Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part III

But these generous deliverers were unwilling to release their
hostage, till they had obtained from his father the payment, or
at least the promise, of their recompense. They chose four
ambassadors, Matthew of Montmorency, our historian the marshal of
Champagne, and two Venetians, to congratulate the emperor. The
gates were thrown open on their approach, the streets on both
sides were lined with the battle axes of the Danish and English
guard: the presence-chamber glittered with gold and jewels, the
false substitute of virtue and power: by the side of the blind
Isaac his wife was seated, the sister of the king of Hungary: and
by her appearance, the noble matrons of Greece were drawn from
their domestic retirement, and mingled with the circle of
senators and soldiers. The Latins, by the mouth of the marshal,
spoke like men conscious of their merits, but who respected the
work of their own hands; and the emperor clearly understood, that
his son’s engagements with Venice and the pilgrims must be
ratified without hesitation or delay. Withdrawing into a private
chamber with the empress, a chamberlain, an interpreter, and the
four ambassadors, the father of young Alexius inquired with some
anxiety into the nature of his stipulations. The submission of
the Eastern empire to the pope, the succor of the Holy Land, and
a present contribution of two hundred thousand marks of
silver.—“These conditions are weighty,” was his prudent reply:
“they are hard to accept, and difficult to perform. But no
conditions can exceed the measure of your services and deserts.”
After this satisfactory assurance, the barons mounted on
horseback, and introduced the heir of Constantinople to the city
and palace: his youth and marvellous adventures engaged every
heart in his favor, and Alexius was solemnly crowned with his
father in the dome of St. Sophia. In the first days of his reign,
the people, already blessed with the restoration of plenty and
peace, was delighted by the joyful catastrophe of the tragedy;
and the discontent of the nobles, their regret, and their fears,
were covered by the polished surface of pleasure and loyalty The
mixture of two discordant nations in the same capital might have
been pregnant with mischief and danger; and the suburb of Galata,
or Pera, was assigned for the quarters of the French and
Venetians. But the liberty of trade and familiar intercourse was
allowed between the friendly nations: and each day the pilgrims
were tempted by devotion or curiosity to visit the churches and
palaces of Constantinople. Their rude minds, insensible perhaps
of the finer arts, were astonished by the magnificent scenery:
and the poverty of their native towns enhanced the populousness
and riches of the first metropolis of Christendom. 68 Descending
from his state, young Alexius was prompted by interest and
gratitude to repeat his frequent and familiar visits to his Latin
allies; and in the freedom of the table, the gay petulance of the
French sometimes forgot the emperor of the East. 69 In their most
serious conferences, it was agreed, that the reunion of the two
churches must be the result of patience and time; but avarice was
less tractable than zeal; and a larger sum was instantly
disbursed to appease the wants, and silence the importunity, of
the crusaders. 70 Alexius was alarmed by the approaching hour of
their departure: their absence might have relieved him from the
engagement which he was yet incapable of performing; but his
friends would have left him, naked and alone, to the caprice and
prejudice of a perfidious nation. He wished to bribe their stay,
the delay of a year, by undertaking to defray their expense, and
to satisfy, in their name, the freight of the Venetian vessels.
The offer was agitated in the council of the barons; and, after a
repetition of their debates and scruples, a majority of votes
again acquiesced in the advice of the doge and the prayer of the
young emperor. At the price of sixteen hundred pounds of gold, he
prevailed on the marquis of Montferrat to lead him with an army
round the provinces of Europe; to establish his authority, and
pursue his uncle, while Constantinople was awed by the presence
of Baldwin and his confederates of France and Flanders. The
expedition was successful: the blind emperor exulted in the
success of his arms, and listened to the predictions of his
flatterers, that the same Providence which had raised him from
the dungeon to the throne, would heal his gout, restore his
sight, and watch over the long prosperity of his reign. Yet the
mind of the suspicious old man was tormented by the rising
glories of his son; nor could his pride conceal from his envy,
that, while his own name was pronounced in faint and reluctant
acclamations, the royal youth was the theme of spontaneous and
universal praise. 71

68 (return) [ Compare, in the rude energy of Villehardouin, (No.
66, 100,) the inside and outside views of Constantinople, and
their impression on the minds of the pilgrims: cette ville (says
he) que de toutes les autres ere souveraine. See the parallel
passages of Fulcherius Carnotensis, Hist. Hierosol. l. i. c. 4,
and Will. Tyr. ii. 3, xx. 26.]

69 (return) [ As they played at dice, the Latins took off his
diadem, and clapped on his head a woollen or hairy cap, to
megaloprepeV kai pagkleiston katerrupainen onoma, (Nicetas, p.
358.) If these merry companions were Venetians, it was the
insolence of trade and a commonwealth.]

70 (return) [ Villehardouin, No. 101. Dandolo, p. 322. The doge
affirms, that the Venetians were paid more slowly than the
French; but he owns, that the histories of the two nations
differed on that subject. Had he read Villehardouin? The Greeks
complained, however, good totius Græciæ opes transtulisset,
(Gunther, Hist. C. P. c 13) See the lamentations and invectives
of Nicetas, (p. 355.)]

71 (return) [ The reign of Alexius Comnenus occupies three books
in Nicetas, p. 291—352. The short restoration of Isaac and his
son is despatched in five chapters, p. 352—362.]

By the recent invasion, the Greeks were awakened from a dream of
nine centuries; from the vain presumption that the capital of the
Roman empire was impregnable to foreign arms. The strangers of
the West had violated the city, and bestowed the sceptre, of
Constantine: their Imperial clients soon became as unpopular as
themselves: the well-known vices of Isaac were rendered still
more contemptible by his infirmities, and the young Alexius was
hated as an apostate, who had renounced the manners and religion
of his country. His secret covenant with the Latins was divulged
or suspected; the people, and especially the clergy, were
devoutly attached to their faith and superstition; and every
convent, and every shop, resounded with the danger of the church
and the tyranny of the pope. 72 An empty treasury could ill
supply the demands of regal luxury and foreign extortion: the
Greeks refused to avert, by a general tax, the impending evils of
servitude and pillage; the oppression of the rich excited a more
dangerous and personal resentment; and if the emperor melted the
plate, and despoiled the images, of the sanctuary, he seemed to
justify the complaints of heresy and sacrilege. During the
absence of Marquis Boniface and his Imperial pupil,
Constantinople was visited with a calamity which might be justly
imputed to the zeal and indiscretion of the Flemish pilgrims. 73
In one of their visits to the city, they were scandalized by the
aspect of a mosque or synagogue, in which one God was worshipped,
without a partner or a son. Their effectual mode of controversy
was to attack the infidels with the sword, and their habitation
with fire: but the infidels, and some Christian neighbors,
presumed to defend their lives and properties; and the flames
which bigotry had kindled, consumed the most orthodox and
innocent structures. During eight days and nights, the
conflagration spread above a league in front, from the harbor to
the Propontis, over the thickest and most populous regions of the
city. It is not easy to count the stately churches and palaces
that were reduced to a smoking ruin, to value the merchandise
that perished in the trading streets, or to number the families
that were involved in the common destruction. By this outrage,
which the doge and the barons in vain affected to disclaim, the
name of the Latins became still more unpopular; and the colony of
that nation, above fifteen thousand persons, consulted their
safety in a hasty retreat from the city to the protection of
their standard in the suburb of Pera. The emperor returned in
triumph; but the firmest and most dexterous policy would have
been insufficient to steer him through the tempest, which
overwhelmed the person and government of that unhappy youth. His
own inclination, and his father’s advice, attached him to his
benefactors; but Alexius hesitated between gratitude and
patriotism, between the fear of his subjects and of his allies.
74 By his feeble and fluctuating conduct he lost the esteem and
confidence of both; and, while he invited the marquis of
Monferrat to occupy the palace, he suffered the nobles to
conspire, and the people to arm, for the deliverance of their
country. Regardless of his painful situation, the Latin chiefs
repeated their demands, resented his delays, suspected his
intentions, and exacted a decisive answer of peace or war. The
haughty summons was delivered by three French knights and three
Venetian deputies, who girded their swords, mounted their horses,
pierced through the angry multitude, and entered, with a fearful
countenance, the palace and presence of the Greek emperor. In a
peremptory tone, they recapitulated their services and his
engagements; and boldly declared, that unless their just claims
were fully and immediately satisfied, they should no longer hold
him either as a sovereign or a friend. After this defiance, the
first that had ever wounded an Imperial ear, they departed
without betraying any symptoms of fear; but their escape from a
servile palace and a furious city astonished the ambassadors
themselves; and their return to the camp was the signal of mutual
hostility.

72 (return) [ When Nicetas reproaches Alexius for his impious
league, he bestows the harshest names on the pope’s new religion,
meizon kai atopwtaton... parektrophn pistewV... tvn tou Papa
pronomiwn kainismon,... metaqesin te kai metapoihsin tvn palaivn
'RwmaioiV?eqvn, (p. 348.) Such was the sincere language of every
Greek to the last gasp of the empire.]

73 (return) [ Nicetas (p. 355) is positive in the charge, and
specifies the Flemings, (FlamioneV,) though he is wrong in
supposing it an ancient name. Villehardouin (No. 107) exculpates
the barons, and is ignorant (perhaps affectedly ignorant) of the
names of the guilty.]

74 (return) [ Compare the suspicions and complaints of Nicetas
(p. 359—362) with the blunt charges of Baldwin of Flanders,
(Gesta Innocent III. c. 92, p. 534,) cum patriarcha et mole
nobilium, nobis promises perjurus et mendax.]

Among the Greeks, all authority and wisdom were overborne by the
impetuous multitude, who mistook their rage for valor, their
numbers for strength, and their fanaticism for the support and
inspiration of Heaven. In the eyes of both nations Alexius was
false and contemptible; the base and spurious race of the Angeli
was rejected with clamorous disdain; and the people of
Constantinople encompassed the senate, to demand at their hands a
more worthy emperor. To every senator, conspicuous by his birth
or dignity, they successively presented the purple: by each
senator the deadly garment was repulsed: the contest lasted three
days; and we may learn from the historian Nicetas, one of the
members of the assembly, that fear and weaknesses were the
guardians of their loyalty. A phantom, who vanished in oblivion,
was forcibly proclaimed by the crowd: 75 but the author of the
tumult, and the leader of the war, was a prince of the house of
Ducas; and his common appellation of Alexius must be
discriminated by the epithet of Mourzoufle, 76 which in the
vulgar idiom expressed the close junction of his black and shaggy
eyebrows. At once a patriot and a courtier, the perfidious
Mourzoufle, who was not destitute of cunning and courage, opposed
the Latins both in speech and action, inflamed the passions and
prejudices of the Greeks, and insinuated himself into the favor
and confidence of Alexius, who trusted him with the office of
great chamberlain, and tinged his buskins with the colors of
royalty. At the dead of night, he rushed into the bed-chamber
with an affrighted aspect, exclaiming, that the palace was
attacked by the people and betrayed by the guards. Starting from
his couch, the unsuspecting prince threw himself into the arms of
his enemy, who had contrived his escape by a private staircase.
But that staircase terminated in a prison: Alexius was seized,
stripped, and loaded with chains; and, after tasting some days
the bitterness of death, he was poisoned, or strangled, or beaten
with clubs, at the command, or in the presence, of the tyrant.
The emperor Isaac Angelus soon followed his son to the grave; and
Mourzoufle, perhaps, might spare the superfluous crime of
hastening the extinction of impotence and blindness.

75 (return) [ His name was Nicholas Canabus: he deserved the
praise of Nicetas and the vengeance of Mourzoufle, (p. 362.)]

76 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 116) speaks of him as a
favorite, without knowing that he was a prince of the blood,
_Angelus_ and _Ducas_. Ducange, who pries into every corner,
believes him to be the son of Isaac Ducas Sebastocrator, and
second cousin of young Alexius.]

The death of the emperors, and the usurpation of Mourzoufle, had
changed the nature of the quarrel. It was no longer the
disagreement of allies who overvalued their services, or
neglected their obligations: the French and Venetians forgot
their complaints against Alexius, dropped a tear on the untimely
fate of their companion, and swore revenge against the perfidious
nation who had crowned his assassin. Yet the prudent doge was
still inclined to negotiate: he asked as a debt, a subsidy, or a
fine, fifty thousand pounds of gold, about two millions sterling;
nor would the conference have been abruptly broken, if the zeal,
or policy, of Mourzoufle had not refused to sacrifice the Greek
church to the safety of the state. 77 Amidst the invectives of
his foreign and domestic enemies, we may discern, that he was not
unworthy of the character which he had assumed, of the public
champion: the second siege of Constantinople was far more
laborious than the first; the treasury was replenished, and
discipline was restored, by a severe inquisition into the abuses
of the former reign; and Mourzoufle, an iron mace in his hand,
visiting the posts, and affecting the port and aspect of a
warrior, was an object of terror to his soldiers, at least, and
to his kinsmen. Before and after the death of Alexius, the Greeks
made two vigorous and well-conducted attempts to burn the navy in
the harbor; but the skill and courage of the Venetians repulsed
the fire-ships; and the vagrant flames wasted themselves without
injury in the sea. 78 In a nocturnal sally the Greek emperor was
vanquished by Henry, brother of the count of Flanders: the
advantages of number and surprise aggravated the shame of his
defeat: his buckler was found on the field of battle; and the
Imperial standard, 79 a divine image of the Virgin, was
presented, as a trophy and a relic to the Cistercian monks, the
disciples of St. Bernard. Near three months, without excepting
the holy season of Lent, were consumed in skirmishes and
preparations, before the Latins were ready or resolved for a
general assault. The land fortifications had been found
impregnable; and the Venetian pilots represented, that, on the
shore of the Propontis, the anchorage was unsafe, and the ships
must be driven by the current far away to the straits of the
Hellespont; a prospect not unpleasing to the reluctant pilgrims,
who sought every opportunity of breaking the army. From the
harbor, therefore, the assault was determined by the assailants,
and expected by the besieged; and the emperor had placed his
scarlet pavilions on a neighboring height, to direct and animate
the efforts of his troops. A fearless spectator, whose mind could
entertain the ideas of pomp and pleasure, might have admired the
long array of two embattled armies, which extended above half a
league, the one on the ships and galleys, the other on the walls
and towers raised above the ordinary level by several stages of
wooden turrets. Their first fury was spent in the discharge of
darts, stones, and fire, from the engines; but the water was
deep; the French were bold; the Venetians were skilful; they
approached the walls; and a desperate conflict of swords, spears,
and battle-axes, was fought on the trembling bridges that
grappled the floating, to the stable, batteries. In more than a
hundred places, the assault was urged, and the defence was
sustained; till the superiority of ground and numbers finally
prevailed, and the Latin trumpets sounded a retreat. On the
ensuing days, the attack was renewed with equal vigor, and a
similar event; and, in the night, the doge and the barons held a
council, apprehensive only for the public danger: not a voice
pronounced the words of escape or treaty; and each warrior,
according to his temper, embraced the hope of victory, or the
assurance of a glorious death. 80 By the experience of the former
siege, the Greeks were instructed, but the Latins were animated;
and the knowledge that Constantinople might be taken, was of more
avail than the local precautions which that knowledge had
inspired for its defence. In the third assault, two ships were
linked together to double their strength; a strong north wind
drove them on the shore; the bishops of Troyes and Soissons led
the van; and the auspicious names of the _pilgrim_ and the
_paradise_ resounded along the line. 81 The episcopal banners
were displayed on the walls; a hundred marks of silver had been
promised to the first adventurers; and if their reward was
intercepted by death, their names have been immortalized by fame.
811 Four towers were scaled; three gates were burst open; and the
French knights, who might tremble on the waves, felt themselves
invincible on horseback on the solid ground. Shall I relate that
the thousands who guarded the emperor’s person fled on the
approach, and before the lance, of a single warrior? Their
ignominious flight is attested by their countryman Nicetas: an
army of phantoms marched with the French hero, and he was
magnified to a giant in the eyes of the Greeks. 82 While the
fugitives deserted their posts and cast away their arms, the
Latins entered the city under the banners of their leaders: the
streets and gates opened for their passage; and either design or
accident kindled a third conflagration, which consumed in a few
hours the measure of three of the largest cities of France. 83 In
the close of evening, the barons checked their troops, and
fortified their stations: They were awed by the extent and
populousness of the capital, which might yet require the labor of
a month, if the churches and palaces were conscious of their
internal strength. But in the morning, a suppliant procession,
with crosses and images, announced the submission of the Greeks,
and deprecated the wrath of the conquerors: the usurper escaped
through the golden gate: the palaces of Blachernæ and Boucoleon
were occupied by the count of Flanders and the marquis of
Montferrat; and the empire, which still bore the name of
Constantine, and the title of Roman, was subverted by the arms of
the Latin pilgrims. 84

77 (return) [ This negotiation, probable in itself, and attested
by Nicetas, (p 65,) is omitted as scandalous by the delicacy of
Dandolo and Villehardouin. * Note: Wilken places it before the
death of Alexius, vol. v. p. 276.—M.]

78 (return) [ Baldwin mentions both attempts to fire the fleet,
(Gest. c. 92, p. 534, 535;) Villehardouin, (No. 113—15) only
describes the first. It is remarkable that neither of these
warriors observe any peculiar properties in the Greek fire.]

79 (return) [ Ducange (No. 119) pours forth a torrent of learning
on the _Gonfanon Imperial_. This banner of the Virgin is shown at
Venice as a trophy and relic: if it be genuine the pious doge
must have cheated the monks of Citeaux.]

80 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 126) confesses, that mult ere
grant peril; and Guntherus (Hist. C. P. c. 13) affirms, that
nulla spes victoriæ arridere poterat. Yet the knight despises
those who thought of flight, and the monk praises his countrymen
who were resolved on death.]

81 (return) [ Baldwin, and all the writers, honor the names of
these two galleys, felici auspicio.]

811 (return) [ Pietro Alberti, a Venetian noble and Andrew
d’Amboise a French knight.—M.]

82 (return) [ With an allusion to Homer, Nicetas calls him
enneorguioV, nine orgyæ, or eighteen yards high, a stature which
would, indeed, have excused the terror of the Greek. On this
occasion, the historian seems fonder of the marvellous than of
his country, or perhaps of truth. Baldwin exclaims in the words
of the psalmist, persequitur unus ex nobis centum alienos.]

83 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 130) is again ignorant of the
authors of _this_ more legitimate fire, which is ascribed by
Gunther to a quidam comes Teutonicus, (c. 14.) They seem ashamed,
the incendiaries!]

84 (return) [ For the second siege and conquest of
Constantinople, see Villehardouin (No. 113—132,) Baldwin’s iid
Epistle to Innocent III., (Gesta c. 92, p. 534—537,) with the
whole reign of Mourzoufle, in Nicetas, (p 363—375;) and borrowed
some hints from Dandolo (Chron. Venet. p. 323—330) and Gunther,
(Hist. C. P. c. 14—18,) who added the decorations of prophecy and
vision. The former produces an oracle of the Erythræan sibyl, of
a great armament on the Adriatic, under a blind chief, against
Byzantium, &c. Curious enough, were the prediction anterior to
the fact.]

Constantinople had been taken by storm; and no restraints, except
those of religion and humanity, were imposed on the conquerors by
the laws of war. Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, still acted as
their general; and the Greeks, who revered his name as that of
their future sovereign, were heard to exclaim in a lamentable
tone, “Holy marquis-king, have mercy upon us!” His prudence or
compassion opened the gates of the city to the fugitives; and he
exhorted the soldiers of the cross to spare the lives of their
fellow-Christians. The streams of blood that flowed down the
pages of Nicetas may be reduced to the slaughter of two thousand
of his unresisting countrymen; 85 and the greater part was
massacred, not by the strangers, but by the Latins, who had been
driven from the city, and who exercised the revenge of a
triumphant faction. Yet of these exiles, some were less mindful
of injuries than of benefits; and Nicetas himself was indebted
for his safety to the generosity of a Venetian merchant. Pope
Innocent the Third accuses the pilgrims for respecting, in their
lust, neither age nor sex, nor religious profession; and bitterly
laments that the deeds of darkness, fornication, adultery, and
incest, were perpetrated in open day; and that noble matrons and
holy nuns were polluted by the grooms and peasants of the
Catholic camp. 86 It is indeed probable that the license of
victory prompted and covered a multitude of sins: but it is
certain, that the capital of the East contained a stock of venal
or willing beauty, sufficient to satiate the desires of twenty
thousand pilgrims; and female prisoners were no longer subject to
the right or abuse of domestic slavery. The marquis of Montferrat
was the patron of discipline and decency; the count of Flanders
was the mirror of chastity: they had forbidden, under pain of
death, the rape of married women, or virgins, or nuns; and the
proclamation was sometimes invoked by the vanquished 87 and
respected by the victors. Their cruelty and lust were moderated
by the authority of the chiefs, and feelings of the soldiers; for
we are no longer describing an irruption of the northern savages;
and however ferocious they might still appear, time, policy, and
religion had civilized the manners of the French, and still more
of the Italians. But a free scope was allowed to their avarice,
which was glutted, even in the holy week, by the pillage of
Constantinople. The right of victory, unshackled by any promise
or treaty, had confiscated the public and private wealth of the
Greeks; and every hand, according to its size and strength, might
lawfully execute the sentence and seize the forfeiture. A
portable and universal standard of exchange was found in the
coined and uncoined metals of gold and silver, which each captor,
at home or abroad, might convert into the possessions most
suitable to his temper and situation. Of the treasures, which
trade and luxury had accumulated, the silks, velvets, furs, the
gems, spices, and rich movables, were the most precious, as they
could not be procured for money in the ruder countries of Europe.
An order of rapine was instituted; nor was the share of each
individual abandoned to industry or chance. Under the tremendous
penalties of perjury, excommunication, and death, the Latins were
bound to deliver their plunder into the common stock: three
churches were selected for the deposit and distribution of the
spoil: a single share was allotted to a foot-soldier; two for a
sergeant on horseback; four to a knight; and larger proportions
according to the rank and merit of the barons and princes. For
violating this sacred engagement, a knight belonging to the count
of St. Paul was hanged with his shield and coat of arms round his
neck; his example might render similar offenders more artful and
discreet; but avarice was more powerful than fear; and it is
generally believed that the secret far exceeded the acknowledged
plunder. Yet the magnitude of the prize surpassed the largest
scale of experience or expectation. 88 After the whole had been
equally divided between the French and Venetians, fifty thousand
marks were deducted to satisfy the debts of the former and the
demands of the latter. The residue of the French amounted to four
hundred thousand marks of silver, 89 about eight hundred thousand
pounds sterling; nor can I better appreciate the value of that
sum in the public and private transactions of the age, than by
defining it as seven times the annual revenue of the kingdom of
England. 90

85 (return) [ Ceciderunt tamen eâ die civium quasi duo millia,
&c., (Gunther, c. 18.) Arithmetic is an excellent touchstone to
try the amplifications of passion and rhetoric.]

86 (return) [ Quidam (says Innocent III., Gesta, c. 94, p. 538)
nec religioni, nec ætati, nec sexui pepercerunt: sed
fornicationes, adulteria, et incestus in oculis omnium
exercentes, non solûm maritatas et viduas, sed et matronas et
virgines Deoque dicatas, exposuerunt spurcitiis garcionum.
Villehardouin takes no notice of these common incidents.]

87 (return) [ Nicetas saved, and afterwards married, a noble
virgin, (p. 380,) whom a soldier, eti martusi polloiV onhdon
epibrimwmenoV, had almost violated in spite of the entolai,
entalmata eu gegonotwn.]

88 (return) [ Of the general mass of wealth, Gunther observes, ut
de pauperibus et advenis cives ditissimi redderentur, (Hist. C.
P. c. 18; (Villehardouin, (No. 132,) that since the creation, ne
fu tant gaaignié dans une ville; Baldwin, (Gesta, c. 92,) ut
tantum tota non videatur possidere Latinitas.]

89 (return) [ Villehardouin, No. 133—135. Instead of 400,000,
there is a various reading of 500,000. The Venetians had offered
to take the whole booty, and to give 400 marks to each knight,
200 to each priest and horseman, and 100 to each foot-soldier:
they would have been great losers, (Le Beau, Hist. du. Bas Empire
tom. xx. p. 506. I know not from whence.)]

90 (return) [ At the council of Lyons (A.D. 1245) the English
ambassadors stated the revenue of the crown as below that of the
foreign clergy, which amounted to 60,000 marks a year, (Matthew
Paris, p. 451 Hume’s Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 170.)]

In this great revolution we enjoy the singular felicity of
comparing the narratives of Villehardouin and Nicetas, the
opposite feelings of the marshal of Champagne and the Byzantine
senator. 91 At the first view it should seem that the wealth of
Constantinople was only transferred from one nation to another;
and that the loss and sorrow of the Greeks is exactly balanced by
the joy and advantage of the Latins. But in the miserable account
of war, the gain is never equivalent to the loss, the pleasure to
the pain; the smiles of the Latins were transient and fallacious;
the Greeks forever wept over the ruins of their country; and
their real calamities were aggravated by sacrilege and mockery.
What benefits accrued to the conquerors from the three fires
which annihilated so vast a portion of the buildings and riches
of the city? What a stock of such things, as could neither be
used nor transported, was maliciously or wantonly destroyed! How
much treasure was idly wasted in gaming, debauchery, and riot!
And what precious objects were bartered for a vile price by the
impatience or ignorance of the soldiers, whose reward was stolen
by the base industry of the last of the Greeks! These alone, who
had nothing to lose, might derive some profit from the
revolution; but the misery of the upper ranks of society is
strongly painted in the personal adventures of Nicetas himself.
His stately palace had been reduced to ashes in the second
conflagration; and the senator, with his family and friends,
found an obscure shelter in another house which he possessed near
the church of St. Sophia. It was the door of this mean habitation
that his friend, the Venetian merchant, guarded in the disguise
of a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitate flight,
the relics of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. In a
cold, wintry season, these fugitives, nursed in the lap of
prosperity, departed on foot; his wife was with child; the
desertion of their slaves compelled them to carry their baggage
on their own shoulders; and their women, whom they placed in the
centre, were exhorted to conceal their beauty with dirt, instead
of adorning it with paint and jewels Every step was exposed to
insult and danger: the threats of the strangers were less painful
than the taunts of the plebeians, with whom they were now
levelled; nor did the exiles breathe in safety till their
mournful pilgrimage was concluded at Selymbria, above forty miles
from the capital. On the way they overtook the patriarch, without
attendance and almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and
reduced to a state of apostolical poverty, which, had it been
voluntary, might perhaps have been meritorious. In the mean
while, his desolate churches were profaned by the licentiousness
and party zeal of the Latins. After stripping the gems and
pearls, they converted the chalices into drinking-cups; their
tables, on which they gamed and feasted, were covered with the
pictures of Christ and the saints; and they trampled under foot
the most venerable objects of the Christian worship. In the
cathedral of St. Sophia, the ample veil of the sanctuary was rent
asunder for the sake of the golden fringe; and the altar, a
monument of art and riches, was broken in pieces and shared among
the captors. Their mules and horses were laden with the wrought
silver and gilt carvings, which they tore down from the doors and
pulpit; and if the beasts stumbled under the burden, they were
stabbed by their impatient drivers, and the holy pavement
streamed with their impure blood. A prostitute was seated on the
throne of the patriarch; and that daughter of Belial, as she is
styled, sung and danced in the church, to ridicule the hymns and
processions of the Orientals. Nor were the repositories of the
royal dead secure from violation: in the church of the Apostles,
the tombs of the emperors were rifled; and it is said, that after
six centuries the corpse of Justinian was found without any signs
of decay or putrefaction. In the streets, the French and Flemings
clothed themselves and their horses in painted robes and flowing
head-dresses of linen; and the coarse intemperance of their
feasts 92 insulted the splendid sobriety of the East. To expose
the arms of a people of scribes and scholars, they affected to
display a pen, an inkhorn, and a sheet of paper, without
discerning that the instruments of science and valor were _alike_
feeble and useless in the hands of the modern Greeks.

91 (return) [ The disorders of the sack of Constantinople, and
his own adventures, are feelingly described by Nicetas, p.
367—369, and in the Status Urb. C. P. p. 375—384. His complaints,
even of sacrilege, are justified by Innocent III., (Gesta, c.
92;) but Villehardouin does not betray a symptom of pity or
remorse.]

92 (return) [ If I rightly apprehend the Greek of Nicetas’s
receipts, their favorite dishes were boiled buttocks of beef,
salt pork and peas, and soup made of garlic and sharp or sour
herbs, (p. 382.)]

Their reputation and their language encouraged them, however, to
despise the ignorance and to overlook the progress of the Latins.
93 In the love of the arts, the national difference was still
more obvious and real; the Greeks preserved with reverence the
works of their ancestors, which they could not imitate; and, in
the destruction of the statues of Constantinople, we are provoked
to join in the complaints and invectives of the Byzantine
historian. 94 We have seen how the rising city was adorned by the
vanity and despotism of the Imperial founder: in the ruins of
paganism, some gods and heroes were saved from the axe of
superstition; and the forum and hippodrome were dignified with
the relics of a better age. Several of these are described by
Nicetas, 95 in a florid and affected style; and from his
descriptions I shall select some interesting particulars. _1._
The victorious charioteers were cast in bronze, at their own or
the public charge, and fitly placed in the hippodrome: they stood
aloft in their chariots, wheeling round the goal: the spectators
could admire their attitude, and judge of the resemblance; and of
these figures, the most perfect might have been transported from
the Olympic stadium. _2._ The sphinx, river-horse, and crocodile,
denote the climate and manufacture of Egypt and the spoils of
that ancient province. _3._ The she-wolf suckling Romulus and
Remus, a subject alike pleasing to the _old_ and the _new_
Romans, but which could really be treated before the decline of
the Greek sculpture. _4._ An eagle holding and tearing a serpent
in his talons, a domestic monument of the Byzantines, which they
ascribed, not to a human artist, but to the magic power of the
philosopher Apollonius, who, by this talisman, delivered the city
from such venomous reptiles. _5._ An ass and his driver, which
were erected by Augustus in his colony of Nicopolis, to
commemorate a verbal omen of the victory of Actium. _6._ An
equestrian statue which passed, in the vulgar opinion, for
Joshua, the Jewish conqueror, stretching out his hand to stop the
course of the descending sun. A more classical tradition
recognized the figures of Bellerophon and Pegasus; and the free
attitude of the steed seemed to mark that he trod on air, rather
than on the earth. _7._ A square and lofty obelisk of brass; the
sides were embossed with a variety of picturesque and rural
scenes, birds singing; rustics laboring, or playing on their
pipes; sheep bleating; lambs skipping; the sea, and a scene of
fish and fishing; little naked cupids laughing, playing, and
pelting each other with apples; and, on the summit, a female
figure, turning with the slightest breath, and thence denominated
_the wind’s attendant_. _8._ The Phrygian shepherd presenting to
Venus the prize of beauty, the apple of discord. _9._ The
incomparable statue of Helen, which is delineated by Nicetas in
the words of admiration and love: her well-turned feet, snowy
arms, rosy lips, bewitching smiles, swimming eyes, arched
eyebrows, the harmony of her shape, the lightness of her drapery,
and her flowing locks that waved in the wind; a beauty that might
have moved her Barbarian destroyers to pity and remorse. _10._
The manly or divine form of Hercules, 96 as he was restored to
life by the masterhand of Lysippus; of such magnitude, that his
thumb was equal to his waist, his leg to the stature, of a common
man: 97 his chest ample, his shoulders broad, his limbs strong
and muscular, his hair curled, his aspect commanding. Without his
bow, or quiver, or club, his lion’s skin carelessly thrown over
him, he was seated on an osier basket, his right leg and arm
stretched to the utmost, his left knee bent, and supporting his
elbow, his head reclining on his left hand, his countenance
indignant and pensive. _11._ A colossal statue of Juno, which had
once adorned her temple of Samos, the enormous head by four yoke
of oxen was laboriously drawn to the palace. _12._ Another
colossus, of Pallas or Minerva, thirty feet in height, and
representing with admirable spirit the attributes and character
of the martial maid. Before we accuse the Latins, it is just to
remark, that this Pallas was destroyed after the first siege, by
the fear and superstition of the Greeks themselves. 98 The other
statues of brass which I have enumerated were broken and melted
by the unfeeling avarice of the crusaders: the cost and labor
were consumed in a moment; the soul of genius evaporated in
smoke; and the remnant of base metal was coined into money for
the payment of the troops. Bronze is not the most durable of
monuments: from the marble forms of Phidias and Praxiteles, the
Latins might turn aside with stupid contempt; 99 but unless they
were crushed by some accidental injury, those useless stones
stood secure on their pedestals. 100 The most enlightened of the
strangers, above the gross and sensual pursuits of their
countrymen, more piously exercised the right of conquest in the
search and seizure of the relics of the saints. 101 Immense was
the supply of heads and bones, crosses and images, that were
scattered by this revolution over the churches of Europe; and
such was the increase of pilgrimage and oblation, that no branch,
perhaps, of more lucrative plunder was imported from the East.
102 Of the writings of antiquity, many that still existed in the
twelfth century, are now lost. But the pilgrims were not
solicitous to save or transport the volumes of an unknown tongue:
the perishable substance of paper or parchment can only be
preserved by the multiplicity of copies; the literature of the
Greeks had almost centred in the metropolis; and, without
computing the extent of our loss, we may drop a tear over the
libraries that have perished in the triple fire of
Constantinople. 103

93 (return) [ Nicetas uses very harsh expressions, par
agrammatoiV BarbaroiV, kai teleon analfabhtoiV, (Fragment, apud
Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 414.) This reproach, it is
true, applies most strongly to their ignorance of Greek and of
Homer. In their own language, the Latins of the xiith and xiiith
centuries were not destitute of literature. See Harris’s
Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 9, 10, 11.]

94 (return) [ Nicetas was of Chonæ in Phrygia, (the old Colossæ
of St. Paul:) he raised himself to the honors of senator, judge
of the veil, and great logothete; beheld the fall of the empire,
retired to Nice, and composed an elaborate history from the death
of Alexius Comnenus to the reign of Henry.]

95 (return) [ A manuscript of Nicetas in the Bodleian library
contains this curious fragment on the statues of Constantinople,
which fraud, or shame, or rather carelessness, has dropped in the
common editions. It is published by Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc.
tom. vi. p. 405—416,) and immoderately praised by the late
ingenious Mr. Harris of Salisbury, (Philological Inquiries, p.
iii. c. 5, p. 301—312.)]

96 (return) [ To illustrate the statue of Hercules, Mr. Harris
quotes a Greek epigram, and engraves a beautiful gem, which does
not, however, copy the attitude of the statue: in the latter,
Hercules had not his club, and his right leg and arm were
extended.]

97 (return) [ I transcribe these proportions, which appear to me
inconsistent with each other; and may possibly show, that the
boasted taste of Nicetas was no more than affectation and
vanity.]

98 (return) [ Nicetas in Isaaco Angelo et Alexio, c. 3, p. 359.
The Latin editor very properly observes, that the historian, in
his bombast style, produces ex pulice elephantem.]

99 (return) [ In two passages of Nicetas (edit. Paris, p. 360.
Fabric. p. 408) the Latins are branded with the lively reproach
of oi tou kalou anerastoi barbaroi, and their avarice of brass is
clearly expressed. Yet the Venetians had the merit of removing
four bronze horses from Constantinople to the place of St. Mark,
(Sanuto, Vite del Dogi, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum,
tom. xxii. p. 534.)]

100 (return) [ Winckelman, Hist. de l’Art. tom. iii. p. 269,
270.]

101 (return) [ See the pious robbery of the abbot Martin, who
transferred a rich cargo to his monastery of Paris, diocese of
Basil, (Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 19, 23, 24.) Yet in secreting
this booty, the saint incurred an excommunication, and perhaps
broke his oath. (Compare Wilken vol. v. p. 308.—M.)]

102 (return) [ Fleury, Hist. Eccles tom. xvi. p. 139—145.]

103 (return) [ I shall conclude this chapter with the notice of a
modern history, which illustrates the taking of Constantinople by
the Latins; but which has fallen somewhat late into my hands.
Paolo Ramusio, the son of the compiler of Voyages, was directed
by the senate of Venice to write the history of the conquest: and
this order, which he received in his youth, he executed in a
mature age, by an elegant Latin work, de Bello
Constantinopolitano et Imperatoribus Comnenis per Gallos et
Venetos restitutis, (Venet. 1635, in folio.) Ramusio, or
Rhamnusus, transcribes and translates, sequitur ad unguem, a MS.
of Villehardouin, which he possessed; but he enriches his
narrative with Greek and Latin materials, and we are indebted to
him for a correct state of the fleet, the names of the fifty
Venetian nobles who commanded the galleys of the republic, and
the patriot opposition of Pantaleon Barbus to the choice of the
doge for emperor.]