douin's narrative, and to charge Dandolo with the failure of the Fourth Crusade.[1] His conclusion is that the Marshal of Champagne was insufficiently informed, and was not able to penetrate the designs of Venice. This position was attacked with great ability by M. de Wailly, Member of the Institut, the learned editor of Villehardouin, who maintains that there were no secret designs to penetrate. He insisted "that the abandonment of the route for Syria by the crusading fleet was the unforeseen and accidental result of the journey of young Alexis to Venice, and that among the actors who took part in the conquest of Constantinople there were neither dupes nor traitors."
Thereupon a controversy arose in which the last word has certainly not yet been uttered. This controversy has, in the main, taken the form of a discussion as to the authenticity of the narrative of Villehardouin. A great number of incidental questions have been raised which are now being hotly debated upon the Continent. On one side are M. de Wailly, M. Streit,[2] and M. Jules Tessier,[3] whose able examination of the causes which led to the diversion only came into my hands a few weeks ago, when the present work was already in the press. On the other side is Count Riant, whose papers on the Fourth Crusade[4] and whose "Exuviæ Sacræ" are models of careful research worthy of the study to which Du Cange devoted the exuberance of his energy and the deluge of his learning. M. Hanoteaux[5] writes on the same side. It will
- ↑ "Histoire de Chypre," vol. i. pp. 161, 164.
- ↑ "Venedig und die Wendung des Vierten Kreuzzuges gegen Konstantinopel." Von Ludwig Streit.
- ↑ "La Diversion sur Zara et Constantinople." Paris, 1884.
- ↑ "Revue des Questions Historiques," vols, xvii., xviii., and xxiii.
- ↑ Revue Historique, Mai, Juin, 1877.
