Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/190

CHAPTER V. THE iGREEK WAR OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE EUROPEAN POWERS. From the time of their complete ruin the Greeks attempted to rise again. Agitations and plots existed continually. As they felt that they were not strong enough by themselves, they asked for help from the Christians of Western Europe. Different projects were set on foot for raising a new crusade. Meanwhile, however, the Greeks seized upon every occasion to break out into insurrections, which being suppressed, only served the Turks as a pretext to make slavery more severe. Charles VIII. intended to help the Greeks re-establish the Greek empire. Laskaris and Arianites were in the conspiracy to prepare a general rising of the Greeks as soon as the King of France should set foot among them. But Charles VIII. dying, the scheme was abandoned. Many other brilliant schemes and ingenious plots to resuscitate the By- zantine empire, different projects to raise a new crusade, and the insurrections which broke out in