The alliance, however, was concluded, and the allies, with an immense army, estimated at a hundred thousand, besides three hundred ships-of-war, sat down before the city and besieged it by sea and land. The incident that follows reads like a story from the history of Amadis de Gaul. Gibbon says that he "trembles" to relate it. While this immense host lay outside his walls; while thirty ships armed with their engines of war menaced his long line of seaward defences in the narrow strait, brave old John de Brienne, who had but one hundred and sixty knights with their following of men-at-arms and archers—-say two thousand in all—led forth his little band, and at one furious onset routed the besieging army. Probably it was mainly composed of the Bulgarian hordes, undisciplined, badly armed, and, like all such hosts, liable to panic. Perhaps, too, the number of the enemy was by no means so great as is reported, nor were the forces of John de Brienne so small.
Nor was his success limited to the rout of the army, for the citizens, encouraged by their flight, attacked the ships, and succeeded in dragging five-and-twenty of them within the port. It would appear that the Bulgarians renewed their attempt in the following year, and were again defeated by the old Emperor. It would have been well for the Latins had his age been less. He died in the year 1237, and young Baldwin, who was married to his daughter Martha, became sole emperor. John de Brienne made so great a name that he was compared with Ajax, Odin the Dane, Hector, Roland, and Judas Maccabæus. Baldwin, who came after him, might have been compared with any of those kinglings who succeeded Charlemagne, and sat in their palaces while the empire fell to pieces.
His incapacity is proved, if by nothing else, by his singular and uniform ill-luck. If, after the fight of life is over, no single valiant blow can be remembered, the record is a sorry one indeed. Baldwin's difficulties were, it must be owned, very great: they were so great that for a considerable portion of the four-and-twenty years during which he wore the Roman purple his crown was left him by sufferance, and his manner of reigning was to travel about Europe begging for money. The Pope proclaimed a crusade for him, but it was extremely difficult to awaken general enthusiasm for a Courtenay in danger of being overthrown by a Lascaris; and the other point, the submission of Constantinople to Rome in things ecclesiastical, could not be said to touch the popular sentiment at all. The Pope, however, supplemented his exhortation by bestowing upon the indigent Emperor a treasure of indulgences, which he no doubt sold at their marketable value, whatever that was. One fears that it was not much. From England he obtained, after an open insult at Dover, a small contribution toward the maintenance of his empire. Louis IX of France would have rendered him substantial assistance, but for the more pressing claims of the Holy Land and his project for delivering the holy places by a new method. His brother-in-law, Frederick II, excommunicated by the Church, was not likely to manifest any enthusiasm for an ecclesiastical cause; and those allies from whom he might have expected substantial aid, the Venetians, were at war with the Genoese; the Prince of Achaia was in captivity, and the feeble son of Boniface, King of Thessalonica—the sons of all these sturdy crusaders were feeble, like the Syrian pullani, sons of Godfrey's heroes—had been deposed. Yet money and men must be raised, or the city must be abandoned. A wise man would have handed over the empire to any who dared defend it. Baldwin was not a wise man. He proceeded to sell the remaining lands of Courtenay and the marquisate of Namur, and by this and other expedients managed to return with an army of thirty thousand men. What would not Baldwin I, or Henry his uncle, or John de Brienne his father-in-law have been able to effect with an army of thirty thousand soldiers of the West? But Baldwin the Incapable did next to nothing.
By this time the strip of country remaining to the Emperor was only that immediately surrounding the city. All the rest was in the hands of Greek or of Bulgarian. When these were at war, the city was safe; when these were united, the city was every moment in danger of falling. Baldwin used his new recruits in gaining possession of the country for a distance of three days' journey round his capital—about sixty miles in all—which was something. But how was the position to be maintained or to be improved? There were no revenues in that bankrupt city, from whose port the trade had passed away, and which had lost the command of the narrow seas. What was the condition of the citizens we know not. That of the imperial household was such that the Emperor's servants were fain to demolish empty houses for fuel, and to strip churches of the lead upon their roofs to supply the daily wants of his family. He sent his son Philip to Venice as security for a debt; he borrowed at enormous interest of the merchants of Italy; and when all else failed, and the money which he had raised at such ruinous sacrifices had melted away, and his soldiers were clamoring for pay, he remembered the holy relics yet remaining to the city, in spite of the cartloads carried off during the great sack of 1204, and resolved to raise more money upon them.
There was, first of all, the Crown of Thorns. This had been already pledged in Venice for the sum of thirteen thousand one hundred and thirty-four pieces of gold to the Venetians. As the money was spent and the relic could not be redeemed within the time, the Venetians were preparing to seize it. They would have been within their right. But Baldwin conceived an idea, so clever that it must have been suggested by a Greek, which, if successfully carried out, would result in the attainment of much more money by its means. He would give it to Louis IX of France. A relic of such importance might be pawned, it might be given, but it could not be sold. Therefore Baldwin gave it to King Louis. By this plan the Venetians were tricked of their relic, on which they had counted; the debt was transferred to France, which easily paid it; the precious object itself, to which Frederick II granted a free passage through his dominions, was conveyed by Dominican friars to Troyes, whither the French court advanced to receive it, and a gift of ten thousand marks reconciled Baldwin and his barons to their loss. After all, as the prospects of the State were so gloomy, it might be some consolation to them to reflect that so sacred a relic—which had this great advantage over the wood of the true Cross, that it had not been and could not be multiplied until it became equal in bulk to the wood of a three-decker—was consigned to the safe custody of the most Christian King of France.
This kind of traffic once begun, and proving profitable, there was no reason why it should not continue. Accordingly, the Crown of Thorns was followed by a large and very authentic piece of the true Cross. St. Louis gave Baldwin twenty thousand marks as an honorarium for the gift of this treasure, which he deposited in the Sainte-Chapelle. Here it remained, occasionally working miracles, as every bit of the true Cross was bound to do, until the troubles of the league, when it was mysteriously stolen. Most likely some Huguenot laid hands upon it, and took the same kind of delight in burning it that he took in throwing the consecrated wafer to the pigs.
And then more relics were found and disposed of. There was the baby linen of our Lord; there was the lance which pierced his side; there was the sponge with which they gave him to drink; there was the chain with which his hands had been fettered: all these things, priceless, inestimable, wonder-working, Baldwin sent to Paris in exchange for marks of silver. And then there were relics of less holiness, but still commanding the respect and adoration of Christians; these also were hunted up and sent. Among them were the rod of Moses, and a portion—alas! a portion only—of the skull of John the Baptist. Thirty or forty thousand marks for all these treasures! And it seems but a poor result of the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins that all which came of it was the transferrence of relics from the East to the West—nothing else. Such order as the later Greek emperors had preserved, changed into anarchy and misrule; such commerce as naturally flowed from Asia into the Golden Horn, diverted and lost; a strange religion imposed upon an unwilling people; the break-up of the old Roman forms; the destruction by fire of a third of the city; the disappearance of the ancient Byzantine families; the ruin of the wealthy, the depression of the middle classes; the impoverishment of the already poor; the decay and loss of learning: these were the things which the craft and subtlety of Dandolo, working on the Franks' lust of conquest, had brought about for the proud city of the East.
But the end was drawing daily nearer. Vatatces of Nicæa died. He was succeeded by his son Theodore, on whose death the crown of Nicæa devolved upon an infant. The child was speedily, though not immediately, openly dethroned by the regent, Michael Palæologus. When at length the imperial title was assumed by the latter, Baldwin thought it advisable to attempt negotiations with him. His ambassadors were received with open contumely; Michael would give the Latins nothing. "Tell your master," he said, "that if he be desirous of peace, he must pay me, as an annual tribute, the sum which he receives from the trade and customs of Constantinople. On these terms I may allow him to reign; if he refuses, it will be war."
That was in the year 1259. Michael, no putter-forth of empty and boastful words, prepared immediately for the coming war; so in his feeble way did Baldwin, but his money was spent, his recruits were melting away, the Venetians alone were his allies, and the Genoese had joined the Greeks. And yet Michael did not know—so great was the terror of the Frank and Flemish name which the great Baldwin, Henry of Flanders, and John de Brienne had left behind them—how weak was the Latin empire; how unstable were the defences of the city.
Michael, in 1260, marched into Thrace, strengthened the garrisons, and expelled the Latins yet remaining in the country. Had he, the same year, marched upon Constantinople, the city would have been his. But the glory of taking it was destined for one of his generals.