Constantinople: A Sketch of its History from its Foundation to its Conquest by the Turks in 1453/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
THE LATIN CONQUEST.
WO hundred and fifty years before the final overthrow of the Greek empire by the Ottomans, while the sceptre of Constantinople passed, like an unmeaning toy, from one grasp to another, each so feeble that the Bulgarians openly prayed that the life of him, their enemy, might be prolonged, there occurred in the dramatic history of this city an event more dramatic than anything in the records of humanity, the Latin conquest, a story before which the expedition of Pizarro pales, and the glory of Hernando Cortes is dimmed.
The horror and shame which the loss of Jerusalem spread through the whole of Christendom naturally raised up preacher after preacher, prophet after prophet, until the reverberation of the news slowly died away from shore to shore. All of them called upon princes and people to avenge the blood of the saints of Hattin, to recover the Holy Sites, to assume the Cross. None of them achieved any success until, some ten years after the city fell, Fulke de Neuilly, who possessed that divine gift which made illiterate Peter eloquent, and scholarly Bernard persuasive, began to move the laggard hearts of men and to turn them in the direction of the Holy Land. The usual signs which may be predicted of all great preachers followed in the track of his harangues. They are familiar to us now as then. There was the transitory religious revival; sinners confessed and renounced their sin, while the influence and terror of the voice was upon them; yet after a brief space the wickedness of the world went on as usual; foolish women renounced their folly, burnt their ribbons, gave up their golden bracelets, while the preacher was among them; oppressors repented their oppressions, until the preacher was gone. Fulke began, indeed, as a preacher of repentance, and it was at the instance of the newly-enthroned Pope Innocent III. that he passed—a bold and confident step for a preacher to take—from general admonition to special exhortation, and invited the young and able-bodied to wear the cross and carry a pike to Palestine.
It was not a propitious time for preaching Crusades. The kings of France and England had already fulfilled their promises, and done enough for the Cross which they had taken. To fight once on that burning soil of Syria was surely a sufficient merit for any Christian, however sinful. As well expect a Mohammedan Haj to journey on foot the whole way from Bosnia to Mecca twice in his lifetime. The Emperor of Germany was a child of six years old, and the preacher had to rely upon the leadership of those secondary princes who saw in a Crusade the opportunity of striking a blow at once for heaven and themselves. Those sovereigns who had everything to lose and nothing to gain, preferred to stay at home. What principality in the East was worth anything to Richard Lion Heart, compared with his own fair realm of England? What successes in Palestine would compensate Philip Augustus for dangers and losses at home? But to the princes who were of royal lineage, and yet of the second, third, or fourth order, a Crusade offered noble chances. Godfrey, Baldwin, Jocelyn, Tancred, Bohemon, all the princes of the first Crusade, who became kings of Jerusalem, princes, counts, dukes, and marquises of Edessa, Tripoli, Antioch, and Tyre, had been of the same rank as themselves. Glory and greatness, as well as religion, pointed in the direction of the East. Therefore it was not surprising to hear that Fulke de Neuilly, with his band of preachers, speedily roused up the Western nobles to an enthusiasm which was respectable, although, compared with that which sent forth Peter with his myriads, it was the glory of Nehemiah's Temple compared with that which the oldest men remembered with tears of the Temple which had passed away. Not twice in the world's history does the same enthusiasm seize the hearts of men.
The first chief of the fourth Crusade was Thibaut III., Count of Champagne, father of the roi chansonnier, Thibaut IV., poet, and platonic lover of the saintly Blanche. He was a young man of twenty-three when he placed himself at the head of the new Crusade. With him were Simon de Montfort; Baldwin, Count of Flanders, who had married a sister of Thibaut; Henry of Flanders, brother of Baldwin; the Counts of Blois and St. Pol; Geoffrey, Count de Perche; Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat; and Geoffrey de Villehardouin, who was to be the chronicler of the adventure.
The chiefs began by sending deputies to ask the Venetians what they would charge for taking them across the water. This was business-like and prudent. They profited by the lessons of the past. They would have none of that long and toilsome march through Europe, and that unequal contest with Greek chicanery; they would avoid the perilous journey across the sands and deserts, through the marshes, and over the passes of Asia Minor, exposed to the perils of pestilence, the torments of thirst, the daily harassing of the innumerable Saracenic cavalry. Their best and safest route would be to march over the rich plains of Italy to Venice, then to take ship, and so, if the saints sent good weather, straight to the shores of the Holy Land. It will be remembered that Richard of England started with a like sensible resolve. His mistake was in being diverted from his purpose by the temptation of Cyprus; that of his successors would be the temptation of Constantinople.
It was the boast of Venice in the days of her splendour that she had never owned the yoke of any master from the days when her people fled from Attila and established themselves on their chain of low-lying islands. It was not a claim which bears the test of historical inquiry. Venice formed at one time part of the Greek empire; nor was it till Constantinople grew weak, and the city of the Adriatic strong, that she was able to throw off, little by little, the bonds which connected her with Byzantium. At this time she was stronger than before or after, though not so rich as she was destined to become. She had almost a monopoly of the great Eastern trade; she commanded an enormous fleet; she kept up commercial relations with Constantinople; she had never acquired the slavish deference to the popes which characterized the Western nations; and her government, absolutely unique, partook in no degree of the feudal system of the West or the despotism of the East. In all her transactions she studiously regarded her own interests and nothing else. She let the ambitious and aggressive Westerns struggle for the sovereignty, content if she could establish her trading stations in safety. She regarded with a sort of contempt the blind enthusiasm of French and English for holy cities, in which she only saw so many emporiums and depots for her wares.
At this time their Doge was the great Henry Dandolo, who is said to have been a hundred years of age at the time of his death, five years later, in 1205. We need not accept this statement as literally true. It is, however, beyond a doubt that he was extremely old, and possessed of extraordinary vigour. Thirty years before he had been deprived of sight by the Emperor Manuel Comnenus. A misfortune which would have deprived most men of desire to take any further part in politics only stimulated his ambition. He learned to see with others' eyes, and to fight with others' hands. In A.D. 1192 he was elected Doge, having then been blind for twenty years, and being, if we believe his biographers, already close upon ninety years of age. It devolved upon him, therefore, to receive the six ambassadors of the Crusaders. But he had no power to do more than listen to their proposals, entertain them hospitably, and refer them first to the Council of Six, then to the Forty composing the Council of State, and lastly to the legislative assembly of Four hundred and fifty, who were annually chosen in the six quarters of the city. What the Crusaders asked was that they might be allowed to assemble at Venice on the Feast of St. John in the ensuing year; that the Republic should find vessels for the conveyance of 4,500 horses, 9,000 squires, 4,500 knights, and 20,000 foot; that this army should be found in provisions and stores for the period of nine months; that they should be transported in Venetian ships to whatever shore the service of God and Christendom might require; and that the Republic should join them with fifty galleys.
Having announced their request, Villehardouin, who acted as speaker, summed up by declaring that they had received from the barons of France the order to entreat of the Venetians their succour in the enterprise of venging the tomb of the Saviour, to cast themselves at the feet of the Doge, and not to rise until they had obtained a favourable answer, and the Venetians had taken pity on the Holy Land outre mer. Thereupon the deputies, as they had been enjoined, fell upon their knees before Dandolo, with tears in their eyes and outstretched hands. And all the assembly with one accord cried out, "We grant the prayer! We grant the prayer!"
They did grant the prayer, but with conditions; and these were hard. The Crusaders were to pay, before their embarkation, the sum of 85,000 silver marks, and all conquests were to be equally divided between Crusaders and Venetians.
The generosity or the selfishness of these terms depends entirely on the purchasing power of a silver mark. To provision 33,500 men and 4,500 horses for nine months would at the present time cost, at the low estimate of two shillings a day for each man, one million pounds sterling. To this must be added the cost of the transports and sailors—an item impossible to estimate. If we reckon a million and a half for the cost of the whole, we find that, supposing the 85,000 marks barely paid the cost, each mark had a purchasing power very nearly equivalent to that of £18 of our money. But we may be very certain that this republic of traders were not going to let slip so good an opportunity of profit.
It was more difficult to promise than to execute the treaty. The deputation returned to France after a fruitless effort to enlist the sympathies of Nice and Genoa. Their engagements were ratified by the princes. But here an unforeseen accident threatened the enterprise at its very commencement. Thibaut, Count of Champagne, the chief of the Crusade, died, and the warriors found themselves without a leader. A council was held at Soissons, where Boniface, the Marquis de Montferrat, a soldier conspicuous for gallantry and descended of a race of soldiers, was chosen to lead the Crusade. With him were the Counts of Flanders, Blois, St. Pol, and a splendid following of the greatest nobles of France and Germany.
The Crusaders arrived at Venice in the summer of 1202. Everything was ready for their departure; a splendid fleet awaited them, with abundant stores of provisions and forage; and then the awkward discovery was made that between them all the knights were not able to muster up the price agreed upon for the transport service. The reason of this unforeseen deficiency was that a great number of Flemings, French, and Italians had started by routes more convenient to themselves, and without consulting the leaders. These independent reinforcements were now awaiting the main body in the Holy Land. What was to be done? They were 34,000 marks short of the stipulated sum. Then the Doge, taking what was to be had, made a proposal. He said that the Venetians were well able to wait for the sum due until the Crusaders saw their way to discharge the debt; but in order not to delay the knights in the fulfilment of their vows, the State was ready to accept some substantial and adequate conquest by the Crusaders in full payment; that across the Adriatic was a turbulent and troublesome city named Zara, which had renounced the Venetian yoke. Let the Crusaders restore Zara to the Venetian republic, and they might then proceed together to the recovery of the Holy Land. The knights, not being able to see their way otherwise out of this difficulty, consented to do the Republic this service.
Zara was consequently taken. In other words, the croisés, banded together for battle against the infidel, began by fighting against Christians, and even against brother Crusaders, because Zara had thrown herself under the protection of the King of Hungary. This was a bad beginning. The pope excommunicated them all—a measure which was doubtless deplored by the Western knights, who, however, did not allow their grief to influence any of their subsequent proceedings. The Venetians, as one result of their long connection with Constantinople, were never thoroughly convinced of the supremacy of pope over patriarch, and to them excommunication meant simply unjustifiable interference with temporal matters. Therefore things went their own way, in spite of the pope.
At this juncture young Alexis, son of the captive Isaac, appeared in the camp.
We have already told his story. He was connected by marriage with the Marquis of Montferrat, whose two brothers, Reignier and Conrad, had married princesses of the Comnenan house. It was to him therefore that the young prince first opened the business. Constantinople was in the hands of a usurper; his own father, deprived of sight, was languishing in a dungeon; the people were longing to witness the dethronement of the tyrant. Was it not a worthy object of a Christian army to assist in freeing a great people? Further, could it not be made to appear worthy of a crusading army? For generations the world had been scandalized by the spectacle of a divided Christendom: that scandal should exist no longer. Surely the pope, who had excommunicated them for taking Zara, could no longer withhold his blessing if they put him in undisputed sovereignty over the whole Christian world. Again, they wanted money for the prosecution of their Crusade: he would give them 200,000 marks—a sum equivalent, if our estimate is at all correct, to three and a half millions sterling. They wanted, or would want, men: he would maintain an army in the Holy Land, to be at their command. In a word, as a drowning man catches at a straw, so Alexis was ready to promise everything.
The offer was tempting. To conquer Constantinople, replace the rightful emperor upon the throne, achieve endless glory, acquire the immense sum of 200,000 marks, restore the integrity of the Church, and then go on their way to the recovery of the Holy Places, was surely a more splendid programme than any which had yet appealed to the enthusiasm of Crusaders. But, unfortunately, it only appealed strongly to the enthusiasm of the leaders. The soldiers were indignant, and when it was decided that the young Greek's proposal should be accepted, many deserted, and found their way home, or to the Holy Land.
There is no doubt that the policy of the Doge guided the uneducated counsels of the Crusaders. The Venetian knew better than any other what advantages might be derived from the possession of this great city. What the ignorant soldiers of the West did not suspect, he knew—that those who held Constantinople could command the trade of the East. If these bulldogs of French and Flemings succeeded in conquering the city, who but the Venetians would reap the profit? Let theirs be the glory; for the Republic, the gain.
In April, 1203, the expedition left Zara, bound on the great and perilous adventure of Constantinople. Only the Venetians knew how difficult, how hopeless, save for the disorganized state of the empire, was the task before them. The fleet consisted of 440 ships, including the transports for horses, men, and provisions. They carried 40,000 soldiers. With this army they proposed to attack a city occupying a position unique for strength, believed to possess a powerful fleet, and numbering perhaps a population of half a million. No city in the West numbered more than a tenth of that estimate.
The ignorant soldiers, sailing with a light heart to encounter these perils, met with neither bad weather nor hostile fleets, as the gallant company of galleys and transports passed down the Adriatic, across the Ægean, and up the Dardanelles. They even crossed the Sea of Marmora and passed under the very walls of the city without other peril than the discharge of darts and stones from the Greeks, who gazed at them, secure behind their walls, with more of curiosity than of terror. It was indeed only sixteen years since the unsuccessful attack of Alexis Ducas helped to make the people believe their city to be impregnable. With their line of towers and walls guarding, not only the tongue of land on which the city was built, but also the landward side, with the fortifications of Galata, the great chain barring the mouth of the Golden Horn, their Varangian guards, their innumerable soldiers, what had they to fear from this handful of Western barbarians? Nothing, had their fighting power been equal to their defensive bulwarks.
Where was their fleet? This, which ought to have met the Venetians in the narrow seas, was found reduced to twenty galleys. Only twenty galleys represented the naval power of what was proudly called the Roman empire. Malversations of the admirals, treachery, neglect, and want of confidence, had brought about this result. The paltry fleet lay hiding in the Golden Horn, useless.
The Crusaders landed at Scutari, and hither came, the next day, a deputation from Alexis, asking in haughty terms what he was to understand by this hostile demonstration, and inviting them, on pain of speedy and condign punishment, to return whence they had come. The Crusaders replied that they could not recognize him as emperor at all, that they were come to restore the rightful king to the throne; but that if he agreed to resign the crown at once, they would intercede with the injured Isaac, and gain for him at least the promise of his life. They followed up this message by transporting their cavalry across the Bosporus, and routed in very encouraging style the first Greek troops sent out against them.
It was necessary, however, to occupy, with as little delay as possible, the Golden Horn. This was protected a great chain lying across the mouth, and secured at her end within a tower. The Venetians armed their heaviest transport with a pair of gigantic shears, and drove her against the chain. Whether by the weight of the ship or by the use of the shears, is not certain, the chain was broken, the Venetian fleet crowded into the port, and the capture of the city was now a practicable enterprise.
It might be attacked by complete investment or be taken by storm. The first was out of the question, from the small number of the besiegers. But they held command of the sea. It was resolved, therefore, that the Crusaders should concentrate their forces at the northern angle of the city wall. It was impossible to blockade the city gates, or to keep the besieged from sorties. Baldwin, Count of Flanders, led the van with the Belgian chivalry. The main body, consisting of Flemings under Henry, brother of Baldwin, and French under the Counts of Blois and. St. Pol, was commanded by the Marquis of Montferrat. The engines which had been constructed for use against the walls of Jerusalem were taken from the ships and erected in position.
Mean time the Venetians were to assail the city from the ships near the centre of the line of wall protecting the shore of the Golden Horn.
As soon as a breach had been effected in the wall, a general assault by sea and land was delivered. That by land was begun with the usual desperate courage of the Crusaders, who found opposed to them, not the effeminate arms of the Greeks, but the sturdy axes of English and Danish guards and Pisan mercenaries. The assailants were repulsed in the utmost disorder. This was the chance which comes to him who knows how to use it. Had the emperor, who witnessed the contest from a window in the Blachern Palace, placed himself at the head of his Varangians, and led a sortie on the flying foe, he must have ended then and there the crusade against his empire. Had he even given permission to Theodore Lascaris, his warlike son-in-law, who was at his side in readiness, the end would have been certain. But Alexis did not move. In his sluggish veins there was no impulse possible of generous valour, even when his crown and his life were at stake.
So the opportunity was lost. When it was too late Alexis ordered his troops to march out in battle array before the walls. But they did not attack the Latins, who for their part had had for that day enough of fighting.
The Venetians, however, were on their side completely successful. They had furnished their vessels with high wooden towers provided with drawbridges, which were to be let down on the walls of the city. These vessels, filled with men, were supported by galleys whose tops were filled with archers and crossbow-men, who supported the attack and swept the defenders from the fortifications. The blind old Doge was on board, clad in complete armour, and when the signal was given he ordered his crew to press on, that he might be among the first to touch the walls. After a short struggle the bridges were lowered, and the Venetians swarmed upon the walls, beating back the defenders everywhere, until the twenty-five towers and the connecting line of wall were in their possession. It was more difficult to occupy the town by storm, as the narrow streets were easily defended. The houses were fired before them; but while the conflagration spread, and the unfortunate Greeks fled out of them for safety, the news was hastily brought that the Crusaders were defeated, that the Byzantine army was in full array outside the walls, and that the emperor was about to attack the camp in overwhelming numbers. The Doge ordered the walls to be abandoned, and the ships with all the men-at-arms and archers to return for the support of their allies. But the Greeks were already returning to the city.
There was no occasion for another assault, because the emperor that night, whether terrified by secret information of treachery, which is very possible, or despairing of making a successful defence, or out of sheer cowardice, collected together what he could carry of jewels and money, and with a few of his friends fled from Constantinople. It was at the dawn of day that his flight was discovered. In the confusion which ensued, one Constantine, a eunuch, succeeded in persuading the Varangian guard to replace Isaac II. on the throne. The blind prisoner was awakened in the monastery where he had been confined, by the armed tramp of those who were taking him from a dungeon to a throne. It was the second great dramatic event in the life of this undeserving fainéant.
He was proclaimed emperor, with his son, Alexis IV., as colleague. The Crusaders were disappointed. What they longed to effect by arms and courage, had been done for them by the feebleness of the usurper. There was, therefore, to be no sack of this rich and prosperous city. The Venetians, more wary, suspected some kind of treachery. They resolved on keeping young Alexis as a hostage, while they sent an embassy to Isaac, acquainting him with the treaty made by his son, and asking him if he intended to carry out the terms. The emperor declared his willingness to ratify the treaty so far as promises were concerned, but he confessed that he saw no probability of keeping his promise. What Dandolo wanted, however, was the promise. It would be his business, later on, to remind the emperor of his engagements.
The promise given, a grand triumphant entry was made into Constantinople, the young emperor riding between Dandolo and Count Baldwin.
There was no enthusiasm among the people at the return of the blind old monarch; there was so little national spirit left among them, that they conceived no hope of future improvement in the gallant young prince who rode between the Doge of Venice and the Count of Flanders. They despaired of better things; they were like the Romans when one bad pope came after another bad pope, and they could hope for nothing better than new and more biting epigrams. The Greeks of Constantinople looked with hatred on their rulers, as they looked with contempt upon their priests.
The present state of things, indeed, offered small cause for congratulation to a patriotic mind. To raise the 200,000 marks promised by the prince who had brought these Western warriors upon the city, the imperial palace was stripped of plate, gold, silver, and jewels; the altars were robbed of the sacred vessels, and the holy pictures stripped of their silver frames; the monasteries were deprived of the treasures which pious men and women had stored up in them. And yet the whole did not nearly suffice.
Nor was that all. This army, which they had driven from before their walls, and which now behaved as if it had been victorious, had to be fed. Where was the money to buy provisions for them? Where were the provisions themselves to come from? For the Latins had settled their camp over the richest and most fertile suburbs of the city, where they plundered and devoured at their will.
The two emperors, father and son, who might at least have maintained the dignity of the Byzantine crown, were ridiculous and degraded in the eyes of the people. For the father, led on by the promises of astrologers and monks, who held out hopes of the recovery of his sight and the gift of a prolonged life, spent his time in entertaining these charlatans and spiritual jugglers; while the son, probably glad to escape the mortifications of the impoverished court, was always in the Crusaders' camp, feasting, gambling, singing, and drinking with the rough young knights, who treated him with no more courtesy than they showed to each other.
The situation was intolerable, and it was destined to become worse. Still there was hope. At the end of September the Crusaders would embark again and set sail, leaving Constantinople, it might be hoped, for ever. So, at least, it was arranged. What Dandolo proposed to do if the conditions of the treaty were not fulfilled, no one cared to inquire. The French and Flemish barbarians, the rough and unmannerly Western knights, with no knowledge of Homer and no respect for Byzantine titles and ceremonies, would go. That was the main thing.
But on the night of August 19, six weeks before the day fixed for the embarkation of the troops, there happened a dreadful misfortune. A party of Flemish soldiers were drinking at the house of a Flemish merchant. Being probably drunk, they conceived the idea of plundering a church close to their friend's house, and of looting certain warehouses filled with valuable stuffs from Syria and Egypt. They were not too drunk to carry this brilliant conception into immediate execution. But the people rose upon them when they had as yet scarcely commenced their exploit, and they saw that flight was here the better part of valour. They fled, the Greeks vindictively pursuing them. Whether to save themselves by a diversion, or out of revenge, these gallant fellows, whose proceedings inspire one with a lively admiration for Crusaders, set fire to the houses as they passed. Unfortunately a strong wind blew across the peninsula, and spread the conflagration so rapidly that it was impossible to arrest the flames. The fire lasted for two nights and a day. When it was finally subdued, there remained a long belt of charred and smoking relics, stretching a mile and a half in length, from the Golden Horn to the Propontis. The fire had raged through the wealthiest quarter of the city. Innumerable monuments of ancient art, numbers of precious manuscripts, boundless accumulated wealth of that kind of which Constantinople was now the only depository, perished in those flames wantonly kindled by the drunken Flemings.
One does not hear what was done to the authors of the mischief. Perhaps they were sitting on the shore of Galata, laughing over the brilliant success of their exploit. But the effects of that drinking bout were very remarkable and lasting, as will be seen. It is indeed seldom that one can follow the consequences of a crime, a vulgar, thoughtless, and brutal crime, so fully, or with such clearness.
For, first of all, when the richest part of the city had been burned down, and the stores of wealth destroyed, it was impossible for the imperial government to seek for aid among the resources of private citizens. The golden candelabra and the vessels of St. Sophia, the Byzantine mother-church, when melted down, went but a very little way. And then Alexis, this young boon companion of Flemish roysterers, was fain to seek the Latin camp and confess that he could not pay the money.
Dandolo was not displeased. So far as things had gone, it seemed possible that Venice would get no good at all out of this costly and dangerous business. He said that they were in no immediate hurry. They would wait the convenience of their imperial hosts. They would stay where they were for six months longer. In six months, surely, the money could be raised. Mean time the Greeks would have the pleasure of finding provisions for the Latin and Venetian armies, which, for their part, would continue to keep their camps on the more desirable and fertile portions of the campagna, so that neither revenue nor harvests could be looked to from that quarter. Also, their soldiers should continue to pay friendly visits to their countrymen in the city, and it was to be hoped that no more fires would be the consequence. Of course the Greeks could do nothing but acquiesce, or fight, and they did not like fighting.
Three months passed in ceaseless endeavour to complete this unpopular tax of 200,000 marks. Isaac continued to feast his astrologers and lying monks, and Alexis found his sole delight in the Latin camp. The people murmured, whispered, and told stories to each other. In January, the hungry dogs of war across the Golden Horn sent a message to the two emperors. Unless the money was paid immediately, they would be compelled to declare war. One does not quite understand the policy of this announcement. The Venetians, one would think, must have known the true state of affairs—the utter poverty of the empire, the general collapse of all its resources. Perhaps they hoped by such a measure to obtain large concessions for their trading interests, to keep Pisa and Genoa out of the Dardanelles altogether, to take advantage of the weakness of Constantinople—just as, six hundred and seventy years later, the Russians would try to take advantage of the weakness of Turkey—and make that queen of cities a vassal and dependent on Venice.
They could hardly have reckoned on what really happened, which would have been too much of a risk to face. For the people—would that contemporary historians would tell us more of the poor, suffering, patient people—refused to bear any more, and rose in swift and sudden revolt. It was the evening of January 25, 1204. They brought together in the cathedral of St. Sophia the members of the senate, the nobles, and the clergy, and they bade them elect, there and then, a new emperor. A little respite was gained, because in that time of suspense and peril it was no easy matter to find a man courageous enough to take upon himself this dangerous distinction. Three days of anarchy and confusion followed. Isaac II., luckily for himself, seized this opportunity of dying. Then, as no one would become emperor, the mob seized on a young man, named Nicolas Kanavos, and proclaimed him emperor, against his will.
Young Alexis IV. turned with despairing eyes upon the Latin camp. There, and there alone, seemed to be his chance of safety. He made hasty and secret arrangements with the Marquis of Montferrat for the admission of the Crusaders into the city, and waited their arrival. He would have done better either to trust to his Varangian guard, or to fly to the Latin camp without delay. But these Greek emperors trusted no one, and if they fought, or if they fled, seemed always to fight or fly too late.
Late in the evening, while Alexis was expecting, perhaps, the arrival of same of his Latin defenders, he received a visit from Alexis Ducas, called, from the thickness of his beetling eyebrows, Murtzuphlos. This man was one of the officers of the household, chamberlain or keeper of the imperial wardrobe. He came into the presence of the young emperor, hurriedly, without ceremony, urging immediate flight from the rage of a maddened mob, which he represented as close at his heels. There was no mob. But the unhappy youth, begging Murtzuphlos to help him in his escape, confided to his care the imperial insignia, and entrusted himself to his guidance to be led, by devious ways, into the Crusaders' camp.
By devious ways, indeed, but not to the Latin camp. For the treacherous Murtzuphlos led him to a dungeon, into which he thrust him, and went on his way to consummate his plot.
This was, naturally, to become emperor. He was raised to that office by the acclamations of the army. The young man they called Nicolas Kanavos came down joyfully from the throne on which he never wished to be seated. Alexis IV. was strangled in his prison, and Alexis V. reigned in his stead.
It is unfortunate for Alexis the Beetle-browed that the description of his character has fallen into unfriendly hands, who represent him as a traitor, murderer, robber, and usurper. That he was all these there can be no doubt. Let us, however, concede in his favour that he was the only man of the time, until Theodore Lascaris came to the front, who could command fear, ensure order and discipline, and make himself obeyed by his craven countrymen. He was the one strong man left in the city during those disastrous days. He was valiant, as everybody knew; he was active in overlooking the execution of the works for defence; he was even to be met at night, carrying that terrible battle-axe of his, patrolling the streets, to maintain order. So far, he was an admirable prince. But he insisted on the citizens doing something for themselves. There should be no payment of others to do the fighting while he wore the purple; there should be a levée en masse; the merchants from their shops, the mechanics from their trades, the sturdy beggars from their sunny corners, should all alike stand up and be drilled side by side, or be sent out with pike and lance to fight the Latin foe. This made him unpopular. A man might be a murderer, a traitor, and a usurper, in that Greek empire, and yet be a favourite with the people. What was not allowed was that he should interfere with the cowardice and the supineness of the citizens. And when, to pay for his expenses, he imposed ruinous taxes, and even laid hands upon their property, his name began to be held in execration as much as his terrible face in fear.
Alexis could make them stand up and pretend to be soldiers; he could not make them fight. Once, and once only, he led them out to meet the Crusaders. With one accord they turned and fled, so that he tried that experiment no more. And now, even to him, it seemed evident that the city must fall.
Three months after the usurpation of Alexis the Crusaders resolved upon making a general and united attack. This time it would seem as if the counsel of the Venetians was followed, because the attempt on the land wall was not renewed, the whole strength of the army being hurled against the long line of wall facing the Golden Horn. This plan was advantageous to Alexis, it enabled him to place the whole of his Varangians and Pisans upon the battlements. It was advantageous to the assailants, because their own forces were not strong enough for division, as had been already proved. Moreover, the weakness of the wall lay in the fact that it possessed no flank defences; it was all curtain; and there were the quays, of which the assailants could take advantage for landing troops, scaling-ladders, and engines. The Crusaders attacked from the ships of the Venetians by means of drawbridges and wooden towers. Nevertheless, after a fight of extraordinary fury, the Latins had to retire, with the loss of many of their bravest soldiers.
Three days later, on the 12th of April, they renewed the attack, this time with better success. They had bound their ships together in pairs; they had raised the wooden bulwarks of their decks, and enlarged the tops which held the archers, so that they could bring to bear upon any point of the walls a concentrated volley of missiles. These tactics succeeded, aided by the arrows and bolts from the other ships. The two united vessels, the Paradise and the Pilgrim, laid three bridges upon one of the towers of the wall, which was instantly occupied by their men. Crowds poured in at this avenue, and within a few minutes four or five of the towers, with the wall between, were in the hands of the Crusaders. Then they opened three of the city gates, landed their horses from the ships in the rear, and prepared to take the town, street by street if necessary, by storm. But here the Varangians and the Pisans declined the contest. They refused to fight any more, and carried the emperor to his palace of Bucoleon. The Crusaders for their part seized and occupied the palace of Blachern, near the northern angle of the wall, the same palace from which Alexis watched their abortive assault, and as the day was too far gone for further work, set fire to the houses. It is said that more houses were destroyed in these successive conflagrations than were contained in any three cities of France all taken together.
The usurper had nothing left but flight. He took with him his wife Eudocia and his mother Euphrosyne, embarked in a galley, and disappeared from the city. He was destined, however, to return to it again, a prisoner, to receive the doom of death.
The city almost in the hands of the enemy, the flames raging through street after street, their emperor fled, their Varangians refusing to fight—what was to be done? The people ran shouting and crying to their great Church of St. Sophia: would any one become emperor? It showed how deeply the spirit of superstition had sunk into the Byzantine heart, that, whatever was the emergency, they always began by proclaiming an emperor. They were helpless without one; they had lost the power of independent action; they trembled at responsibility. This mental condition is the most inevitable, as it is the worst, result of imperialism.
They elected Theodore Lascaris, son-in-law of Alexis III. He undertook to rouse, if possible, the Varangians to resistance. They still refused to fight. Probably they were disgusted at the helplessness of a city of half a million which suffered itself to be taken by an army of 30,000 men. Without fighting, it was useless to remain as an emperor within the walls of the city. The elected sovereign of one night, therefore, followed his predecessor in flight, so that there were now three Greek emperors fugitives. That was one remarkable result of the Crusade. A fourth emperor had died in his bed, and a fifth, had been strangled. Five emperors disposed of in six months.
Now, however, there was no more fighting. The city was in the hands of the Western Christians. They behaved as Christian soldiers, whether of the East or West, always have behaved: they pillaged, destroyed, burned, outraged, and murdered.
When there was a pause, from sheer fatigue, in a sack as full of horrors as that which three hundred years later was to fall on the sister city of Rome; when the men-at-arms sat down and slept, weary with murder and pillage; when before the stripped and naked altars, on which shameless women had been set to dance and sing for their amusement, lay the ribald soldiers, on whose arm was sewn in mockery the red cross; when the Latin clergy had run from church to church, collecting at every one the holy relics with which the city abounded—the chiefs began to take thought of order. A solemn thanksgiving was held in the Church of St. Sophia. It was ordered that all the booty should be collected and brought to certain churches, where it was valued and divided according to the agreement already concluded between the Venetians and the Flemings.
It was certainly necessary that some such agreement should be arrived at. The Venetians began by demanding that the freight of the expedition should first be paid out of the plunder, a proposal which left it open to themselves to estimate the cost of this freight at their own price. This danger was averted by the concession that the Venetians should receive three-quarters of the plunder and the Latins the rest.
An immense quantity of the booty was of course stolen and withheld by soldiers, knights, and clergy. An incalculable amount of wealth had been wrecked in the conflagrations, and stores of precious things whose value was unknown to these rude warriors—manuscripts, statues, works of art—had been ruthlessly destroyed by the conquerors.
Gibbon borrows from Nicetas a list of the principal statues which were overthrown and destroyed. Many of these were of bronze or brass, and were melted down, not for the sake of wanton mischief, but for the value of the metal.
Still there remained a goodly pile of precious things. The value of the booty was estimated at 300,000 marks of silver, each mark being equal to a pound weight. The Crusaders paid up their debt to the Venetians, and were able, dividing the remainder of their portion into shares represented in the proportion of 1:2:4, to give to foot-soldiers, horsemen, and knights, respectively the sum of three, six, and twelve marks. If, as was roughly calculated above, the purchasing power of each mark was equal to that of £18 of our own money, it will be seen that the capture of Constantinople was a fairly good day's work; but of course nothing to what under more economical management and without three fires it ought to have been, and no doubt was expected to have been. One wonders how much of this money ever reached Western Europe.
As for the people, the sacking and the plunder once over, they went on with their usual work. The misfortunes of the city fell chiefly on the rich; there was some comfort in witnessing the impoverishment of those who had fattened on their leanness. They were always poor; their poverty was not likely to be much worse under the Latins than it had been under their own chiefs; if a man has nothing he can lose nothing. Nor was their indignation at the insults offered to their religion much greater than their indignation at the national disgraces. These insults affected the clergy, and between clergy and people a great gulf had gradually grown up, widening year by year.
The conquest of Constantinople meant nothing less than the overthrow of the old Roman Empire of the East; for although the Latins remained in possession for no more than sixty years, when the Greeks came back, the old things were either gone, or survived but as a shadow of what they had been. There comes a time in the history of old monarchies when things which are but shadows, such as court ceremonies, court titles, court dignities, seem like things real and substantial; but when they go they can never be revived. A shadow may seem to be real, seen in certain lights; but when its shadowy character has been apprehended, it can never again, in any light, appear to be what it is not. All the antiquated forms, the empty ceremonials, which had surrounded the throne of Byzantium for nine hundred years, were swept away. The tenures of the land were changed. Old notions of law, justice, religion, social customs, rank, were changed suddenly. When the last Courtenay emperor fled, as Alexis III., Alexis V., and Theodore Lascaris fled, in secret and by night, his conquerors came back, as Louis XVIII. did, to a place which was strange and new to those who yet remembered the old traditions.