Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/347

ISAAC AND ALEXIS. 309 subjects. The old friendly relations between the young emperor and the host which had accompanied him from Corfu continued for a time. Alexis, however, soon lost the respect of both his own subjects and the pilgrims. lie had come into his empire. His one idea was to enjoy it. But the condition of the city made this impossible within its walls, and for enjoyment he had to return to Ids old comrades. He passed days and nights in drinking-bouts with the invaders and at play. He was "hail-fellow, well met" with all. lie allowed those who w^ere at the gaming-table with him to take oft' his imperial diadem, and to replace it by one of their own woollen caps. He soon became despised, says Nicetas, by every honest man, both among the Romans and among the Crusaders. Meantime his wretched father was filled with jealousy at Condition of ^^^^ liouors accordcd to his son. Isaac appears to Isaac have been almost entirely ignored by the Western host — partly, no doubt, because of his feeble condition, and partly because Boniface and Dandolo found a readier instru- ment in Alexis. He complained that he was not treated with sufficient respect, that his son was intriguing against him. Probably his long imprisonment, his sufferings as a common prisoner, and the loss of his eyesight combined to make him ill-tempered, and had injured his health. He became more than ever the victim of superstitious fears. The monks, by whom he was surrounded, promised that he would become the lord of a great empire, that he would recover his eyesight, that he would be cured of gout or rheumatism, to which he was a martyr; and Isaac was weak enough to believe them.' The astrologers persuaded him to transport into the Great Palace from the hippodrome a statue of the Calydonian boar, under the belief that by so doing his enemies would be de- stroyed, as the enemies whom the original boar was sent to attack had been rent in pieces. Since the fire the condition of the city had been one of con- confusionin fwsiou. The Romaus hated Crusaders and Vene- thecuy. tiaus as the cause of all their ills, especially of the 1 Nicetas, p. 737.