Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/369

THE SECOND ASSAULT. 351 were in the biiissiers, as soon as they saw what had been done, leaped on shore, placed their ladders against the wall, and shortly captured four towers. Those on board the fleet con- centrated their efforts on the gates, broke in three of them, and entered the city, while others landed their horses from the huissiers. As soon as a company of knights was formed, they entered the city through one of these gates, and charged for the emperor's camp. Mourtzouphlos had drawn up his troops before his tents, but they were unused to contend with men in heavy armor, and after a fairly obstinate resistance the im- perial troops fled. The emperor, says Nicetas — who is certainly not inclined to unduly praise the emperor, who had deprived him of his post of Grand Logothete — did his best to rally his troops, but all in vain, and he had to retreat towards the palace of the Lion's Mouth. The number of the wounded and dead was " sans fin et sans mesure." An indiscriminate slaughter commenced. The invaders spared neither age nor The third ^cx. In ordcr to render themselves safe they set fire ^®- to the city lying to the east of them, and burned every- thing between the monastery of Everyetis and the quarter known as Droungarios.^ So extensive was the fire, which burned all night and until the next evening, that, according to the marshal, more houses were destroyed than there were in the three largest cities of France. The tents of the em- peror and the imperial palace of Blachern were pillaged, the conquerors making their headquarters on the same site at Pantepoptis. It was evening, and already late, when the Crusaders had entered the city, and it was impossible for them to continue their work of destruction throuijh the nisrht. They therefore encamped near the walls and towers which they had captured. Baldwin of Flanders spent the night in the vermilion tent of the emperor, his brother Henry in front of the palace of Blachern, Boniface, the Marquis of Mont- ferrat, on the other side of the imperial tents in the heart of the city. ' It was the quarter about the gate in the harbor walls, now known as Zindan Capou, near the dried-fruit market.