and complaints, the bravest of the army proceeded to the assault. The besieged, whose hopes were built upon the divisions among their enemies, placed crosses upon the walls, persuaded that this revered sign would protect them more effectually than their machines of war; but they were not long in finding that there was no safety for them except in submission. On the 5th day of the siege, without having offered their enemies any serious resistance, they opened their gates, and only obtained from the conqueror liberty and life. The city was given up to pillage, and the booty divided between the Venetians and the French.

One of the results of this conquest was a fresh quarrel in the victorious army, in which more blood flowed than had been shed during the siege. The season being too far advanced to allow the fleet to put to sea, the doge proposed to the Crusaders to winter at Zara. The two nations occupied different quarters of the city; but as the Venetians had chosen the handsomest and most commodious houses, the French loudly proclaimed their dissatisfaction. After a few complaints and many threats, they had recourse to arms, and every street became the theatre of a conflict; the inhabitants of Zara beheld with delight the sanguinary disputes of their conquerors. The partisans of the abbot of Cernai applauded in secret the deplorable consequences of a war they had condemned; whilst the doge of Venice and the barons employed every effort to separate the combatants. Their prayers and threats at first had no effect in appeasing this horrible tumult, which was prolonged to the middle of the night. On the morrow, all the passions that divided the army were near breaking out with increased fury. Whilst interring their dead, the French and Venetians renewed their disputes and menaces. The leaders were, for more than a week, in despair of being able to calm the irritated spirits of their followers, and reunite the soldiers of the two nations. Scarcely was order re-established when a letter was received from the pope, who disapproved of the capture of Zara, ordered the Crusaders to renounce the booty they had made in a Christian city, and to engage themselves, by a solemn vow, to repair the injuries they had inflicted. Innocent reproached the Venetians bitterly with having seduced the soldiers of Christ into this impious and sacrilegious war. This letter from the pope was received with respect by the French, with disdain by the Crusaders of Venice. The latter openly refused to bow to the decisions of the Holy See; and to secure the fruits of their victory, began to demolish the ramparts of Zara. The French barons could not endure the idea of having incurred the anger of the pope, and sent deputies to Rome to endeavour to mitigate the displeasure of his holiness, and solicit their pardon, alleging that they had only obeyed the law of necessity. The greater part of them, though fully determined to retain all they had obtained, promised the pope to restore their spoils: they undertook, by a solemn act, addressed to all Christians, to repair the wrongs they had done, and to merit by their conduct pardon for past errors.[79] Their submission, far more than their promises, disarmed the anger of the pope, who replied to them with mildness, and commanded the leaders to salute the knights and pilgrims, giving them absolution and his benediction, as to his children. He exhorted them, in his letter, to set out for Syria, without turning to the right or the left; and permitting them to cross the sea with the Venetians, whom he had just excommunicated,[80] but only from necessity, and with bitterness of heart. If the Venetians persisted in their disobedience, the sovereign pontiff advised the barons, when they arrived in Palestine, to separate themselves from a people reproved of God, for fear of bringing a malediction upon the Christian army, as formerly Achan had brought down the divine wrath upon the Israelites. Innocent promised the Crusaders to protect them in their expedition, and to watch over their wants during the perils of the holy war. “In order that you may not want provisions,” said he to them, “we will write to the emperor of Constantinople to furnish you with them, as he has promised; if that be refused to you which is refused to none, it will not be unjust, if, after the example of many holy persons, you take provisions wherever you may find them; for it will be known that you are devoted to the cause of Christ, to whom all the world belongs.”[81] These counsels and these promises, which so completely reveal to us the spirit of the thirteenth century and the policy of the Holy See, were received by the knights and barons as evidence of the paternal goodness of the sovereign pontiff: but the face of things was about again to change; and fortune, which sported with the decisions of the pope as well as those of the pilgrims, was not long in giving an entirely new direction to the events of the crusade.

Ambassadors from Philip of Swabia, brother-in-law of young Alexius, arrived at Zara, and addressed the council of the lords and barons, assembled in the palace of the doge of Venice. “Seigneurs,” said they, “the puissant king of the Romans sends us to recommend to you the young prince Alexius, and to place him in your hands, under the safeguard of God. We do not come for the purpose of turning you aside from your holy enterprise, but to offer you an easy and a certain means of accomplishing your noble designs. We know that you have only taken up arms for the love of Christ and of justice; we come, therefore, to propose to you to assist those who are oppressed by unjust tyranny, and to secure at once the triumph of the laws of religion and humanity: we propose to you to turn your victorious arms towards the capital of Greece, which groans under the rod of an usurper, and to assure yourselves for ever of the conquest of Jerusalem by that of Constantinople. You know, as well as we do, how many evils, our fathers, the companions of Godfrey, Conrad, and Louis the Young, suffered from having left behind them a powerful empire, the conquest and submission of which would have become a source of victories to their arms. What have you not now to dread from this Alexius, more cruel and more perfidious than his predecessors, who has gained a throne by parricide, who has, at once, betrayed the laws of religion and nature, and whose only means of escaping from the punishment due to his crime is by allying himself with the Saracens? We will not tell you how easy a matter it would be to wrest the empire from the hands of a tyrant hated by his subjects, for your valour loves obstacles and delights in dangers; nor will we spread before your eyes the riches of Byzantium and Greece, for your generous souls aim at nothing in this conquest, but the glory of your arms and the cause of Jesus Christ.”

“If you overturn the power of the usurper in order that the legitimate sovereign may reign, the son of Isaac promises, under the faith of oaths the most inviolable, to maintain, during a year, both your fleet and your army, and to pay you two hundred thousand silver marks towards the expenses of the war. He will accompany you in person in the conquest of Syria or Egypt; and if you think proper, will furnish ten thousand men, as his portion of the armament; and, moreover, will maintain, during the whole of his life, five hundred knights in the Holy Land. But that which must weigh above all other considerations, with warriors and Christian heroes, is that Alexius is willing to swear, on the holy Gospel, to put an end to the heresy which now defiles the empire of the East, and to subject the Greek Church to the Church of Rome. So many advantages being attached to the enterprise proposed to you, we feel confident you will listen to our prayers. We see in Holy Writ that God sometimes employed men the most simple and the most obscure to make known his will to his chosen people; on this occasion, it is a young prince he has appointed the instrument of his designs; it is Alexius that Providence has commissioned to lead you in the way of the Lord, and to point out to you the road you must follow to render certain the triumph of the armies of Jesus Christ.”

This discourse made a strong impression upon a great number of the knights and barons, but it did not command the suffrages of the whole assembly. The doge and the lords dismissed the ambassadors, telling them they would deliberate upon the proposals of Alexius. Warm debates then ensued in the council; those that had been averse to the siege of Zara, among whom the abbot of Vaux de Cernai was still conspicuous, opposed the expedition to Constantinople with great vehemence; they were indignant that the interests of God should be placed in the balance against those of Alexius; they added that this Isaac, whose cause they were called upon to defend, was himself an usurper, elevated by a revolution to the throne of the Comnenas; that he had been, during the third crusade, the most cruel enemy of the Christians, the most faithful ally of the Turks; as for the rest, the nations of Greece, accustomed to the change of masters, supported the usurpation of Alexius without murmuring, and the Latins had not quitted their homes to avenge the injuries of a people that really did not call upon them for aid.

The same orators further said, that Philip of Swabia exhorted the Crusaders to assist Alexius, but was content himself with making speeches and sending ambassadors; they warned the Christians not to trust to the promises of a young prince, who engaged to furnish armies, and had not a single soldier; who offered treasures, and possessed nothing; who, besides, had been brought up amongst the Greeks, and would, most likely, some day turn his arms against his benefactors. “If you are so sensible to misfortune,” added they, “and impatient to defend the cause of justice and humanity, listen to the groans of our brethren in Palestine, who are menaced by the Saracens, and who have no earthly hope but in your courage.” They moreover told the Crusaders, that if they wished for easy victories and brilliant conquests, they had but to turn their eyes towards Egypt, the population of which was at that moment devoured by a horrible famine, and which the seven plagues of Scripture yielded up to the arms of the Christians almost without defence.

The Venetians, who had cause of complaint against the emperor of Constantinople, were not at all affected by these arguments, and appeared much more inclined to make war upon the Greeks than the infidels; they were anxious to destroy the warehouses of their rivals the Pisans, now established in Greece, and to see their ships crossing the straits of the Bosphorus in triumph. Their doge nourished a keen resentment on account of some personal offence; and to inflame the minds of his compatriots, he magnified all the wrongs inflicted by the Greeks on his own country and the Christians of the West.

If ancient chronicles may be believed, Dandolo was impelled by another motive, which he did not avow before the Crusaders. The sultan of Damascus, made aware of a Christian army being assembled at Venice, and terrified at the crusade that was preparing, had sent a considerable treasure to the republic, to engage it to divert the Crusaders from an expedition into the East. Whether we yield faith to this account, or whether we consider it as a fable invented by hatred and party spirit, such assertions, collected by contemporaries, at least prove that violent suspicions were then entertained against the Venetians by the dissatisfied Crusaders, and particularly by the Christians of Syria, justly irritated at not being assisted by the soldiers of the cross.[82] Nevertheless, we feel bound to add that the majority of the French Crusaders stood in no need of being stimulated by the example or speeches of the doge, to undertake a war against the Greek empire. Even those who opposed the new expedition the most strongly, as well as all the other Crusaders, entertained an inveterate hatred and a sovereign contempt for the Greeks; and the discussions had only the more inflamed the general mind against a nation considered inimical to the Christians.

Several ecclesiastics, having at their head the abbot of Looz, a personage remarkable for his piety and the purity of his manners, did not accord in opinion with the abbot of Vaux de Cernai, and maintained that there was much danger in leading an army into a country devastated by famine; that Greece presented much greater advantages to the Crusaders than Egypt, and that there could be no doubt that the conquest of Constantinople was the most certain means of securing to the Christians the possession of Jerusalem. These ecclesiastics were particularly fascinated by the hope of one day seeing the Greek Church united to that of Rome, and they constantly announced in their discourses the approaching period of concord and peace among all Christian people.

Many knights contemplated with satisfaction the prospect of the union of the two churches, likely to be brought about by their arms; but they yielded further to motives not less powerful over their minds; they had sworn to defend innocence and the rights of the oppressed, and they believed they performed their duty in embracing the cause of Alexius. Some of them, without doubt, who had heard of the vast wealth of Byzantium, might believe that they should not return from such a brilliant undertaking empty handed; but such was the spirit of the lords and knights, that by far the greater number were attracted by the mere prospect of the perils, and still more by the wonders of the enterprise. After a long deliberation, it was decided in the council of the Crusaders that the proposals of Alexius should be accepted, and that the Christian army should embark for Constantinople at the commencement of spring.

Before the siege of Zara, the report of the armament of the Crusaders, and of an expedition against Greece had reached the court of Byzantium. The usurper of the throne of Isaac immediately sought for means to avert the storm about to fall upon his states, and hastened to send ambassadors to the pope, whom he considered the arbiter of peace and war in the West. These ambassadors were ordered to declare to the sovereign pontiff that the prince who reigned at Constantinople was the only legitimate emperor; that the son of Isaac had no right to the empire; that an expedition against Greece would be an unjust enterprise, dangerous, and adverse to the great designs of the crusade. The pope, in his reply, did not at all seek to calm the fears of the usurper, but told his envoys that young Alexius had numerous partisans among the Crusaders, because he had made a promise to succour the Holy Land in person, and to put an end to the rebellion of the Greek Church. The pope did not approve of the expedition against Constantinople; but, by speaking in the way he did, he thought that the sovereign who then reigned over Greece might be induced to make the same promises as the fugitive prince, and would be more able to fulfil them; he conceived a hope that they might treat advantageously, without having recourse to the sword, and that the debates concerning the empire of the East would be referred to his supreme tribunal. But the elder Alexius, whether he was persuaded that he had sufficiently interested the pope in his cause, or whether he deemed it most prudent not to appear alarmed, or, in short, whether the prospect of a distant danger could not remove his habitual indolence, sent no more ambassadors, and made not the least exertion to prepare against the invasion of the warriors of the West.

In another direction, the king of Jerusalem and the Christians of Palestine never ceased to give vent to their complaints, and to implore the assistance that the head of the Church had promised them. The pope, much affected by their prayers, and always zealous for the crusade he had preached, renewed his efforts to direct the arms of the Crusaders against the Saracens. He sent the cardinals, Peter of Capua, and Siffred, into Palestine, as legates of the Holy See, to revive the courage of the Christians, and announce to them the approaching departure of the army of Crusaders; but when he learnt that the leaders had determined upon attacking the empire of Constantinople, he poured upon them the most bitter reprimands, and reproached them with looking behind them, as Lot’s wife had done. “Let none among you,” said he, “flatter himself that he may be allowed to invade or plunder the lands of the Greeks, under the pretence that the empire is not sufficiently submissive, or that the emperor has usurped the throne of his brother; whatever crime he may have committed, it is not for you to constitute yourself the judge of it: you did not assume the cross to avenge the injuries of princes, but that of God.”

Innocent finished his letter without bestowing his benediction upon the Crusaders; and, to frighten them from their new enterprise, threatened them with the maledictions of Heaven. The barons and knights received the remonstrances of the sovereign pontiff with respect; but did not at all waver in the resolution they had formed.

Then the opponents of the expedition to Constantinople renewed their complaints, and employed no sort of moderation in their discourses. The abbot of Vaux de Cernai, the abbot Martin Litz, one of the preachers of the crusade, the count de Montfort, and a great number of knights employed every effort to shake the determination of the army; and when they found they could not succeed, resolved to leave them, some to return to their homes, and others to take the route to Palestine. Those who abandoned their colours, and those who remained in the camp, mutually accused each other with betraying the cause of Christ.[83] Five hundred soldiers having thrown themselves on board a vessel, were shipwrecked and all swallowed up by the waves; many others, in crossing Illyria, were massacred by the savage inhabitants of that country. These perished cursing the ambition and errors which had turned the Christian army aside from the true object of the crusade; whilst those who remained faithful to their standards, deplored the tragical death of their companions, saying among themselves: “The mercy of the Lord has remained with us; evil be to them who stray from the way of the Lord.”

The knights and barons regretted in secret that they had not been able to obtain the approbation of the pope, but were persuaded that, by means of victories, they should justify their conduct in the eyes of the Holy See; and that the father of the faithful would recognise in their conquests the expression of the will of Heaven.

The Crusaders were upon the point of embarking, when young Alexius himself arrived at Zara. His presence created a fresh enthusiasm for his cause; he was received amidst the sounds of trumpets and clarions, and presented to the army by the marquis of Montferrat,[84] whose elder brothers had been connected by marriage and the dignity of Cæsar, with the imperial family of Constantinople. The barons hailed young Alexius as emperor, with the greater joy, that they hoped his future grandeur would be the work of their hands. Alexius took arms to break the chains of his father, and they admired in him a most touching model of Christian piety: he was about to combat usurpation, to punish injustice, and stifle heresy, and they looked upon him as an envoy of Providence. The misfortunes of princes destined to reign affect us more sensibly than those of other men; in the camp of the Crusaders, the soldiers talked over the story of Alexius among themselves, and they pitied his youth, and deplored his exile and the captivity of Isaac. Alexius, accompanied by the princes and barons, went constantly among the soldiery, and replied by demonstrations of the warmest gratitude to the generous interest the Crusaders evinced in his favour.

Animated by sentiments which misfortune inspires, and which not unfrequently terminate with it, the young prince was lavish of vows and protestations, and promised even more than he had done by his envoys, without thinking that he placed himself under the necessity of failing in his word, and drawing upon himself, one day, the reproaches of his liberators.

The Crusaders, however, renewed every day their vow to place young Alexius on the throne of Constantinople; and Italy and the whole West rung with the fame of their preparations. The emperor of Byzantium appeared to be the only person ignorant of the war declared against his usurped power, and slept upon a throne ready to crumble from under him.

The emperor Alexius, like the greater part of his predecessors, was a prince without virtues or character; when he deposed his brother, he allowed the crime to be committed by his courtiers, and when he was upon the throne he abandoned to them the charge of his authority. He was lavish of the treasures of the state, to secure pardon and oblivion for his usurpation; and, to repair his finances, he sold justice, ruined his subjects, and plundered the merchant ships that traded between Ramisa and Constantinople. The usurper scattered dignities and honours with such profusion, that no one thought himself honoured by them, and there remained in his hands no true reward for merit. Alexius had associated his wife Euphrosyne with himself in the sovereign authority, and she filled the empire with her intrigues, and scandalized the court by the laxity of her morals. Under his reign the empire had been several times menaced by the Bulgarians and the Turks; Alexius occasionally visited the army, but he never faced the enemy. Whilst the Bulgarians were ravaging his frontiers, he employed himself in levelling hills, and tracing gardens on the shores of the Propontis. Abandoned to a shameful effeminacy, he disbanded a part of his army; and fearing to be disturbed in his pleasures by the din of arms, he sold the sacred vases, and plundered the tombs of the Greek emperors, to purchase peace of the emperor of Germany, who had become master of Sicily. The empire had no navy left; the ministers had sold the rigging and equipments of the vessels, and the woods that might have furnished timber for new ships, were reserved for the pleasures of the prince, and guarded as strictly, says Nicetas, as those formerly consecrated to the gods.[85]

Such numbers of conspiracies never were heard of; under n, prince who was rarely visible, the government appeared to be in a state of interregnum; the imperial throne was as an empty seat, which every ambitious man aspired to occupy. Devotedness, probity, bravery, were no longer held in esteem by courtiers or citizens. Nothing was deemed worthy of public approbation or reward but the invention of a new pleasure or the fabrication of a fresh impost. Amidst this general depravity, the provinces knew nothing of the emperor but by the exaction of taxes;[86] and the army, without discipline and without pay, had no leaders capable of commanding it. Everything announced an approaching revolution in the empire; and the peril was the greater from no one having the courage to foresee it. The subjects of Alexius never dreamt of obtruding truth upon the imperial ear; birds, taught to repeat satires, alone interrupted the silence of the people, and published from the roofs of houses, and in the high streets, the scandals of the court and the disgrace of the empire.

The Greeks, at the same time superstitious and corrupt, still preserved some remembrances of ancient Greece and old Rome; but these remembrances, instead of creating a noble, emulative pride, only nourished in their hearts a puerile vanity, and their history, of which they were so vain, only served to render more striking their own degradation and their empire’s too evident decay. The voice of patriotism was never heard, and no influence was obeyed but that of the monks placed at the head of affairs of all kinds, who attracted and preserved the confidence of both people and prince by frivolous predictions and senseless visions. The Greeks wasted their time in vain disputes, which enervated their character, increased their ignorance, and stifled their patriotism. At the moment the fleet of the Crusaders was about to set sail, Constantinople was in a state of ferment with discussing the question whether the body of Jesus Christ, in the Eucharist, is corruptible or incorruptible; each opinion had its partisans, whose defeats or triumphs were, by turns, loudly proclaimed—and the threatened empire remained without defenders.

The Venetians and French left Zara, and the isle of Corfu was appointed as the place of meeting for the whole fleet.[87] When they landed on the shores of Macedon, the inhabitants of Duras brought young Alexius the keys of the city, and acknowledged him as their master. The people of Corfu were not tardy in following this example, and received the Crusaders as liberators: the acclamations of the Greek people, in the passage of the Latins, was a happy augury for the success of their expedition.

The island of Corfu, the country of the Phœnicians, so celebrated by the shipwreck of Ulysses and by the gardens of Alcinoüs, afforded the Crusaders pasturage and abundance of provisions. The fertility of the island induced the leaders to remain there several weeks; but so long a repose did not fail to produce evil consequences in an army supported by enthusiasm, to which no time for reflection should have been allowed, and, amidst indulgence and idleness, the complaints and murmurs of the siege of Zara broke out again.

They learnt that Gauthier de Brienne had conquered Apulia and the kingdom of Naples. This conquest, effected in a few months, by sixty knights, inflamed the imagination of the Crusaders, and furnished the malcontents with a fresh opportunity for blaming the expedition to Constantinople, the preparations for which were immense, the perils evident, and the success uncertain. “Whilst we are going,” said they, “to exhaust the resources of the West in a useless enterprise, in a distant war, Gauthier de Brienne has made himself master of a rich kingdom, and is preparing to fulfil the promises he has entered into with us to deliver the Holy Land; why should we not demand vessels of him? why should we not set out for Palestine with him?” These speeches prevailed over a great number of the knights, who were ready to separate themselves from the army.

The chief malcontents had already assembled in a secluded valley to deliberate upon the means of executing their project, when the leaders of the army were warned of their plot, and immediately united all their efforts to prevent the fatal consequences of it. The doge of Venice, the count of Flanders, the counts of Blois and St. Paul, the marquis of Montferrat, and several bishops clothed in mourning habits, with crosses borne before them, repaired to the valley in which the malcontents were met. As soon as they, from a distance, perceived their unfaithful companions, who were deliberating on horseback, they alighted, and advanced towards the place of assembly in a suppliant manner. The instigators of the desertion, seeing the leaders and prelates of the army coming thus towards them, suspended their deliberations, and themselves dismounted from their horses. The parties approached each other; the princes, counts, and bishops threw themselves at the feet of the malcontents, and, bursting into tears, swore to remain thus prostrated till the warriors who wished to abandon them, had renewed the oath to follow the army of the Christians, and to remain faithful to the standard of the holy war. “When the others saw,” says Villehardouin, an ocular witness, “when they saw their liege lords, their dearest relations and friends thus cast themselves at their feet, and, so to say, cry to them for mercy, they were moved with great pity, and their hearts were so softened, they could not refrain from weeping, and they told them that they would consider of it together (Qi’ils s’en aviseraient par ensemble).” After having retired for a moment to deliberate, they came back to their leaders, and promised to remain with the army until the beginning of autumn, on condition that the barons and lords would swear upon the Gospel to furnish them at that period with vessels to convey them to Syria. The two parties engaged themselves by oath to perform the conditions of the treaty, and returned together to the camp, where nothing now was spoken of but the expedition to Constantinople.

The fleet of the Crusaders quitted the island of Corfu under the most happy auspices; the historians who have described its progress through that archipelago, so full of remembrances of antiquity, have not been able to refrain from employing the language of poetry. The wind was favourable, and the sky pure and serene; a profound calm reigned over the waves; three hundred vessels of all sizes, with their colours floating from their sterns, covered an immense space; the helmets and cuirasses of thirty thousand warriors reflected the rays of the sun; now were heard sounding over the waters the hymns of the priests, invoking the blessings of Heaven; and then the voices of the soldiers, soothing the leisure of the voyage with warlike songs; and the braying of trumpets and neighing of horses, mingled with the dashing of oars, resounded from the coasts of the Peloponnesus, which presented themselves to the eyes of the pilgrims. The Crusaders doubled Cape Matapan, known formerly as Tenara, and passed before the heights of Malea, without dread of the rocks so much feared by ancient navigators. Near Cape Malea they met two vessels returning from Palestine, in which were many Flemish pilgrims. At sight of the Venetian fleet, a soldier on board one of the two ships, slipped down a rope, and bade adieu to his companions, saying: “I leave you all I have on board, for I am going with people who intend to conquer kingdoms.”[88]

The Crusaders landed at several islands they fell in with on their passage; the inhabitants of Andros and Negropont came out to meet Alexius, and acknowledged him as their emperor. It was the period of harvest, and the land presented, everywhere, a spectacle of the richest abundance. The enjoyment of a beautiful climate, the satisfaction at the submission of the Greeks, so many riches, so many wonders, so many unknown regions, all daily increased the enthusiasm of the Crusaders. At length the fleet arrived at the entrance of the Bosphorus, and cast anchor in the port of St. Stephen, three leagues from the capital of the Greek empire.

Then the city of Constantinople, of which they were about to effect the conquest, broke full upon the view of the Crusaders;[89] bathed on the south by the waves of the Propontis, on the east by the Bosphorus, and on the north by the gulf that serves as its port, it presented a spectacle at once magnificent and formidable. A double enclosure of walls surrounded it in a circumference of more than seven leagues; a vast number of splendid buildings, whose roofs towered above the ramparts, appeared to proclaim the queen of cities. The shores of the Bosphorus to the Euxine and to the Hellespont, resembled an immense faubourg, or one continued line of gardens. The cities of Chalcedon and Scutari, built on the Asiatic shore, and Galata, placed at the extremity of the gulf, appeared in the distance, and crowned the immense and magnificent picture which lay before the warlike hosts of the Crusaders.

Constantinople, situated between Europe and Asia, between the Archipelago and the Black Sea, joins together the two seas and the two continents. In the times of its splendour, it held at its pleasure the gates of commerce open or shut; its port, which received the vessels of all the nations of the world, deserved to be termed by the Greeks, the golden horn, or the horn of abundance. Like ancient Rome, Constantinople extended over seven ascents, and, like the city of Romulus, it sometimes bore the name of the city of the seven hills; in the times of the crusades, its walls and its towers were compared to those of Babylon; its deep ditches were converted at will into a large and rapid lake, and the city could, at the least signal, be surrounded by waters, and separated from the continent.

The monarch who founded it reigned over all the known nations of the world, and in the execution of his designs he had the advantage of making the arts and sciences of Greece concur with the genius and power of the Romans. Not content with employing the beautiful marbles of the isles of the Archipelago, he caused materials to be transported from the extremities of Europe and Asia; all the cities of the Roman empire, Athens, and Rome itself, were spoiled of their ornaments to embellish the new city of the Cæsars. Several of the successors of Constantine had repaired the edifices that were crumbling into ruins, and had erected fresh monuments in Constantinople, which in its temples, upon its public places, and around the walls, everywhere recalled the memory of twenty glorious reigns. The city was divided into fourteen quarters; it had thirty-two gates; it contained within its bosom circuses of immense extent, five hundred churches, among which St. Sophia claimed attention as one of the wonders of the world; and five palaces, which themselves looked like cities in the midst of the great city. More fortunate than its rival Rome, the city of Constantine had never beheld the barbarians within its walls; it preserved with its language the depository of the masterpieces of antiquity, and the accumulated riches of the East and the West.

It would be difficult to paint the enthusiasm, the fear, the surprise that took possession of the minds of the Crusaders at the aspect of Constantinople.[90] The leaders landed, and passed one night in the abbey of St. Stephen. This night was employed in anxious deliberation upon what they had to do; at one time they resolved to land upon the isles; then they determined to make a descent upon the continent. In the very same instant they drew back in terror and gave themselves up to a wild joy; they could not come to any fixed determination, but changed their plans and their projects a thousand times. At daybreak Dandolo, Boniface, Baldwin, and the count de Blois ordered all the standards of the army to be unfurled; the escutcheons and coats of arms of the counts and knights were ranged along the vessels,[91] to display the military pomp of the West and recall to the warriors the valour of their ancestors. The signal was given to the fleet, which entered into the canal, and, driven on by a favourable wind, passed close to the walls of Constantinople. An immense population,[92] who only the day before were ignorant of the arrival of the Latins, crowded the ramparts and covered the shore. The warriors of the West, clad in complete armour,[93] stood erect upon the decks of their vessels;[94] some stones and arrows were launched from the towers and fell upon the ships: “there was no heart,” says Villehardouin, “so bold as not to be moved; for never was so great an affair undertaken.” Every warrior turned his eye towards his sword, thinking the time was come in which to make use of it. The Crusaders fancied that in the crowd of spectators they beheld the defenders of Constantinople; but the capital of the empire was only defended by the memory of its past glory, and by the respect of the nations ignorant of its weakness. Of true soldiers the imperial army only mustered two thousand Pisans, who despised the Greeks, and the troop of Varangians, mercenary soldiers from the northern parts of Europe, with whose origin and country the Greeks themselves were scarcely acquainted.[95]

The Crusaders made a descent upon the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, pillaged the city of Chalcedon, and established themselves in the palace and gardens in which the emperor Alexius had so long forgotten his own dangers and those of his empire. At the approach of the Venetian fleet, this prince had retreated to Constantinople, where, like the last king of Babylon, he continued to live amidst pleasures and festivities, without reflecting that he had been judged, and that his hour was nearly come. His courtiers, in the intoxication of the banquet, celebrated his power and proclaimed him invincible; amidst the pomp that surrounded him, and which appeared to him a rampart against the attacks of his enemies, he, in his speeches, insulted the simplicity of the Latins, and believed he had conquered them because he had called them barbarians.

When he saw the Crusaders masters of his palace and gardens, he began to entertain some degree of fear, and sent an Italian named Rossi, with orders to salute the lords and barons. “The emperor my master,” said the envoy of Alexius, “knows that you are the most puissant and most noble princes among those who do not wear crowns; but he is astonished that you should have come to bring war into a Christian empire. Rumour proclaims that your design is to deliver the Holy Land from the yoke of the Saracens; the emperor applauds your zeal, and solicits the honour of being associated with your enterprise; he is ready to assist you with all his power. But if you do not quit his states, he shall feel obliged to direct against you the forces he would willingly have employed in your cause and in that of Christ. Accept, then, the generous offers that he makes to you by me; but do not believe that this pacific language is dictated by fear. The emperor Alexius reigns over Greece by the love of his people as well as by the will of God; with one single word he could gather around him innumerable armies, disperse your fleet and your battalions, and close against you for ever the routes to the East.”

The envoy of the emperor thus terminated his speech without naming either Isaac or young Alexius. Conon de Béthune,[96] who answered for the leaders of the army, was astonished that the brother of Isaac should dare to speak as master of the empire, and that he had not thought fit to attempt to justify a parricide which had roused the indignation of all Christian nations. “Go and tell your master,” said the orator of the Crusaders, addressing the emperor’s envoy, “go and tell him, that the earth we tread upon does not belong to him, but that it is the heritage of the prince you see seated amongst us. If he be desirous of knowing the motive that brings us hither, let him ask his own conscience, and remember the crimes he has committed. A usurper is the enemy of all princes; a tyrant is the enemy of the whole human race. He who sent you has but one means of escaping the justice of Heaven and of men; that is, to restore to his brother and his nephew the throne he has wrested from them, and implore the pity of those same princes towards whom he has been so merciless. In that case we promise to add our prayers to his supplications, and to procure for him, with his pardon, the means of passing his life in a repose far preferable to the splendour of an usurped sovereignty; but if he is not willing to act justly, if he is inaccessible to repentance, tell him we disdain his threats as we do his promises, and that we have no time to waste in listening to ambassadors.” This vehement reply was an actual declaration of war, and left the emperor no hope of either seducing or intimidating the Crusaders. The lords and barons were, however, astonished that the Greeks took no notice of young Alexius, and that the cause they came to promote found no partisans in the city of Constantinople. They resolved to ascertain the inclinations of the people. A galley, on board of which was the son of Isaac, was brought close to the walls of the capital;[97] Boniface and Dandolo held up the young prince, whilst a herald-at-arms repeated in a loud voice these words:—“Behold the heir of the throne; acknowledge your sovereign; have pity on him and on yourselves.” The Greeks assembled in the ramparts remained motionless; some answered by insulting language, others maintained a sullen silence. Whilst the Crusaders were thus making a last attempt to preserve peace, the most horrible tumult reigned in the interior of the city. The presence of the Latins irritated the multitude; they assembled in the public places; they excited each other to vengeance; the people ran to the quarter of the Franks, demolished several houses, and gave the rest up to pillage. A great number of Latins, threatened with loss of life, immediately sought an asylum in the camp of the Crusaders. Their presence, their accounts, their complaints, fired the easily kindled indignation of the knights and barons. From that moment the leaders saw no hopes but in the chance of war and in the protection of the Heaven that had confided to their hands the cause of innocence and misfortune.

Eighty knights succeeded in putting to flight a numerous body of troops that the emperor had sent across the Bosphorus. “The Greek commanders,” says Nicetas, “were more timid than deer, and did not dare to resist men whom they called exterminating angels, statues of bronze, which spread around terror and death.” The Crusaders, however, had great cause to fear that the Greeks, recovered from their first panic, might become aware of the small number of their enemies, and succeed in overwhelming them by their multitudes; they resolved, therefore, to take advantage of the fear they had inspired, and gave their whole attention to forward the preparations for attacking enemies that had provided nothing for their defence.

The Christian army assembled at Chrisopolis (Scutari [98]), and beheld full in front of them the capital of the Greek empire. After having put to flight some troops sent out to follow their march or skirmish with them, the leaders mounted on horseback and deliberated in full assembly, on the plan of action best to be pursued. They decided that the army should cross the canal of the Bosphorus, and encamp under the walls of Constantinople. “Then,” says Villehardouin, “the bishops and the clergy addressed their remonstrances to all those of the camp, exhorting them to confess themselves, and make their testaments, for they did not know the hour at which it might please God to call them, and do his will by them; which they did very willingly, and with great zeal and devotion.” When all was ready, and the Crusaders had invoked the protection of Heaven by their prayers, the signal for departure was given; the war-horses, saddled and covered with their long caparisons, were embarked in the flat-bottomed boats; the knights stood erect near their horses, helm on head and lance in hand; the remainder of the troops went on board the large ships, each of which was towed by a galley. The army of the Greeks, commanded by the emperor in person, was drawn up in battle array on the opposite shore, and appeared disposed to dispute the passage of the Crusaders. All at once the vessels heaved their anchors to the sounds of trumpets and clarions. Every soldier, with his eyes fixed on Constantinople, swore to conquer or die. On approaching the shore, the barons and knights cast themselves into the sea, fully armed, and contended for the honour of first gaining the strand occupied by the Greeks. The archers and foot-soldiers followed the example of the knights; in less than an hour the whole army was on the other side of the Bosphorus, and looked about in vain for an enemy over a plain they had so recently seen covered with arms and warriors. The army of Alexius took to flight; and, if we may believe a letter of the count de St. Pol, the swiftest arrows of the Latins could scarcely overtake a few of the fugitives. The Crusaders, following up their advantage, found the camp of the Greeks abandoned, and plundered the tents of the emperor, without meeting with one of his soldiers.

Night surprised them in the midst of their bloodless victory; and on the morrow they resolved to attack the fortress of Galata, which, erected upon a hill, commanded the port of Constantinople. From break of day the Greeks rushed in crowds to anticipate and surprise the Latins. At the first shock, Jacques d’Avesnes was wounded grievously, and placed hors de combat; the sight of his wound highly incensed the Flemish warriors, who precipitated themselves with fury into the mêlée. The Greeks were not able to withstand the impetuous attack of their enemies, and took to flight in great disorder; some, hoping to find an asylum in the ships in the port, perished in the waves, whilst others fled bewildered to the citadel, into which the conquerors entered with the conquered. Whilst the French thus got possession of Galata, the Venetian fleet, which was drawn up in line of battle before Scutari, turned its prows towards the port of Constantinople. The entrance of the gulf was defended by an enormous chain of iron, and by twenty galleys, which constituted the whole navy of the empire. The resistance of the Greeks was obstinate; but a vessel of extraordinary size, assisted by a favourable wind, struck the extended chain violently in its passage, and divided it with enormous shears of steel, which opened and shut by the operation of a machine.[99] The galleys of the Greeks were soon taken, or dispersed in fragments on the face of the waters, and the whole of the Venetian fleet rode in triumph into the port: it was then the Greeks were able to perceive what they had to dread from the invincible courage of these barbarians, who had till that period been the object of their contempt.

The French, masters of Galata, divided their army into six great battles or divisions. Baldwin, who had under his orders a great number of archers and crossbow-men, led the van. The rear was composed of Lombards, Germans, and Franks, from countries near the Alps, commanded by the marquis of Montferrat. The other four divisions, in which were ranged the crusaders from Champagne, Burgundy, and the banks of the Seine and the Loire, had at their head Henry, brother of Baldwin, the counts of St. Pol and Blois, and Matthew de Montmorenci.

This army advanced [100] towards the west of the city, without meeting with a single foe in its passage, and encamped between the gate of Blachernæ and the tower of Bohemond.

The Greeks, in a single battle, had lost the empire of the sea, and had no longer the power to defend the approach to their capital. The Venetian fleet cast anchor near the mouth of the river Barbysses.[101] The Venetians, masters of the port, were secure from all surprise, and had no cause to fear being overpowered by numbers. If the whole army had been united on board the fleet, there is very little doubt it would have more easily triumphed over the efforts and multitudes of the Greeks, and it was the advice of the doge that such should be the plan; but the knights and barons could not be prevailed upon to fight on an element with which they were unacquainted; and they answered (we quote Villehardouin), that they could not act so well upon the sea as they could upon the land, where they could have their horses and their arms. Their army, which did not muster twenty thousand men under its banners, attacked without fear a city, which, according to the account of some historians, contained a million of inhabitants, and more than two hundred thousand men able to bear arms.

Before they began the assault, the Crusaders deemed it proper once more to invite the Greeks to make peace, by receiving the son of Isaac as emperor; and several barons drew near to the walls, crying with a loud voice that there was still time to listen to justice. Young Alexius was surrounded by the Latin leaders, and his presence among them explained sufficiently clearly the meaning of the words addressed to the inhabitants of Constantinople. Their only reply was hurling stones and javelins at the Crusaders; the people of Byzantium had been persuaded that young Alexius came for the purpose of changing the manners, religion, and laws of Greece.

History ought to add here, that since the intrigues of ambition and the caprices of fortune had enjoyed the privilege of bestowing masters upon them, the Greeks beheld with indifference the successions of power or the changes of their princes; the Greek nations had not forgotten that it was a revolution that lifted the family of Isaac to the imperial throne. With the impressions this family had left in their minds, the misfortunes and prayers of Alexius did not move them sufficiently to declare in his favour, or take arms to support his cause; since they were obliged to choose between two new princes, he who was reigning amongst them appeared preferable to him who implored their aid.

From that time the attention and efforts of the Crusaders were solely directed to the prosecution of their perilous enterprise. Their camp, placed between the gate of Blachernæ, and the castle of Bohemond, occupied but a very small space before walls many leagues in extent. Every day the Greeks made sorties; the country round was covered with the soldiers of the enemy; the army of the besiegers appeared to be themselves besieged by troops that were unceasingly renewed. Day and night the Crusaders were under arms, and had neither time to take their food nor refresh themselves by sleep. They had only provisions for three weeks, and could look for safety to nothing but a speedy victory; nevertheless, they continued to fill up the ditches, and make their approaches to the ramparts. Balistas, catapultas, rams, everything that could carry destruction and death into the city, were employed to second the bravery and indefatigable ardour of the besiegers; without cessation, enormous masses fell with fearful crash from the tops of the walls; and such was the surprising power of the machines of war then in use, that the houses and palaces of Constantinople were often shaken to their foundations by stones launched from the camp of the Latins.[102]

After ten days of labour and fighting, the Crusaders determined to storm the city. On the morning of the 17th of July, 1203, the trumpets and clarions sounded the signal; the count of Flanders, who commanded the attack, passed through the ranks, and directed the attention of his knights to the ramparts of Constantinople, as the road which would conduct them to an eternal glory. The army was immediately in motion, and every machine was directed against the walls. One tower, which had fallen in with a great crash, appeared to offer a passage to the troops of Baldwin. Ladders were planted, and the most intrepid contended for the honour of entering first into the city; but, this time, numbers prevailed over valour. A host of Greeks, encouraged by the presence of the Varangians and Pisans, hastened to the rampart, and overturned the ladders. Fifteen Frank warriors, braving stones, beams, and torrents of Greek fire, alone were able to maintain themselves on the walls, and yielded only after fighting with desperate valour. Two of these intrepid warriors were led to the emperor, who watched the fight from the windows of the palace of Blachernæ. Alexius had ceased to despise the Latins; and, in his fright, he had such an idea of their courage, that the sight of the two prisoners appeared to him a victory.

At the same time the Venetians attacked the city by sea. Dandolo ranged his fleet in two lines; the galleys were in the first rank, manned by archers, and laden with machines of war; behind the galleys advanced the large vessels, upon which were constructed towers exceeding the loftiest of the walls of Constantinople in height. At daybreak the contest began between the city and the fleet; the Greeks, armed with the Greek fire, the Venetians, covered with their armour, the ramparts and the vessels charged with a thousand destructive instruments, cast from one to the other, by turns, terror, fire, and death. The incessant dashing of the oars, the shocks of the vessels against each other, the cries of the sailors and combatants, the hissing of the stones, javelins, and arrows, the Greek fire darting along the sea, seizing on the ships and boiling upon the waves, presented altogether a spectacle a thousand times more fearful than that of a tempest. Amidst this horrible tumult, Henry Dandolo was heard: standing erect in his galley, he excited his troops, and, with a terrible voice, threatened to hang every man that did not land. The orders of the intrepid doge were soon executed. The men of his galley took him in their arms and bore him swiftly to the shore, the standard of St. Mark floating over him. At sight of this, the efforts of the crews of the other galleys were redoubled, all struck the shore, and the soldiers rushed forward to follow their venerable leader. The vessels, which had hitherto remained motionless, now advanced and placed themselves between the galleys, so that the whole fleet was extended in a single line before the walls of Constantinople, and presented to the terrified Greeks a formidable rampart raised upon the waters. The floating towers lowered their drawbridges upon the ramparts of the city, and whilst, at the foot of the walls, ten thousand arms planted ladders and battered with rams, on the summit a fearful conflict was maintained with sword and lance.

All at once the standard of St. Mark appeared upon one of the towers, planted by an invisible hand; upon seeing this the Venetians uttered a loud shout of joy, persuaded that their patron saint fought at their head; their courage proportionately increased with the terror and despair of their enemies; the most intrepid cast themselves on to the walls, and soon twenty-five towers were in their possession. They pursued the Greeks into the city; but fearing to fall into some ambush or be overwhelmed by the people, crowds of whom filled the streets and covered the public places, they set fire to the houses as they came to them on their passage. The conflagration extended rapidly,[103] and drove before it the terrified and trembling multitude. Whilst the flames, preceding the conquerors, spread devastation on their path, and the greatest disorder prevailed in Constantinople, Alexius, pressed by the cries of the people, mounted on horseback, and ordered a sortie of the troops, by three different gates, to attack the French, who were less fortunate in this day’s fight than the Venetians.

The army conducted by the emperor was composed of sixty battalions; clothed in all the marks of imperial dignity, Alexius rode along the ranks, animated his soldiers, and promised them victory. At his approach, the Crusaders abandoned the ramparts, and drew up in line of battle before their camp.[104] Villehardouin admits that the bravest knights were, for a moment, seized with fear. Dandolo, who saw the danger in which the French were placed, abandoned his victory, and flew to their aid. But all the Crusaders united, could not have resisted the imperial army, if the Greeks, but more particularly their leaders, had shown a spark of courage. The troops of Alexius would not advance nearer than within bow-shot, and contented themselves with showering a multitude of arrows from a safe distance. The son-in-law of the emperor, Lascaris, of whose courage the Greeks and even the Latins boast, demanded with loud cries that the Crusaders should be attacked in their intrenchments; but he could not prevail upon Alexius, surrounded by base courtiers who endeavoured to communicate their own alarms to him, and assured him that he had done enough for his glory in showing himself to his enemies. The emperor, without having fought, ordered a retreat to be sounded, and his numerous troops, who still bore the name of Romans, and before whom the eagles of Rome were carried, returned with him into Constantinople.

Every quarter of the capital resounded with lamentations and groans; the Greeks were more terrified at the cowardice of their defenders, than by the bravery of their enemies; the people accused the army, and the army accused Alexius. The emperor mistrusting the Greeks and dreading the Latins, now only thought of saving his own life: he abandoned his family, his friends, his capital; he embarked secretly in the darkness of night, and fled to seek a retreat in some obscure corner of his empire.

When daylight informed the Greeks that they had no longer an emperor, the disorder and excitement of the city became excessive; the people assembled in the streets, and freely discussed the errors and deficiencies of their leaders, the infamy of the favourites, and their own misfortunes. Now Alexius had abandoned his power, they remembered the crime of his usurpation, and a thousand voices were raised to invoke the anger of Heaven upon his head. Amidst the confusion and tumult, the wisest were at a loss what part to take, when the courtiers rushed to the prison in which Isaac languished, broke his chains, and led him in triumph to the palace of Blachernæ. Although blind, he was placed upon the throne, and, whilst he believed himself to be still in the hands of his executioners, his ears were saluted with the unexpected accents of flattery; on seeing him again clothed in the imperial purple, the courtiers for the first time became affected by misfortunes he no longer endured. All denied having been partisans of Alexius, and related what vows they had put up for his cause. They next sought out the wife of Isaac, whom they had forgotten, and who had lived in a retreat to which no one knew or had inquired the road during the preceding reign.

Euphrosyne, the wife of the fugitive emperor, was accused of having endeavoured to take advantage of the troubles of Constantinople, to clothe one of her favourites with the purple. She was cast into a dungeon, and reproached with all the evils that had fallen on her country, but most particularly with the lengthened miseries of Isaac. Such as had been loaded with favours by this princess, were conspicuous among her accusers, and pretended to make a merit of their ingratitude.

In political troubles, every change is, in the eyes of the people, a means of safety; they felicitated themselves upon this new revolution in Constantinople; hope revived in all hearts, and Isaac was saluted by the multitude with cries of joy and congratulation. Rumour soon carried to the camp all that had taken place in the city. At this news the council of the barons and knights was assembled in the tent of the marquis of Montferrat, and they returned thanks to Providence, which in delivering Constantinople, had, at the same time, delivered them from the greatest dangers. But when they recollected having seen only on the preceding day the emperor Alexius surrounded by an innumerable army, they could scarcely give faith to the miracle of his flight.

The camp was, however, soon crowded with a multitude of Greeks, who came to relate the wonders of which they had been witnesses. Many of the courtiers who had not been able to attract the attention of Isaac, flocked to young Alexius, in the hope of securing his first favours; they returned warm thanks to Heaven for having listened to the ardent vows they had put up for his return, and conjured him, in the name of his country and the empire, to come and share the honours and the power of his father. But all these testimonies could not persuade the Latins, so accustomed were they to mistrust the Greeks. The barons kept their army in the strictest order, and always prepared for battle, and then sent Matthew of Montmorenci, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, and two Venetian nobles to Constantinople to ascertain the truth.

The deputies were directed to congratulate Isaac, if he had recovered his throne, and to require of him the ratification of the treaty made with his son. On arriving in Constantinople, they were conducted to the palace of Blachernæ between two ranks of soldiers, who, the day before, had formed the body-guard of Alexius, and who had just taken the oath to defend Isaac. The emperor received the deputies on a throne sparkling with gold and precious stones, and surrounded by all the splendour of Eastern courts. “This is the manner,” said Villehardouin, addressing Isaac, “in which the Crusaders have fulfilled their promises; it now remains with you to perform those that have been made in your name. Your son, who is with the lords and barons, implores you to ratify the treaty he has concluded, and commands us to say that he will not return to your palace until you have sworn to perform all he has promised us.” Alexius had engaged to pay the Crusaders two hundred thousand silver marks, to furnish their army with provisions for a year, to take an active part in the perils and labours of the holy war, and to reduce the Greek Church to submission to that of Rome. When Isaac heard the conditions of the treaty, he could not forbear from expressing his surprise, and pointing out to the deputies how difficult it must be to perform such promises; but he could deny nothing to his liberators, and thanked the Crusaders for not requiring more:[105] “You have served us so well,” added he, “that if we were even to give you the whole empire, you would have merited it.” The deputies praised the frankness and good faith of Isaac, and carried back to the camp the imperial patents, to which was affixed the seal of gold that confirmed the treaty made with Alexius.

The lords and barons immediately mounted on horseback, and conducted young Alexius into Constantinople. The son of Isaac rode between the count of Flanders and the doge of Venice, followed by all the knights, clad in complete armour. The people, who so lately had preserved a sullen silence on beholding him, now crowded around him on his passage, and saluted him with loud acclamations; the Latin clergy accompanied the son of Isaac, and those of the Greek Church sent out their magnificent cortège to meet him. The entrance of the young prince into the capital was a day of festivity for both the Greeks and the Latins; in all the churches thanks were offered up to Heaven; hymns of public rejoicing resounded everywhere; but it was particularly in the palace of Blachernæ, so long the abode of mourning and fear, that the greatest transports of joy were manifested. A father, blind, and immured during eight years in a dungeon, clasping in his arms a son to whom he owed the restoration of his liberty and crown, presented a new spectacle that must have penetrated every heart with lively emotions. The crowd of spectators recalled to their minds the long calamities of these two princes; and the remembrance of so many evils past, appeared to them a pledge for the blessings that Heaven had in store for the empire.

The emperor, reunited to his son, again thanked the Crusaders for the services they had rendered him, and conjured the leaders to establish themselves with their army on the other side of the Gulf of Chrysoceras. He feared that their abode in the city might give birth to some quarrel between the Greeks and the Latins, too long divided. The barons yielded to the prayer of Isaac and Alexius, and the army of the Crusaders took up their quarters in the faubourg of Galata; where, in abundance and repose, they forgot the labours, perils, and fatigues of the war. The Pisans, who had defended Constantinople against the Crusaders, made peace with the Venetians; all discords were appeased, and no spirit of jealousy or rivalry divided the Franks. The Greeks came constantly to the camp of the Latins, bringing provisions and merchandise of all kinds. The warriors of the West often visited the capital, and were never tired of contemplating the palaces of the emperors, the numerous edifices, the masterpieces of art, the monuments consecrated to religion, and, above all, the relics of saints, which, according to the marshal of Champagne, were in greater abundance in Constantinople than in any other place in the world.

A few days after his entrance into Constantinople, Alexius was crowned in the church of St. Sophia, and admitted to a partition of the sovereign power with his father. The barons assisted at his coronation, and offered up sincere wishes for the happiness of his reign. Alexius hastened to discharge a part of the sum promised to the Crusaders. The greatest harmony prevailed between the people of Byzantium and the warriors of the West; the Greeks appeared to have forgotten their defeats, the Latins their victories. The subjects of Isaac and Alexius mingled with the Latins without mistrust, and the simplicity of the Franks was no longer the subject of their raillery. The Crusaders, on their side, confided in the good faith of the Greeks. Peace reigned in the capital, and seemed to be the work of their hands. They respected the two princes they had placed upon the throne, and the emperors retained an affectionate gratitude for their liberators.

The Crusaders, having become the allies of the Greeks, and the protectors of a great empire, had now no other enemies to contend with but the Saracens; and they turned their minds to the fulfilment of the oath they had made on taking the cross; but, ever faithful to the laws of chivalry, the barons and knights deemed it right to declare war before beginning it. Heralds-at-arms were sent to the sultan of Cairo and Damascus, to announce to him, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of the emperor of Constantinople, and in the names of the princes and nobles of the West, that he would soon experience the valour of the Christian nations, if he persisted in holding under his laws the Holy Land and the places consecrated by the presence of the Saviour.

The leaders of the crusade announced the wonderful success of their enterprise to all the princes and nations of Christendom. Whilst addressing the emperor of Germany,[106] they conjured him to take part in the crusade, and come and place himself at the head of the Christian knights. The account of their exploits excited the enthusiasm of the faithful; the news, when carried into Syria, spread terror among the Saracens, and revived the hopes of the king of Jerusalem and the defenders of the Holy Land: so much glorious success ought to have satisfied the pride and valour of the Crusaders; but, whilst the world resounded with their glory, and trembled at the fame of their arms, the knights and barons believed they had achieved nothing for their own renown, or for the cause of God, until they had obtained the approbation of the Holy See. The marquis of Montferrat, the count of Flanders, the count of St. Pol, and the principal leaders of the army, when writing to the pope, represented to him that the success of their enterprise was not the work of men, but the work of God. These warriors, filled with haughty pride, who had just conquered an empire; who, according to Nicetas, boasted of fearing nothing but the falling of the heavens, thus bent their victorious brows before the tribunal of the sovereign pontiff, and protested at the feet of Innocent, that no mundane view had directed their arms, and that he must only contemplate in them the instruments Providence had employed in accomplishing its designs.

Young Alexius, in concert with the leaders of the crusades, wrote at the same time to the pope, to justify his conduct and that of his liberators. “We avow,” said he, “that the principal cause that induced the pilgrims to assist us, was that we had promised, with an oath, to recognise the Roman pontiff as our ecclesiastical head, and the successor of St. Peter.” Innocent III. in replying to the new emperor of Constantinople, praised his intentions and his zeal, and pressed him to accomplish his promises; but the excuses of the Crusaders were not able to appease the resentment which the pope retained on account of their disobedience to the counsels and commands of the Holy See. In his answer, he did not salute them with his usual benediction, fearing that they were again fallen under excommunication, by attacking the Greek emperor in spite of his prohibition. If the emperor of Constantinople, said he to them, does not make haste to do that which he has promised, it will appear that neither his intentions nor yours have been sincere, and that you have added this second sin to that you have already committed. The pope gave the Crusaders fresh advice; but neither his counsels nor his threats produced any better effect than they had done at the siege of Zara: Providence was preparing in secret, events that exceeded the foresight of the Crusaders, or even that of the Holy See, and which would once again change the aim and object of the holy war.

BOOK XI.

——

A.D. 1198-1204.

When war and revolutions have shaken an empire to its foundation, evils arise against which no human wisdom can provide. It is then that princes, called to the throne, are more to be pitied than their subjects, and that their power is more likely to excite commiseration than to awaken the ambition or hatred of other men. The people, in the extreme of misery, know not what bounds to put to their hopes, and always demand of the future more than the future can possibly bring. When they continue to suffer irreparable misfortunes, they blame their leaders, by whose influence they expected all sorts of prosperity; the murmurs of unjust hatred soon succeed to the acclamations of an irreflective enthusiasm, and, not unfrequently, virtue itself is accused of having caused evils which are the effects of revolt, war, or bad fortune.

Nations themselves, when they have succumbed, and have for ever lost their political existence, are not judged with less severity or injustice than princes or monarchs: after the fall of an empire, the terrible axiom væ victis, receives its application even in the judgment of posterity. Generations, quite equally with contemporaries, allow themselves to be dazzled by victory, and entertain nothing but contempt for conquered nations. We shall endeavour, whilst speaking of the Greeks and their princes, to guard against the prejudices that history has transmitted to us, and when we shall pronounce a severe judgment upon the character and people of Greece, our opinion will be always founded upon authentic traditions and the testimony of the historians of Byzantium.

Whilst young Alexius had nothing to do but make promises and give hopes, he was gratified by the flattering benedictions of both Greeks and Crusaders; but when the time arrived for him to perform all he had promised, he met with nothing but enemies and obstacles. In the position in which his return had placed him, it was extremely difficult for him to preserve at the same time the confidence of his liberators and the love of his subjects. If, in order to fulfil his engagements, the young emperor undertook to unite the Greek Church with the Church of Rome; if, to pay that which he owed to the Crusaders, he oppressed his people with taxes, he must expect to hear violent murmurs arise throughout his empire. If, on the contrary, he respected the religion of Greece, if he lightened the excessive weight of the imposts, the treaties would remain unexecuted, and the throne he had so recently ascended, might be overturned by the arms of the Latins.

Dreading every day to see the fires of either revolt or war kindled, obliged to choose between two perils, after having long and earnestly deliberated, he did not dare to confide his destiny to the equivocal valour of the Greeks, and conjured the barons to become a second time his liberators. He repaired to the tent of the count of Flanders, and spoke as follows to the assembled leaders of the crusade.[107] “You have restored to me life, honour, and empire, and I have only one thing to desire: that is, to be able to perform all the promises I have made you. But if you abandon me now, in order to go into Syria, it will be impossible for me to find the money, the troops, or the vessels I have undertaken to furnish. The people of Constantinople have received me with joy; but the frequency of revolutions has caused them to lose the habits of submission and obedience. The laws of their country, the majesty of the throne, no longer inspire them with respect; a spirit of faction reigns in the capital, and throughout the too-long agitated provinces. I conjure you then, in the name of your own glory, in the name of your own interests, to finish your work, and render firm the power you have reëstablished. Winter is approaching, the navigation is perilous, and the rains will not permit you to commence the war in Syria; wait then till the spring, when the sea will present fewer dangers, and war greater success and glory; you will then have all Greece as auxiliaries in your enterprises; I shall myself be able to keep the oaths that chain me to your cause, and accompany you with an army worthy of an emperor.” At the conclusion of his speech, Alexius promised to furnish all that the army would require, and to make such suitable arrangements with the doge, that the Venetian fleet might remain at the disposal of the Crusaders during their abode at Constantinople, and to the end of their expedition.

A council was called to deliberate upon the proposals of the young emperor: those who had been desirous of separating themselves from the army at Zara and Corfu, represented to the assembly that they had, until that time, fought for the glory and profane interests of princes of the earth, but that the time was now come for them to fight for religion and for Jesus Christ. They were indignant at new obstacles being raised to retard the holy enterprise. This opinion was warmly combated by the doge of Venice and the barons who had embarked their glory in the expedition against Constantinople, and could not make up their minds to lose the fruit of all their labours. “Shall we,” said they, “allow a young prince, whose cause we have brought to a triumphant issue, to be delivered over to his enemies, who are as ours, and an enterprise so gloriously begun, become for us a source of shame and repentance? Shall we allow the heresy that our arms have stifled in humbled Greece, to reconstruct its impure altars, and be again a subject of scandal for the Christian church? Shall we leave the Greeks the dangerous faculty of declaring against us, and allying themselves with the Saracens, to war with the soldiers of Christ?” To these weighty motives the princes and lords did not disdain to add supplication and prayers; at length their opinion triumphed over an obstinate opposition, and the council decided that the departure of the army should be deferred until the festival of the Easter of the following year.

Alexius, in concert with Isaac, thanked the Crusaders for their favourable determination, and neglected nothing that could prove his gratitude to them. For the purpose of paying the sums he had promised, he exhausted his treasury, increased the imposts, and even melted the images of the saints and the sacred vases. Upon seeing the churches despoiled of the sacred images, the people of Constantinople were struck with surprise and terror, and yet had not the courage to utter their complaints aloud. Nicetas reproaches his compatriots bitterly with having remained quiet spectators of such sacrilege, and accuses them of having, by their cowardly indifference, drawn upon the empire the anger of Heaven. The most fervent of the Greeks deplored, as Nicetas did, the violation of their holy places; but scenes much more grievous were soon to be brought before their eyes.

The leaders of the army, influenced by the counsels of the Latin clergy and by the fear of the pontiff of Rome, required that the patriarch, the priests, and the monks of Constantinople should abjure the errors that separated them from the Romish church; and neither the clergy, nor the people, nor the emperor, attempted to resist this demand, although it alarmed every conscience and alienated all hearts. The patriarch, from the pulpit of St. Sophia, declared, in his own name, and in the name of the emperor and the Christian people of the East, that he acknowledged Innocent, third of that name, as the successor of St. Peter, first vicar of Jesus Christ upon earth, pastor of the faithful flock. The Greeks who were present at this ceremony believed they beheld the abomination of desolation in the holy place, and if they afterwards pardoned the patriarch the commission of such a scandal, it was from the strange persuasion in which they were, that the head of their church was deceiving the Latins, and that the imposture of his words redeemed in some sort the crime of blasphemy and the shame of perjury.

The Greeks persisted in believing that the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son, and quoted in support of their belief, the Creed of Nice; the discipline of their church differed in some points from that of the Church of Rome; in the early days of the schism it might have been easy to effect a reunion, but now the disputes of theologians had too much exasperated men’s minds.[108] The hatred of the Greeks and the Latins appeared but too likely to separate the two creeds for ever. The law that was imposed upon the Greeks only served to promote the growth of their invincible resistance. Such among them as scarcely knew what the subject was of the long debates that had sprung up between Byzantium and Rome, showed no less fanaticism and opposition than all the others; whilst such as had no religion at all adopted with warmth the opinions of the theologians, and appeared all at once disposed to die for a cause which till that time had inspired them with nothing but indifference. The Greek people, in a word, who believed themselves to be superior to all other nations of the earth, repulsed with contempt all knowledge that came from the West, and could not consent to recognise the superiority of the Latins. The Crusaders, who had changed the emperors and conquered the empire, were astonished at not being able to change men’s hearts likewise; but, persuaded that everything must in the end yield to their arms, they employed, in subduing minds and opinions, a rigour which only augmented the hatred of the vanquished, and prepared the fall of the emperors whom victory had replaced upon the throne.

In the mean time, the usurper Alexius, on flying from Constantinople, had found a retreat in the province of Thrace; several cities opened their gates to him, and a few partisans assembled under his banner. The son of Isaac resolved to seek the rebels and give them battle. Henry of Hainault, the count of St. Pol, and many knights, accompanied him in this expedition. At their approach, the usurper, shut up in Adrianople, quickly abandoned the city and fled away towards Mount Hemus. All the rebels who had the courage to await them, were either conquered or dispersed. But young Alexius and the Crusaders had a much more formidable enemy to contend with: this was the nation of the Bulgarians. These wild and ferocious people obedient to the laws of Constantinople at the time of the first crusade, had taken advantage of the troubles of the empire to shake off the yoke of its rulers.[109] The leader of the Bulgarians, Joannices, an implacable enemy of the Greeks, had embraced the faith of the Church of Rome, and declared himself a vassal of the sovereign pontiff, to obtain from him the title of king. He concealed under the veil of a new religion the most vindictive hatred and aspiring ambition, and employed the support and credit of the court of Rome to make war against the masters of Byzantium. Joannices made frequent incursions into the countries adjoining his own territories, and threatened the richest provinces of the empire with invasion. If young Alexius had been guided by prudent counsels, he would have taken advantage of the presence of the Crusaders to intimidate the Bulgarians, and compel them to remain on the other side of Mount Hemus: this expedition might have deservedly obtained him the confidence and esteem of the Greeks, and assured the repose of several provinces; but whether he was not seconded by the Crusaders, or that he did not perceive the advantages of such an enterprise, he contented himself with threatening Joannices; and, without having made either peace or war, after receiving the oaths of the cities of Thrace, his sole wish was to return to Constantinople.

The capital of the empire, which had already undergone so many evils, had just experienced a fresh calamity. Some Flemish soldiers, encouraged by the Latins established in Constantinople, had provoked and insulted the Jews in their synagogue, and the people had taken up the defence of the latter against the aggressors. Both sides had recourse to arms, and in the tumult of fight, chance, or malevolence, set fire to some neighbouring houses. The conflagration extended on all sides, during the night and the following day, with a rapidity and violence that nothing could stop or confine; the flames meeting from several points, rolled on with the swiftness of a torrent, consuming, as if of straw, galleries, columns, temples, and palaces. From the bosom of this frightful mass of fire issued fragments of burning matter, which, falling upon distant houses, reduced them to ashes. The flames, at first impelled by a north wind, were afterwards driven back, by a strong change, from the south, and poured upon places that had appeared secure from danger. The conflagration began at the synagogue, near the sea, on the eastern side of the city, and extended its ravages as far as the church of St. Sophia, on the western side, traversing a space of two leagues, and in its course including the port, where many ships were consumed upon the waters.[110]

During eight days the fearful element continued the destruction; the crash of houses and towers falling on all sides, and the roaring of the winds and flames mingling with the cries of a ruined and distracted multitude. The crowds of inhabitants rushed over and against each other in the streets, flying before the closely-pursuing fire, some bearing their goods and most valuable effects, others dragging along the sick and the aged. Such as perished in the conflagration were the least unfortunate, for multitudes of others, weeping the death of their relations and friends, and the loss of their whole worldly property, many of them wounded, some half-burnt, wandered about bewildered among the ruins, or were huddled together in the public places, without any means of subsistence, or the hope of finding an asylum.

The Crusaders viewed the progress of this horrible disaster from the heights of Galata, and deplored the calamities of Constantinople. A great number of knights lent their most earnest endeavour to subdue the raging element, and lamented that they had to contend with an enemy against which valour was powerless. The princes and barons sent a deputation to the emperor Isaac, to assure him how sincerely they participated in his sorrow, and to declare that they would punish the authors of the conflagration with the utmost severity, if they should prove to be among their soldiers. The protestations and assistance which they promptly and earnestly offered to the victims, could neither console nor appease the Greeks, who, whilst contemplating the ruins and misfortunes of their capital, accused the two emperors, and threw out horrible imprecations against the Latins.

The families of the Franks established at Constantinople, who, in spite of persecutions, had remained in the city, became again subject to the ill-treatment of the people; and, forced to seek an asylum without the walls, they took refuge in the faubourg of Galata. Their groans and complaints revived all the animosity of the Crusaders against the Greeks. Thus everything contributed to inflame the hatred of two nations, whom such great misfortunes ought to have more closely united, and to rekindle discords that were doomed to bring in their train new and incurable calamities.

When Alexius re-entered Constantinople in triumph, the people received him with moody silence; the Crusaders alone applauded victories he had gained over Greeks; and his triumph, which contrasted so keenly with the public calamities, and his laurels, gathered in a civil war, only served to render him more odious to the inhabitants of his capital. He was obliged, more than ever, to throw himself into the arms of the Latins; he passed his days and nights in their camp; he took part in their warlike games, and associated himself with their gross orgies. Amidst the intoxication of banquets, the Frank warriors treated Alexius with insolent familiarity, and more than once they pulled off his jewelled diadem to place on his head the woollen cap worn by Venetian sailors. The Greeks, who took great pride in the magnificence of their sovereigns, only conceived the stronger contempt for a prince, who, after abjuring his religion, degraded the imperial dignity, and did not blush to adopt the manners of nations that were only known at Constantinople under the name of barbarians.

Nicetas, whose opinions are not wanting in moderation, never speaks of this prince but with a sort of anger and violence. According to the historian of Byzantium, “Alexius had a countenance resembling that of the exterminating angel; he was a true incendiary; and far from being afflicted by the burning of his capital, he would have wished to see the whole city reduced to ashes.” Isaac himself accused his son of having pernicious inclinations, and of corrupting himself daily by an intercourse with the wicked; he was indignant that the name of Alexius should be proclaimed at court and in public ceremonies, whilst that of Isaac was rarely mentioned. In his blind anger, he loaded the young emperor with imprecations; but, governed by a vain jealousy, much more than by any proper sentiment of dignity, whilst he applauded the hatred of the people for Alexius, he evaded the duties of a sovereign, and did nothing to merit the esteem of men of worth. Isaac lived retired in his palace, surrounded by monks and astrologers, who, whilst kissing his hands still scarred with the irons of his captivity, celebrated his power, made him believe that he would deliver Jerusalem, that he would plant his throne upon Mount Libanus, and would reign over the whole universe. Full of confidence in an image of the Virgin which he always carried with him, and boasting of being acquainted, by means of astrology, with all the secrets of policy, he could yet imagine, to prevent sedition, nothing more effective than to have transported from the hippodrome to his palace, the statue of the wild boar of Calydon, which was considered the symbol of revolt and the image of an infuriated people.

The people of Constantinople, no less superstitious than Isaac, whilst deploring the evils of their country, laid the blame upon both marble and brass. A statue of Minerva which decorated the Square of Constantine, had its eyes and arms turned towards the West; it was believed that she had called in the barbarians, and the statue was torn down and dashed to pieces by an exasperated mob:[111] “cruel blindness of the Greeks,” cries an historical bel esprit,[112] “who took arms against themselves, and could not endure in their city the image of a goddess who presides over prudence and valour!”

Whilst the capital of the empire was thus agitated by popular commotions, the ministers of Alexius and Isaac were busied in levying taxes for the payment of the sums promised to the Latins. Extravagance, abuses of power, and numerous instances of injustice, added still further to the public calamities; loud complaints were proclaimed by every class of the citizens. It was at first intended to lay the principal burden of the imposts upon the people; but the people, says Nicetas, arose like a sea agitated by the winds. Extraordinary taxes were then, by necessity, laid upon the richer citizens, and the churches continued to be plundered of their gold and silver ornaments. All the treasures they could collect were not sufficient to satisfy the insatiable desires of the Latins, who began to ravage the country, and pillage the houses and monasteries of the Propontis.

The hostilities and violence of the Crusaders excited the indignation of the people to a greater degree than they moved that of the patricians and the great. In the course of so many revolutions, it is astonishing to find that the spirit of patriotism so frequently revives amongst the multitude, when it is extinct in the more elevated classes. In a corrupt nation, so long as revolutions have not broken forth, and the day of peril and destruction is not arrived, the riches of the citizens is a sure pledge of their devotedness and patriotism; but this pledge is no longer the same at the height of danger, when society finds itself in antagonism with all the enemies of its existence and its repose; a fortune, the loss of which is dreaded, is often the cause of shameful transactions with the party of the conquerors; it enervates more than it fortifies moral courage. Amidst the greatest perils, the multitude, who have nothing to lose, sometimes preserve generous passions that skilful policy may direct with advantage. Unfortunately, the same multitude scarcely ever obey anything but a blind instinct; and in moments of crisis, become a dangerous instrument in the hands of the ambitious, who abuse the names of liberty and patriotism. It is then that a nation has no less to complain of those who are not willing to save her, than of those who do not dare defend her; and that she perishes, the victim at once of culpable indifference and senseless ardour.

The people of Constantinople, irritated against the enemies of the empire, and urged on by a spirit of faction, complained at first of their leaders; and, soon passing from complaint to revolt, they rushed in a crowd to the palace of the emperors, reproached them with having abandoned the cause of God and the cause of their country, and demanded, with loud cries, avengers and arms.

Among those who encouraged the multitude, a young prince of the illustrious family of Ducas was conspicuous. He bore the name of Alexius, a name which must always be associated with the history of the misfortunes of the empire: in addition, he had obtained the surname of Mourzoufle, a Greek word, signifying that his two eyebrows met together. Mourzoufle [113] concealed a subtle spirit beneath that severe and stern air that the vulgar never fail to take for an indication of frankness. The words patriotism and liberty, which always seduce the people; the words glory and religion, which recall noble sentiments, were for ever in his mouth, and only served to veil the machinations of his ambition. Amidst a timid and pusillanimous court, surrounded by princes, who, according to the expression of Nicetas, had greater fear of making war against the Crusaders, than stags would have in attacking a lion, Mourzoufle was not deficient in bravery, and his reputation for courage was quite sufficient to draw upon him the eyes of the whole capital. As he possessed a strong voice, a haughty look, and an imperious tone, he was pronounced fit to command. The more vehemently he declaimed against tyranny, the more ardent were the wishes of the multitude that he should be clothed with great power. The hatred that he affected to entertain for foreigners, gave birth to the hope that he would one day defend the empire, and caused him to be considered the future liberator of Constantinople.

Skilful in seizing every available chance, and in following all parties, after having rendered criminal services to the usurper, Mourzoufle gathered the reward of them under the reign that followed the usurpation; and he who was everywhere accused of having been the gaoler and executioner of Isaac,[114] became the favourite of young Alexius. He neglected no means of pleasing the multitude, in order to render himself necessary to the prince; and knew how to brave, on fit occasions, the hatred of the courtiers, to augment his credit among the people. He was not tardy in taking advantage of this double influence to sow the seeds of new troubles, and bring about the triumph of his ambition.

His counsels persuaded young Alexius, that it was necessary for him to break with the Latins, and prove himself ungrateful to his liberators, to obtain the confidence of the Greeks; he inflamed the minds of the people, and to make a rupture certain, he himself took up arms. His friends and some men of the people followed his example, and, led by Mourzoufle, a numerous troop rushed from the city, in the hope of surprising the Latins; but the multitude, always ready to declaim against the warriors of the West, did not dare to face them. Mourzoufle, abandoned on the field of battle, had nearly fallen into the hands of the Crusaders. This imprudent action, that might have been expected to ruin him, only tended to increase his power and influence; he might be accused of having risked the safety of the empire by provoking a war without the means of sustaining it; but the people boasted of the heroism of a young prince, who had dared to brave the warlike hosts of the Franks; and even they who had deserted him in the fight, celebrated his valour, and swore, as he did, to exterminate the enemies of their country.

The frenzy of the Greeks was at its height; and, on their side, the Latins loudly expressed their dissatisfaction. In the faubourg of Galata, inhabited by the French and Venetians, as well as within the walls of Constantinople, nothing was heard but cries for war, and nobody durst speak of peace. At this period a deputation from the Christians of Palestine arrived in the camp of the Crusaders. The deputies, the principal of whom was Martin Litz, were clothed in mourning vestments, which, with the sadness of their aspect, made it sufficiently plain that they came to announce fresh misfortunes. Their accounts drew tears from all the pilgrims.

In the year that preceded the expedition to Constantinople the Flemish and Champenois Crusaders, who had embarked at the ports of Bruges and Marseilles, landed at Ptolemaïs. At the same time came many English warriors, commanded by the earls of Northumberland, Norwich, and Salisbury; and a great number of pilgrims from Lower Brittany, who had chosen for leader the monk Hélain, one of the preachers of the crusade. These Crusaders, when united with those who had quitted the Christian army after the siege of Zara, became impatient to attack the Saracens, and as the king of Jerusalem was averse to breaking the truce made with the infidels, the greater part of them left Palestine, to fight under the banners of the prince of Antioch, who was at war with the prince of Armenia. Having refused to take guides, they were surprised and dispersed by a body of Saracens, sent against them by the sultan of Aleppo;[115] the few that escaped from the carnage, among whom history names two seigneurs de Neuilly, Bernard de Montmirail, and Renard de Dampierre, remained in the chains of the infidels. Hélain, the monk, had the grief to see the bravest of the Breton Crusaders perish on the field of battle, and returned almost alone to Ptolemaïs, to announce the bloody defeat of the soldiers of the cross. A horrible famine had, during two years, desolated Egypt, and extended its ravages into Syria. Contagious diseases followed the famine; the plague swept away the inhabitants of the Holy Land; more than two thousand Christians had received the rights of sepulture in the city of Ptolemaïs, in one single day!

The deputies from the Holy Land, after rendering their melancholy account, invoked by tears and groans the prompt assistance of the army of the Crusaders; but the barons and knights could not abandon the enterprise they had begun; they promised the envoys from Palestine that they would turn their arms towards Syria, as soon as they had subdued the Greeks; and, pointing towards the walls of Constantinople, said: “This is the road to salvation; this is the way to Jerusalem.”

Alexius was bound to pay the Latins the sums he had promised; if he was faithful to his word, he had to apprehend a revolt of the Greeks; if he did not fulfil his engagements, he dreaded the arms of the Crusaders. Terrified by the general agitation that prevailed, and restrained by a double fear, the two emperors remained inactive in their palace, without daring to seek for peace, or prepare for war.

The Crusaders, dissatisfied with the conduct of Alexius,[116] deputed several barons and knights to demand of him peremptorily whether he would be their friend or their enemy. The deputies, on entering Constantinople, heard nothing throughout their passage but the insults and threats of an irritated populace. Received in the palace of Blachernæ, amidst the pomp of the throne and the court,[117] they addressed the emperor Alexius, and expressed the complaints of their companions in arms in these terms: “We are sent by the French barons and the doge of Venice to recall to your mind the treaty that you and your father have sworn to upon the Gospel, and to require you to fulfil your promises as we have fulfilled ours. If you do us justice, we shall only have to forget the past, and give due praise to your good faith; if you are not true to your oaths, the Crusaders will no longer remember they have been your friends and allies, they will have recourse to no more prayers, but to their own good swords. They have felt it their duty to lay their complaints before you, and to warn you of their intentions, for the warriors of the West hold treachery in horror, and never make war without having declared it; we offer you our friendship, which has placed you upon the throne, or our hatred, which is able to remove you from it; we bring you war with all its calamities, or peace with all its blessings: it is for you to choose, and to deliberate upon the part you have to take.”

These complaints of the Crusaders were expressed with so little respect, that they must have been highly offensive to the ears of the emperors. In this palace, which constantly resounded with the acclamations of a servile court, the sovereigns of Byzantium had never listened to language so insolent and haughty. The emperor Alexius, to whom this menacing tone appeared to reveal his own helplessness and the unhappy state of his empire, could not restrain his indignation; the courtiers fully partook of the anger of their masters, and were desirous of punishing the insolent orator of the Latins on the spot;[118] but the deputies left the palace of Blachernæ, and hastened to regain the camp of the Crusaders.

The council of Isaac and Alexius breathed nothing but vengeance; and, on the return of the deputies, war was decided on in the council of the barons. The Latins determined to attack Constantinople; nothing could equal the hatred and fury of the Greeks; but fury and hatred cannot supply the place of courage: not daring to meet their enemy in the open field, they resolved to burn the fleet of the Venetians. The Greeks, on this occasion, had again recourse to that Greek fire, which had, more than once, served them instead of courage, and saved their capital. This terrible fire, skilfully hurled or directed, devoured vessels, soldiers, and their arms; like the bolt of Heaven, nothing could prevent its explosion, or arrest its ravages; the waves of the sea, so far from extinguishing it, redoubled its activity. Seventeen ships, charged with the Greek fire and combustible matter, were carried by a favourable wind towards the port in which the Venetian vessels lay at anchor. To assure the success of this attempt, the Greeks took advantage of the darkness of night; and the port, the gulf, and the faubourg of Galata were, all at once, illumined by a threatening and sinister light. At the aspect of the danger, the trumpets sounded the alarm in the camp of the Latins; the French flew to arms and prepared for the fight, whilst the Venetians cast themselves into their barks, and went out to meet vessels bearing within their sides destruction and fire.

The crowd of Greeks assembled on the shore, applauded the spectacle, and enjoyed the terror of the Crusaders. Many of them embarked in small boats, and rowed out upon the sea, darting arrows and endeavouring to carry disorder among the Venetians. The Crusaders encouraged each other; they rushed in crowds to encounter the danger, some raising plaintive and piercing cries towards Heaven, and others uttering horrible imprecations against the Greeks: on the walls of Constantinople, clapping of hands and cries of joy resounded, and were redoubled as the vessels covered with flames drew nearer. Villehardouin, an ocular witness, says that amidst this frightful tumult, nature appeared to be in confusion, and the sea about to swallow up the earth. Nevertheless, the Venetians, by the means of strong arms and numberless oars, succeeded in turning the course of the fire-ships wide of the port, and they were carried by the current beyond the canal. The Crusaders, in battle array, standing on their vessels or dispersed among the barks, rendered thanks to God for having preserved them from so great a disaster; whilst the Greeks beheld with terror their fire-ships consuming away upon the waters of the Propontis, without having effected the least injury.

The irritated Latins could not pardon the perfidy and ingratitude of the emperor Alexius: “It was not enough for him to have failed in his engagements and broken his oaths, he endeavoured to burn the fleet that had borne him triumphantly to the heart of his empire: the time was now come to repress the enterprises of traitors by the sword, and to punish base enemies, who were acquainted with no other arms but treachery and deceit; and, like the vilest brigands, only ventured to deal their blows in the darkness and silence of night.” Alexius, terrified at these threats, could think of no other resource than that of imploring the clemency of the Crusaders. He offered them fresh oaths and fresh promises, and threw the blame of the hostilities upon the fury of the people, which he had not the power to restrain. He conjured his friends, his allies, his liberators, to come and defend a throne ready to fall to pieces beneath him, and proposed to give up his own palace to them.

Mourzoufle was directed to convey to the Latins the supplications and offers of the emperor, and, seizing the opportunity to augment the alarms and discontent of the multitude, he caused the report to be spread that he was going to deliver Constantinople up to the barbarians of the West. On learning this, the people assembled tumultuously in the streets and public places; the report became general that the enemies were already in the city, and all joined in the cry that to prevent the greatest calamities, not a moment was to be lost; the empire required a master who was able to defend and protect it.

Whilst the young prince, seized with terror, shut himself up in his palace, the crowd of insurgents flocked to the church of St. Sophia to choose a new emperor.

Since the imperial dynasties had become the playthings of the caprice of the multitude, and of the ambition of conspirators, the Greeks made the changing of their sovereigns quite a sport, without reflecting that one revolution produces other revolutions; and, to avoid present calamities, rushed headlong into new ones. The most prudent of the clergy and the patricians presented themselves at the church of St. Sophia, and earnestly endeavoured to prevent the evils with which the country was threatened. But it was in vain they explained to their excited auditory that by changing their master they were sure to overthrow both the throne and the empire. “When they asked my opinion,” says the historian Nicetas, “I was careful not to consent to the deposition of Isaac and Alexius, because I felt assured that the man they would elect in their place would not be the most able. But the people,” adds the same historian, “whose only motive of action is passion,—the people, who twenty years before had killed Andronicus and crowned Isaac, could not endure their own work and live under princes whom they themselves had chosen.” The multitude reproached their sovereign with their misery, which was the bitter fruit of the war; and with the weakness of their government, which was but the result of general corruption. The victories of the Latins, the inefficiency of the laws, the caprices of fortune, the very will of Heaven, all were gathered into one great accusation to be brought against those who governed the empire. The distracted crowd looked to a revolution for everything; a change of emperors appeared to them the only remedy for the ills under which they groaned. They pressed, they solicited the patricians and senators,—they scarcely knew the names of the men they wished to choose as masters; but any other than Isaac, any other than Alexius, must merit the esteem and love of the Greeks. To be the wearer of a purple robe, was quite enough to entitle a man to ascend the throne of Constantine. Some excused themselves on account of age, others from alleged incapacity. The people, sword in hand, required them to accept the sovereign authority. At length, after three days of stormy debate, an imprudent young man, named Canabus, allowed himself to be prevailed upon by the prayers and threats of the people. A phantom of an emperor was crowned in the church of St. Sophia, and proclaimed in Constantinople. Mourzoufle was no stranger to this popular revolution. Several historians have thought that he promoted the election of an obscure man, to test the peril in some sort, and to become acquainted with the power and will of the people, in order, one day, to profit by it himself.

Alexius, made aware of this revolution, trembled in the recesses of his deserted palace; he had no hope but in the Latins; he solicited, by messages, the support of the barons; he implored the pity of the marquis of Montferrat; who, touched by his prayers, entered Constantinople by night, and came, at the head of a chosen troop, to defend the throne and the lives of the emperors. Mourzoufle, who dreaded the presence of the Latins, flew to Alexius, to convince him that they were the most dangerous enemies he had, and told him that all would inevitably be lost if the Franks once appeared in arms in the palace.

When Boniface presented himself before the palace of Blachernæ, he found all the doors closed; Alexius caused him to be informed that he was no longer at liberty to receive him, and conjured him to leave Constantinople with his soldiers. The sight of the warriors of the West had spread terror throughout the city; their retreat revived both the courage and fury of the people. A thousand different rumours prevailed at once; the public places resounded with complaints and imprecations; from moment to moment the crowd became more numerous and the tumult increased. Amidst all this confusion and disorder, Mourzoufle never lost sight of the prosecution of his designs; by promises and caresses he won over the imperial guard, whilst his friends pervaded the capital, exciting the fury and rage of the multitude by their speeches and insinuations. An immense crowd soon assembled before the palace of Blachernæ, uttering seditious cries. Mourzoufle then presented himself before Alexius: he employed every means to aggravate the alarm of the young prince, and, under the pretext of providing for his safety, drew him into a secluded apartment, where his creatures, under his direction, loaded him with irons and cast him into a dungeon. Coming forth, he boldly informed the people what he had done for the salvation of the empire; and the throne, from which he had dragged his master, benefactor, and friend, appeared but a just recompense for the devotedness of his services: he was carried in triumph to the church of St. Sophia, and crowned emperor amidst the acclamations of the people. Scarcely was Mourzoufle clothed with the imperial purple, than he resolved to possess the fruit of his crime in security; dreading the caprice of both fortune and the people, he repaired to the prison of Alexius, forced him to swallow an empoisoned draught, and because death did not keep pace with his impatience, strangled him with his own hands.

Thus perished, after a reign of six months and a few days, the emperor Alexius, whom one revolution had placed upon a throne, and who disappeared amidst the storms of another, without having tasted any of the sweets of supreme rank, and without an opportunity of proving whether he was worthy of it. This young prince, placed in a most difficult situation, had not the power, and perhaps not the will, to rouse the Greeks to oppose the Crusaders. On the other side, he had not the tact to employ the support of the Latins so as to keep the Greeks within the bounds of obedience; directed by perfidious counsels, ever vacillating between patriotism and gratitude, fearing by turns to alienate his unhappy subjects, or to irritate his formidable allies, he perished, the victim of his own weakness and irresolution. Isaac Angelus, on learning the tragical end of his son, died of terror and despair; thus sparing Mourzoufle another parricide, of which he was not the less suspected to be guilty. History makes no more mention of Canabus; the confusion was so great that the Greeks were ignorant of the fate of a man whom but a few days before they had elevated to the rank of their sovereign; four emperors had been dragged violently from the throne since the arrival of the Latins, and fortune reserved the same fate for Mourzoufle.

In order to profit by the crime that had ministered to his ambitious views, the murderer of Alexius formed the project of committing another, and to bring about by treachery the death of all the principal leaders of the army of the Crusaders. An officer, sent to the camp of the Latins, was directed to say that he came on the part of the emperor Alexius, of whose death they were ignorant, to engage the doge of Venice and the French nobles to come to the palace of Blachernæ, where all the sums promised by the treaties, should be placed in their hands. The barons at first agreed to accept the invitation of the emperor, and prepared to set out with great joy; but Dandolo, who, according to Nicetas, deservedly obtained the name of the Prudent of the Prudent, awakened their mistrust, and pointed out strong reasons for fearing a fresh perfidy of the Greeks. It was not long before they were fully informed of the death of Isaac, the murder of Alexius, and all the crimes of Mourzoufle. At this news the indignation of the Crusaders was strong and general; knights had difficulty in crediting such baseness; every fresh account made them tremble with horror; they forgot the wrongs of Alexius towards themselves, deplored his unfortunate end, and swore to avenge him. In the council, the leaders loudly exclaimed that an implacable war must be made against Mourzoufle, and that the nation that had crowned treachery and parricide should be punished. The prelates and ecclesiastics, more animated than all the others, invoked at once the thunders of religion and earthly war against the usurper of the imperial throne, and against the Greeks, untrue to their sovereign, untrue to God himself. Above all, they could not pardon the subjects of Mourzoufle, for willingly remaining plunged in the darkness of heresy, and escaping, by an impious revolt, from the domination of the Holy See. They promised all the indulgences of the sovereign pontiff and all the riches of Greece to the warriors called upon to avenge the cause of God and men.

Whilst the Crusaders thus breathed nothing but war against the emperor and people of Constantinople, Mourzoufle was preparing to repel their attacks; he earnestly endeavoured to attach the inhabitants of the capital to his cause; he reproached the great with their indifference and effeminacy, and laid before them the example of the multitude; to increase his popularity and fill his treasury, he persecuted the courtiers of Alexius and Isaac, and confiscated the property of all those who had enriched themselves in public offices.[119] The usurper at the same time set about reëstablishing discipline among the troops, and augmenting the fortifications of the city; he no longer indulged in pleasures or allowed himself repose; as he was accused of the greatest crimes, he had not only to contend for empire, but for impunity; remorse doubled his activity, excited his bravery, and proved to him that he could have no safety but in victory. He was constantly seen parading the streets, with his sword by his side, and an iron club in his hand, animating the courage of the people and the soldiers.

The Greeks, however, contented themselves with declaiming against the Crusaders. After having made another attempt to burn the fleet of the Venetians, they shut themselves up within their walls, and supported with patience the insults and menaces of the Latins.[120] The Crusaders appeared to have nothing to fear but famine; as they began to feel the want of provisions, Henry of Hainault, brother of the count of Flanders, undertook, in order to obtain supplies for the army, an expedition to the shores of the Euxine Sea; and, followed by several knights, laid siege to Philea. The city of Philea was the ancient Philopolis, celebrated in the heroic ages of antiquity for the palace in which were received Jason and the Argonauts, who, like the French knights, had left their country, to seek distant adventures and perils. Henry of Hainault, after a short resistance from the inhabitants, made himself master of the city, in which he met with a considerable booty, and found provisions in abundance; the latter he transported by sea to the army.

Mourzoufle, being informed of this excursion, marched out, by night, with a numerous body of troops, and placed himself in ambush on the route which Henry of Hainault would take on his return to the camp. The Greeks attacked the Crusaders unexpectedly, in the full persuasion that their victory would be an easy one; but the Frank warriors, without displaying the least alarm, closed in their ranks, and made so firm and good a resistance, that the ambuscaders themselves were very quickly obliged to fly. Mourzoufle was upon the point of falling into the hands of his enemies, and only owed his safety to the swiftness of his horse; he left behind on the field of battle, his buckler, his arms, and the standard of the Virgin, which the emperors were accustomed to have borne before them in all great perils. The loss of this ancient and revered banner was a source of great regret to the Greeks. The Latins, on their part, when they saw the standard and image of the patroness of Byzantium floating amongst their victorious ranks, were persuaded that the mother of God had abandoned the Greeks, and declared herself favourable to their cause.

After this defeat, the Greeks became convinced that there existed no other means of safety for them but the fortification of their capital; it was much more easy for them to find workmen than soldiers, and a hundred thousand men laboured day and night at the reparation of the walls. The subjects of Mourzoufle appeared satisfied that their ramparts would defend them, and handled the implements of masonry without repugnance, in the hope that they would prevent the necessity for their wielding the sword or lance.

Mourzoufle had learnt to dread the courage of his enemies, and as strongly doubted the valour of his subjects; therefore, before risking any fresh warlike attempts, he determined to sue for peace, and demanded an interview with the leaders of the Crusaders. The lords and barons refused with horror to have an interview with the usurper of the throne, the murderer, the executioner of Alexius; but the love of peace, and the cause of humanity, induced the doge of Venice to consent to listen to the proposals of Mourzoufle. Henry Dandolo repaired in his galley to the point of the gulf, and the usurper, mounted on horseback, approached him as near as possible. The conference was long and animated. The doge required Mourzoufle to pay immediately five thousand pounds’ weight of gold, to aid the Crusaders in their expedition to Syria, and again to swear obedience to the Romish church. After a long altercation, Mourzoufle promised to give the Latins the money and assistance they demanded; but he could not consent to submit to the yoke of the Church of Rome.[121] The doge, astonished that, after having outraged all the laws of Heaven and nature, he should attach so much importance to religious opinions, casting a glance of contempt at Mourzoufle, asked him, if the Greek religion excused treachery and parricide?[122] The usurper, although much irritated, dissembled his anger, and was endeavouring to justify his conduct, when the conference was interrupted by some Latin horsemen.

Mourzoufle, on his return to Constantinople, convinced that he must prepare for war, set earnestly about his task, and determined to die with arms in his hand. By his orders, the walls and towers that defended the city on the side of the port, were elevated many feet. He constructed upon the walls galleries of several stages, from which the soldiers might launch arrows and javelins, and employ balistas and other machines of war; at the top of each tower was placed a drawbridge, which, when lowered upon the vessels, might afford the besieged a means of pursuing their enemies, even to their own fleet.

The Crusaders, although supported by their natural bravery, could not view all these preparations with indifference.[123] The most intrepid could not help feeling some inquietude on comparing the small number of the Franks with the imperial army and the population of Constantinople; all the resources they had till that time found in their alliance with the emperors were about to fail them, without their having any hope of supplying their place but by some miraculous victory: for they had no succour to look for from the West. Every day war became more dangerous, and peace more difficult; the time was gone by for retreat. In this situation, such were the spirit and character of the heroes of this crusade, that they drew fresh strength from the very circumstances that would appear likely to have depressed them, and filled them with dread; the greater the danger, the more courage and firmness they displayed; menaced on all sides, expecting to meet with no asylum on either sea or land, there remained no other part to take but that of besieging a city from which they could not retire with safety: thus nothing could overcome their invincible bravery.[124]

On viewing the towers that the Greeks considered as a certain means of safety, the leaders assembled in their camp, and shared amongst them the spoils of the empire and the capital, of which they entertained no doubt of achieving the conquest. It was decided in the council of the princes, barons, and knights, that a new emperor should be nominated instead of Mourzoufle, and that this emperor should be chosen from the victorious army of the Latins. The chief of the new empire should possess by right a fourth of the conquest, with the two palaces of Blachernæ and Bucoleon. The cities and lands of the empire, as well as the booty they should obtain in the capital, were to be distributed among the Franks and Venetians, with the condition of rendering homage to the emperor. In the same council regulations were made to assign the proportions of the Latin clergy, and of the lords and barons. They regulated, according to the feudal laws, the rights and duties of the emperors and subjects, of the great and small vassals.[125] Thus Constantinople, under the dominion of the Greeks, beheld before its walls a small band of warriors, who, helm on head, and sword in hand, abolished in her walls the legislation of Greece, and imposed upon her beforehand the laws of the West. By this act of legislation, which they derived from Europe, the knights and barons appeared to take possession of the empire; and, whilst making war against the inhabitants of Constantinople, might imagine that they were already fighting for the safety and glory of their own country.

In the first siege of Byzantium, the French had been desirous of attacking the city by land, but experience had taught them to appreciate properly the wiser counsels of the Venetians. They determined, with an unanimous voice, to direct all their efforts to an attack by sea. They conveyed into the vessels the arms, provisions, and appointments of all kinds; and the whole army embarked on Thursday, the 8th day of April, 1204. On the morrow, with the first rays of the sun, the fleet which bore the knights and their horses, the pilgrims and all they possessed, the tents, the machines of the Crusaders, and the destinies of a great empire, heaved anchor, and crossed the breadth of the gulf. The ships and galleys, arranged in line, covered the sea for the space of half a league. The sight of the towers and ramparts, bristling with arms and soldiers, and covered with murderous machines and long tubes of brass, from which poured the Greek fire, did not in the least intimidate the warriors of the West. The Greeks had trembled with fright at seeing the fleet of the Crusaders in motion; but as they could look for no safety but in resistance, they appeared disposed to brave all perils in defence of their property and their families.

Mourzoufle had pitched his tents in the part of the city ravaged by the fire; his army was encamped amidst ruins, and his soldiers had nothing beneath their eyes but melancholy pictures, the sight of which he thought must necessarily excite them to vengeance. From the summit of one of the seven hills, the emperor was able to view the contest, to send succours where he saw they were wanted, and to reanimate at every moment the courage of those who defended the walls and towers.

At the first signal, the Greeks put all their machines in full operation, and endeavoured to defend the approach to the ramparts; but several ships soon gained the shore; the ladders are planted, and the walls shake beneath the continuous blows of the rams. The attack and defence proceed with equal fury. The Greeks fight with advantage from the tops of their elevated towers; the Crusaders, everywhere overpowered by numbers, cannot open themselves a passage, and find death at the foot of the ramparts they burn to surmount. The ardour for fight, itself, produced disorder among the assailants, and confusion in their fleet. The Latins faced all perils, and sustained the impetuous shock of the Greeks till the third hour of the evening: “It was then,” says the marshal of Champagne, “that fortune and our sins decreed that we should be repulsed.” The leaders, dreading the destruction of their fleet and army, ordered the retreat to be sounded. When the Greeks saw the Crusaders drawing off, they believed that their capital was saved; the people of Byzantium flocked to the churches to return thanks to Heaven for so great a victory, and, by the excess of their transports, proved how great the fear had been with which the Latins had inspired them.

On the evening of the same day, the doge and barons assembled in a church near the sea, to deliberate upon their future proceedings; they spoke with deep grief of the check they had sustained, and expatiated strongly upon the necessity of promptly retrieving their defeat.[126] “The Crusaders were still the same men that had already surmounted the ramparts of Byzantium; the Greeks were still the same frivolous, pusillanimous nation, that could oppose no other arms but those of cunning to those of valour. The soldiers of Mourzoufle had been able to resist for one day; but they would soon remember that the Latins had conquered them many times; the recollections of the past were sufficient to revive the confidence of the one party, and to fill the others with terror. Besides, it was well known that the Greeks only contended for the triumph of usurpation and parricide; whilst the Crusaders fought for the triumph of humanity and justice. God would recognise his true servants, and would protect his own cause.”

These discourses could not reassure all the Crusaders, and many proposed to change the point of attack, and make a new assault on the side of the Propontis. The Venetians did not agree with this opinion, and dreaded lest the fleet should be drawn away by the currents of the sea. Some of the leaders despaired of the success of the enterprise; and, in their despair, would have been very willing, says an eyewitness, “that the winds and the waves should carry them away beyond the Archipelago.”[127] The advice of the Venetians was, however, adopted; and the council decided that the attack upon Constantinople should be renewed on the same side, and at the same point at which the army had been repulsed. Two days were employed in repairing the vessels and machines; and on the third day, the 12th of April, the trumpets once more sounded the signal for battle. The fleet got into motion, and advanced in good order towards the ramparts of Constantinople. The Greeks, who were still rejoicing over their first advantage, could scarcely believe the approach of the Latins to be reality, and their surprise was by no means free from terror. On the other side, the Crusaders, who had met with a resistance they had not at all expected, advanced with precaution towards the ramparts, at the foot of which they had fought in vain. To inflame the ardour and emulation of the soldiers, the leaders of the Latins had proclaimed, by a herald-at-arms, that he that should plant the first banner of the cross upon a tower of the city, should receive a hundred and fifty silver marks.

The combat soon commenced, and was as quickly general; the defence was no less vigorous than the attack: beams, stones, javelins were hurled from one side to the other, crossed or met in mid-air, and fell with a loud noise on the ramparts and the ships; the whole shore resounded with the cries of the combatants and the clashing of swords and lances. In the fleet, the vessels were joined together, and proceeded two by two, in order that upon each point of attack, the number of the assailants might correspond with that of the besieged. The drawbridges are soon let down, and are covered with intrepid warriors, who threaten the invasion of the most lofty towers. The soldiers mount in file, and gain the battlements; the opponents seek, attack, and repulse each other in a thousand different places. Some, on the point of seizing victory, are overthrown by a mass of stone: others are consumed by the Greek fire; but they who are repulsed, again return to the charge, and the leaders everywhere set an example by mounting to the assault like common soldiers.

The sun had run half his course, and prodigies of valour had not been able to triumph over the resistance of the besieged, when a strong breeze from the north arose, and brought two ships that fought together close under the walls. The bishop of Troie and the bishop of Soissons were on board of these two vessels, called the Pilgrim and the Paradise. Scarcely were the drawbridges lowered, than two Frank warriors were seen upon one of the towers of the city. These two warriors, one of whom was a Frenchman, named D’Urboise, and the other a Venetian, Pietro Alberti, drew after them a crowd of their companions, and the Greeks were massacred or took to flight. In the confusion of the mêlée, the brave Alberti was slain by a Frenchman, who mistook him for a Greek, and who, on discovering his mistake, attempted to kill himself in despair. The Crusaders, excited by the fight, scarcely perceived this sad and tragical scene, but pursued the flying, disordered enemy.

The banners of the bishops of Troie and Soissons were planted on the top of the towers, and attracted the eager eyes of the whole army. This sight inflames those who are still on board the vessels; on all sides they press, they rush forward, they fly to the escalade. The Franks obtain possession of four towers: terror prevails among the Greeks, and the few who resist are slaughtered at every point they endeavour to defend; three of the gates of the city fall to pieces beneath the strokes of the rams; the horsemen issue from the ships with their horses, and the whole army of the Crusaders precipitates itself at once into the city.[128] A horseman (Pierre Bacheux), who preceded his fellows, advanced almost alone to the hill upon which Mourzoufle was encamped, and the Greeks, in their fright, took him for a giant. Nicetas himself says that his helmet appeared as large as a tower; the soldiers of the emperor could not stand against the appearance of a single Frank horseman. Mourzoufle, abandoned by his troops, fled: the Crusaders took possession of the imperial tents, continued their victorious course into the city, and put to the sword every Greek they met with. “It was a horrible spectacle,” says Villehardouin, “to see women and young children running distractedly here and there, trembling and half dead with fright, lamenting piteously, and begging for mercy.”

The Crusaders set fire to the quarter they had invaded,[129] and the flames, driven by the wind, announced to the other extremities of the city the presence of an irritated conqueror. Terror and despair prevailed in every street of Constantinople. Some Greek soldiers retired to the palace, whilst others, to escape recognition, threw away both their clothes and their arms. The people and the clergy took refuge in the churches, and the more wealthy inhabitants, in all parts, endeavoured to conceal their most valuable property by burying it in the earth. Many rushed out of the city, without at all knowing whither to direct their steps.[130]

Whilst all were flying before them, the Crusaders were in a state of astonishment at their own victory. At the approach of night, they dreaded an ambuscade, and did not venture to pursue the conquered enemy further; the Venetians encamped within sight of their vessels; the count of Flanders, by a happy augury, occupied the imperial tents, and the marquis of Montferrat advanced towards the palace of Blachernæ. The Latins entertained no idea that the conflict was ended, and kept careful watch under the ramparts they had invaded and won.

Mourzoufle went through many quarters of the city, endeavouring to rally the soldiers: he spoke to them of glory, he invoked the name of their country, he promised rich rewards for valour: but the voice of patriotism was no longer listened to, and neither the love of glory nor the hopes of reward could affect men whose whole thoughts were engaged in the means of saving their lives. Mourzoufle no longer inspired either respect or confidence, and the people, in reply to his exhortations, reproached him with his parricide, and attributed to him all the calamities of the war. When he found himself without hope, it became necessary to endeavour to escape both the pursuit of the conquerors and the resentment of the conquered, and he embarked secretly on the Propontis, with the purpose of seeking an army, or rather an asylum, in the mountains of Thrace. When his flight became known in Constantinople, his name was loaded with maledictions, and, as if it was necessary that an emperor should be present at the fall of the empire, a distracted crowd flocked to the church of St. Sophia, to choose a new master.

Theodore Ducas and Theodore Lascaris solicited the suffrages of the assembly, and contended for a throne that no longer existed. Lascaris was chosen emperor, but he did not dare to assume the imperial crown. This prince possessed both firmness and spirit; the Greeks even boasted of his skill in war, and he undertook to reanimate their courage and arouse their patriotism. “The Latins,” said he, “are few, and advance with trembling caution into a city that has still numberless defenders; the Crusaders are afraid to leave their ships at any distance, as they know they are their only refuge in case of defeat: pressed by the approach of danger, they have called in the assistance of fire as their faithful auxiliary, and conceal their fears behind a rampart of flames and a heap of ruins. The warriors of the West neither fight for religion, nor their country, nor their property, nor the honour of their families. The Greeks, on the contrary, defend all they hold most dear, and must carry to the contest every sentiment that can increase the courage and inflame the zeal of citizens. If you are still Romans,” added Lascaris, “the victory is easy; twenty thousand barbarians have shut themselves up within your walls; fortune has given them up to our arms.” The new emperor then addressed the soldiers and the imperial guards; he represented to them that their safety was inseparably connected with that of Constantinople, that the enemy would never pardon being driven back by them several times from the ramparts of the capital; that in victory they would find all the advantages of fortune, all the pleasures of life: whilst in flight, neither land nor sea could afford them an asylum, and that shame, misery, and death itself would follow their footsteps everywhere. Lascaris did not neglect to flatter the pride, and endeavour to kindle the zeal of the patricians. He reminded them of the heroes of ancient Rome, and presented to their valour the great examples of history. “It was to their arms Providence had confided the safety of the imperial city; if, contrary to all hopes, the country should be subdued, they could have but few regrets in abandoning life, and would find perhaps some glory in dying on the same day on which the old empire of the Cæsars should be doomed to fall.”

The soldiers only replied to his speech by demanding their pay; the people listened to Lascaris with more surprise than confidence, and the patricians preserved a gloomy silence, sensible to no other feeling but a profound despair. The trumpets of the Crusaders were soon heard, and at this signal, terror seized even the bravest; there was no longer any idea of disputing the victory with the Latins. Lascaris, left alone, was himself obliged to abandon a city which he could find no one to assist him in defending. Thus Constantinople, that had beheld two emperors in one night, was once again without a master, and presented the image of a vessel without a rudder, dashed about by the winds, and ready to perish amidst the howling of the tempest. The conflagration begun by the Latins, extended to several other quarters, and consumed, by the admission of the barons, more houses than three of the greatest cities of either France or Germany contained. The fire continued its ravages during the whole night, and before day the Crusaders prepared, by the light of its flames, to follow up their victory. Ranged in order of battle, they were advancing with precaution and mistrust, when their ears were saluted with supplicating voices that filled the air with lamentations and prayers. Women, children, and old men, preceded by the clergy, bearing crosses and images of saints, came in procession, to throw themselves at the feet of the conquerors. The leaders allowed their hearts to be touched by the cries and entreaties of this weeping crowd, and a herald-at-arms was ordered to pass through the ranks, and proclaim the laws of clemency; the soldiers were commanded to spare the lives of the inhabitants, and to respect the honour of women and maidens. The Latin clergy joined their exhortations with those of the leaders of the army, and threatened with the vengeance of the Church all who should abuse victory by outraging humanity.

In the mean time the Crusaders advanced amidst the braying of trumpets and the noise of clarions, and their banners were soon planted in the principal quarters of the city. When Boniface entered the palace of Bucoleon, which was supposed to be occupied by the imperial guard, he was surprised to find a great number of women, of the first families of the empire, whose only defence was their groans and tears. Marguerite, daughter of the king of Hungary, and wife of Isaac, and Agnes, daughter of a king of France,[131] the wife of two emperors, threw themselves at the feet of the barons, and implored their mercy. The marquis of Montferrat respected their misfortunes, and placed them under the protection of a guard. Whilst Boniface occupied the palace of Bucoleon, Henry of Hainault took possession of that of Blachernæ; these two palaces, filled with immense riches, were preserved from pillage, and were exempted from the lamentable scenes which, during several days, desolated the city of Constantinople.[132]

The Crusaders, impatient to gather the treasures they had shared beforehand, spread themselves through all the quarters of the capital, and carried off, without pity or consideration, everything that offered itself to their avidity. The houses of the poorest citizens were no more respected than the mansions of the rich. The Greeks, plundered of their property, ill-treated by the conquerors, and turned out of their homes, implored the humanity of the counts and barons, and pressed around the marquis of Montferrat, crying, “Holy king marquis, have pity upon us!” Boniface was touched by their prayers, and endeavoured to recall the Crusaders to some sentiments of moderation; but the license of the soldiers increased with the sight of booty; the most dissolute and most undisciplined gave the signal, and marched at their head, and their example led on all the rest: the intoxication of victory had no longer any restraint,—it was sensible to neither fear nor pity.[133]

When the Crusaders discontinued the slaughter, they had recourse to every kind of outrage and violence to plunder the conquered; no spot in Constantinople was free from brutal search. In spite of the frequently-repeated prohibitions of their leaders and priests, they respected neither the modesty of women nor the sanctity of churches. Some soldiers and followers of the army plundered the tombs and coffins of the emperors; the body of Justinian, which ages had spared, and which presented itself to their eyes in a fresh and undecayed state, could not repel their sacrilegious hands, or make them respect the peace of the grave; in every temple where a rag of silk shone, or a particle of gold glittered, their greedy fingers were stretched out to clutch them. The altar of the Virgin, which decorated the church of St. Sophia, and which was admired as a masterpiece of art, was beaten to pieces, and the veil of the sanctuary was torn to rags. The conquerors played at dice upon the marble tables which represented the apostles, and got drunk out of the cups reserved for divine service. Horses and mules led into the sanctuary, bent beneath the weight of the spoils, and, pierced by sword-points, stained with their blood and their ordure the vestibule of St. Sophia. A prostitute girl, whom Nicetas calls the follower of demons, the priestess of furies, mounted the patriarchal pulpit, sang an immodest song, and danced in the church, amidst a crowd of soldiers, as if to insult the ceremonies of religion.

The Greeks could not behold these impious scenes without trembling with horror. Nicetas, whilst deploring the misfortunes of the empire and the Greek Church, declaims with vehemence against the barbarous race of the Franks. “Here,” says he, “is what was promised by that golden gorget, that haughty bearing, those elevated eyebrows, that closely shaven beard, that hand so ready to shed blood, those nostrils breathing anger, that proud eye, that cruel disposition, that prompt and hurried utterance.”[134] The historian of Byzantium reproaches the Crusaders with having surpassed the Saracens in barbarity, and reminds them of the example of the soldiers of Saladin, who, when masters of Jerusalem, neither violated the modesty of matrons and virgins, nor filled the sepulchre of the Saviour with bloody carcasses, nor subjected Christians to fire, sword, hunger, or nakedness.

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.

The History of the Crusades (vol. 2 of 3)

THEHISTORY OF THE CRUSADES

CONTENTS TO VOL. II.

BOOK IX.

BOOK X.

BOOK XI.

THE
HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES