Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/146

I 124 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. liars and traitors ; and had no cause to regard the crusaders with suspicion." The Latin conquerors remained in possession of the imperial throne for only fifty-seven years. During- that time a succession of gallant em- perors gathered together in exile the now recov- ering forces of Greek nationalism, and turned them upon the Christian adversaries until the day came in 1261, when Michael VIII. recon- quered the city of Constantinople. From that time the division between the Greek and the Latin church became more marked — all attempts at reunion have thus far failed. The Frank occupation of Greece proper which followed the seizure of Constantinople in 1204 lasted two centuries, but it has left hardly any abiding trace, and introduced no important change in the destiny of the country. Neither did it do anything to retard the progress of the Turkish conquest. And then Constantinople fell and the whole Hellenic world passed into Turkish slavery. Western Europe looked with unconcern at the appalling catastrophe. Thus perished Constantinople, Christian and Imperial, after having fought more than a thou- sand years. It was in the centuries of the Byzantine Em-