Venice

by Clara Erskine Clement Waters

When the gates were opened, the Varangian guards, bearing their battle-axes, lined the streets; in the presence-chamber, which sparkled with gold and jewels, the blind old Isaac was enthroned with his wife at his side, while senators, soldiers, and noble matrons filled the room. The ambassadors, without hesitation, clearly stated the recompense promised them by the young Alexius on the fulfilment of their agreement. Isaac could not understand their speech, but their tone impressed him with their determination to have their dues.

He retired to an inner room with an interpreter, the Empress, and the ambassadors, and there was made to comprehend that he was pledged to submit to the Church of Rome, to aid in the conquest of Palestine, and to pay to the Venetians the two hundred thousand marks so long overdue them. With great prudence he worded his reply: "These conditions are weighty, they are hard to accept and difficult to perform; but no conditions can exceed the measure of your services and deserts." He then affixed the golden seal of the Empire to the treaty; and his son, whose voice he longed to hear, was restored to him.

On the 1st of August the father and the son were crowned in St. Sophia with grand solemnities. The quarter of Pera was assigned to the French and Venetians, and any regret or fear that existed on either side was concealed by apparent content and enjoyment.

But it was not possible that all the discordant elements which existed within Constantinople before the arrival of the invaders, and those which they added should live together in harmony. It soon became evident that Alexius was most unpopular; his long residence abroad had tinged his manners with a foreign air, and the familiarity in which he indulged the Frenchmen was most distasteful to the Greeks.

Beneath his gay exterior the mind of Alexius was greatly disturbed. He at once paid the allies all the money that he could possibly control; and small as the sum proved to be it was obtained by violating the sanctuary, and sequestrating not only the effects of the late Emperor's family, but also those of such individuals as had fallen under the suspicion or dislike of Alexius IV. The allies, as well as Alexius, realized that time must be allowed for future payments, and that the submission of the Greek to the Latin Church could not be made at once.

But the alarm of the young Emperor was inexpressible when he reflected that the time agreed upon for the departure of the Crusaders was at hand. The Greeks more than suspected the promises that bound the Emperors to the Latins, and were neither pleased to support their rulers in magnificent luxury nor to pay foreigners for invading their capital. Alexius well knew in what danger the departure of the fleet would leave him, and strove to find a way to detain it.

He entreated the allies not to desert him until he could establish his power; he represented that his father and he had lost the good-will of the Greeks through their friendship for the Latins, and protested his belief that their departure would be the signal for a revolution which would take away his power to furnish them troops or pay them money. Again the sufferings and dangers of a winter campaign in a hostile land were represented; again he made promises,—of payment of his whole debt in the spring, of the immediate organization of ten thousand soldiers and five hundred knights for the service of God, and the supply of all necessary provisions for the allies until the Passover; while to the Doge he promised to keep the fleet afloat until the same time at his own cost. The Patriarch and clergy meanwhile abjured the Greek heresy, which mollified the opposition of the more devout, and finally the time of their departure was deferred to April, 1204.

Alexius desired to visit the cities on or near the Bosphorus in order to establish his authority and receive their submission, and for sixteen hundred gold crowns a portion of the troops was sent with him. The expedition had but a questionable success, and on his return, early in November, he found that a party of foreign soldiers, when excited by wine, had attacked a Jewish quarter and burst open a synagogue.

Naturally a fierce fight ensued; and some Flemings, in order to cover their retreat, set several houses on fire. A frightful conflagration resulted; for eight days the fire raged, and when at last it was extinguished, a third of the Byzantine capital no longer existed. Several ships in the port had burned to the water's edge; the number of churches and palaces as well as more humble dwelling-houses, the amount of merchandise and other wealth that had been destroyed, was unknown and unknowable. The district burned was the most populous of the city, and the hatred of the Latins was so much increased that about fifteen thousand colonists, who had before lived quietly in the midst of the Greeks, now fled to Pera to be under the protection of the allies. The whole condition of affairs was most alarming, both for the Greeks and the Latins, and but a spark was needed to kindle another sort of fire that would destroy thousands of lives as well as the city and its wealth.

The conduct of Alexius began plainly to show his double dealing. The Latins and their reminders of his promises were treated with such indifference as excited their rage and alarm. At length they lost all patience, and in January, 1204, sent an embassy of three noble Frenchmen and as many Venetians to demand anew from the two Emperors the fulfilment of their contract, and to add that the Doge and the barons had resolved to take by force what was not peacefully given them.