OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 399 in the freedom of the table, the gay petulance of the French sometimes forgot the emperor of the East.^^ In their more serious conferences, it was agreed that the re-union of the two churches must be the result of patience and time ; but avarice was less tractable than zeal ; and a large sum was instantly disbursed to appease the wants, and silence the importunity, of the crusaders.^* 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 Bald- win and his confederates of France and Flanders. The expedi- tion 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.*^ By the recent invasion the Greeks were awakened from a Quarrel of the dream of nine centuries ; from the vain presumption that the Latins
- ' As they played at dice, the Latins took off his diadem, and clapped on his
head a woollen or hairy cap, t6 fxeyaKonpeir^s fat TrayKAe'to-ror icartppuTTait'ei' oi^o^ia {Nicetas, p. 358). If these merry companions were Venetians, it was the insolence of trade and a commonwealth.
- ^ Villehardouin, No. loi. Dandolo, p. 322. The Doge affirms that the Vene-
tians 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, quod totius Graecipe opes transtulisset (Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 13). See the lamentations and invectives of Nicetas (p. 355 [in Isaac, et Ale.x. c. i]).
- '5The reign of Alexius Comnenus occupies three books in Nicetas, p. 291-352.
The short restoration of Isaac and his son is dispatched in five [four] chapters, p. 352-362.
