400 THE DECLINE AXD FALL 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 countiy. 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 everj' shop resounded with the danger of the cliurch and the tyranny of the pope.**^ An empty ti-easury could ill supply the demands of i*egal luxury and foreign extor- tion ; the Greeks refused to avert, by a general tax, the impend- ing 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 sanc- tuarv, 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. In one of their visits to the city they Avere scandalized by the as- pect of a mosque or synagogue, in which one God was worshipped, without a partner or a son.^ Their eifectual mode of contro- versy was to attack the infidels with the sword, and their habita- tion with fire ; but the infidels, and some Christian neighbours, 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 con- flagration spread above a league in front, from the harbour 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, '^ When Xicetas reproaches Alexius for his impious league, he bestows the harshest names on the pope's new religion, fie'i^oy /cai oTon-aJroToi' . . . TrapexTpoTriiv —t'oTtfaj? . . . roll' TOi' ndjra npouo^iiuiv Kaivuriio^ . . . fxera^c(7tr tc Kai tJ.€Ta~OLTi](Tii' Tu>i' TraAaiwi' 'Pui/iaiois eflJ.!' (p. 348 [in Alex. iii. c. 9]). Such was the sincere language of every Greek to the last gasp of the empire. s" Xicetas (p. 355 [c. 2]) is positive in the charge, and specifies the Flemings (•tAr.niot't?), 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.
- [The mosque of the Musulman merchants.]
