their massacre, peculiar enemies; and compensated, by the accumulation of plunder, the loss of their property and friends. On their return, they exposed to Italy and Europe the wealth and weakness, the perfidy and malice, of the Greeks, whose vices were painted as the genuine characters of heresy and schism. The scruples of the first crusaders had neglected the fairest opportunities of securing, by the possession of Constantinople, the way to the Holy Land: a domestic revolution invited, and almost compelled, the French and Venetians to achieve the conquest of the Roman empire of the east. In the series of the Byzantine Reign and cha princes, I have exhibited the hypocrisy racter of Isaac Angelus, and ambition, the tyranny and fall, of A. D. 1185–1195. Sept. 12. Andronicus, the last male of the Comnenian family who reigned at Constantinople. The revolution, which cast him headlong from the throne, saved and exalted Isaac Angelus, who descended by the females from the same imperial dynasty. The successor of a second Nero might have found it an easy task to deserve the esteem and affection of his subjects: they sometimes had reason to regret the administration of Andronicus. The sound and vigorous mind of the tyrant was capable of discerning the connexion between his own and the public interest; and while he was feared by all who could inspire him with fear, the unsuspected people, and the remote provinces, might bless the inexorable justice of their master. But his successor was vain and jealous of the supreme power, which he wanted courage and abilities to exercise; his vices were pernicious, his virtues (if he possessed any virtues) were useless, to man factories and settlements into the capital of the empire their services were rewarded with honours and immunities; they acquired the possession of lands and houses; their families were multiplied by marriages with the natives; and, after the toleration of a Mahometan mosch, it was impossible to interdict the churches of the Roman rite." The two wives of Manuel Comnenus" were of the race of the Franks; the first, a sister-in-law of the emperor Conrad; the second, a daughter of the prince of Antioch he obtained for his son Alexius a daughter of Philip Augustus king of France; and he bestowed his own daughter on a marquis of Montserrat, who was educated and dignified in the palace of Constantinople. The Greek encountered the arms and aspired to the empire, of the west; he esteemed the valour, and trusted the fidelity, of the Franks; their military talents were unfitly recompensed by the lucrative offices of judges and treasurers; the policy of Manuel had solicited the alliance of the pope; and the popular voice accused him of a partial bias to the nation and religion of the Latins. During his reign, and that of his successor Alexius, they were exposed at Constantinople to the reproach of foreigners, heretics, and favourites; and this triple guilt was severely expiated in the tumult, which announced the return and elevation of Andronicus. The people rose in arms; A. D. 1183. from the Asiatic shore the tyrant despatched his troops and galleys to assist the national revenge; and the hopeless resistance of the strangers served only to justify the rage, and sharpen the daggers, of the assassins. Neither age, nor sex, nor the ties of friendship or kindred, could save the victims of national hatred, and avarice, and reli-kind; and the Greeks, who imputed their calamities gious zeal the Latins were slaughtered in their houses and in the streets; their quarter was reduced to ashes; the clergy were burnt in their churches, and the sick in their hospitals; and some estimate may be formed of the slain from the clemency which sold above four thousand christians in perpetual slavery to the Turks. The priests and monks were the loudest and most active in the destruction of the schismatics; and they chanted a thanksgiving to the Lord, when the head of a Roman cardinal, the pope's legate, was severed from his body, fastened to the tail of a dog, and dragged, with savage mockery, through the city. The more diligent of the strangers had retreated, on the first alarm, to their vessels, and escaped through the Hellespont from the scene of blood. In their flight, they burnt and ravaged two hundred miles of the sea-coast; flicted a severe revenge on the guiltless subjects of the empire; marked the priests and monks as their n See Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, 1. vi. p. 161, 162.) and a remarkable passage of Nicetas, (in Manuel. I. v. c. 9.) who observes of the Venetiane, κατά σμήνη και φρατρίας την Κωνταντινοπολιν της οικείας ηλ. λάξαντο, κε. o Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 186, 187. in P Nicetas in Manuel. I. vii. c. 2. Regnante enim (Manuele) apud eum tantam Latinus populus repererat gratiam ut neglectis Græculis suis tanquam viris mollibus et effeminatis,. solis Latinis grandia committeret negotia. . . . erga eos profusà liberalitate abun dabat.... ex omni orbe ad eum tanquam ad benefactorem nobiles et ignobiles concurrebant. Willerm. Tyr. xxii. c. 10. a The suspicions of the Greeks would have been confirmed, if they to his negligence, denied him the merit of any tran- r See the Greek and Latin narratives in Nicetas (in Alexio Compe no, c. 10.) and William of Tyre; (l. xxii. c. 10-13.) the first soft and concise, the second loud, copious, and tragical. The history of the reign of Isaac Angelus is composed, in three books, by the senator Nicetas; (p. 228-290.) and his offices of loga. thete, or principal secretary, and judge of the veil or palace, could not bribe the impartiality of the historiali. He wrote, it is true, after the fall and death of his benefactor, mount Libanus, and his conquests beyond the Euphrates. But his only step towards the accomplishment of the prediction, was a splendid and scandalous embassy to Saladin, to demand the restitution of the holy sepulchre, and to propose an offensive and defensive league with the enemy of the christian name. In these unworthy hands, of Isaac and his brother, the remains of the Greek empire crumbled into dust. The island of Cyprus, whose name excites the ideas of elegance and pleasure, was usurped by his namesake, a Comnenian prince; and by a strange concatenation of events, the sword of our English Richard bestowed that kingdom on the house of Lusignan, a rich compensation for the loss of Jerusalem. Revolt of the A. D. 1186. April 8. The Bulgarians were malicious Usurpation and enough to pray for the long life of character of Alexius Angelus, Isaac Angelus, the surest pledge of A. D. 1195-1203. their freedom and prosperity. Yet their chiefs could involve in the same indiscriminate contempt the family and nation of the emperor. "In all the Greeks," said Asan to his troops, "the same climate, and character, and education, will be productive of the same fruits. Behold my lance," continued the warrior, "and the long streamers that float in the wind. They differ only in colour; they are formed of the same silk, and fashioned by the same workman; nor has the stripe that is stained in purple, any superior price or value above its fellows." Several of these candidates for the purple successively rose and fell under the empire of Isaac: a general who had repelled the fleets of Sicily, was driven to revolt and ruin by the ingratitude of the prince; and his luxurious repose was disturbed by secret conspiracies and popular insurrections. The emperor was saved by accident, or the merit of his servants: he was at length oppressed by an ambitious brother, who, for the hope of a precarious diadem, forgot the obligations of nature, of loyalty, and of friendship. While Isaac in the Thracian valleys pursued the idle and solitary pleasures of the chace, his brother, Alexius Angelus, was invested with the purple, by the unanimous suffrage of the camp: the capital and the clergy subscribed to their choice; and the vanity of the new sovereign rejected the name of his fathers for the lofty and royal appellation of the Comnenian race. On the despicable character of Isaac I have exhausted the language of contempt; and can only add, that in a reign of eight years, the baser Alexius was supported by the masculine vices of his wife Euphrosyne. The first intelligence of his fall was conveyed to the late emperor by the hostile aspect and pursuit of the guards, no longer his own: he fled before them above fifty miles as far as Stagyra in Mace The honour of the monarchy, and Bulgarians, the safety of the capital, were deeply wounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians and Wallachians. Since the victory of the second Basil, they had supported, above a hundred and seventy years, the loose dominion of the Byzantine princes; but no effectual measures had been adopted to impose the yoke of laws and manners on these savage tribes. By the command of Isaac, their sole means of subsistence, their flocks and herds, were driven away, to contribute towards the pomp of the royal nuptials; and their fierce warriors were exasperated by the denial of equal rank and pay in the military service. Peter and Asan, two powerful chiefs, of the race of the ancient kings," asserted their own rights and the national freedom: their dæmoniac impostors proclaimed to the crowd, that their glorious patron St. Demetrius had for ever deserted the cause of the Greeks: and the conflagration spread from the banks of the Danube to the hills of Macedonia and Thrace. After some faint efforts, Isaac Angelus and his brother acquiesced in their independence; and the imperial troops were soon discouraged by the bones of their fellow-soldiers, that were scattered along the passes of mount Hamus. By the arms and policy of John or Joan-donia; but the fugitive, without an object or a folnices, the second kingdom of Bulgaria was firmly established. The subtle barbarian sent an embassy to Innocent the third, to acknowledge himself a genuine son of Rome in descent and religion; and humbly received from the pope the licence of coining money, the royal title, and a Latin archbishop or patriarch. The Vatican exulted in the spiritual conquest of Bulgaria, the first object of the schism; and if the Greeks could have preserved the prerogatives of the church, they would gladly have resigned the rights of the monarchy. See Bohadin, Vit. Saladin. p. 129-131. 226. vers. Schultens. The ambassador of Isaac was equally versed in the Greek, French, and Arabic languages; a rare instance in those times. His embassies were received with honour, dismissed without effect, and reported with scandal in the west. Ducange, Familie Dalmaticæ, p. 318-320. The original correspondence of the Bulgarian king and the Roman pontiff is inscribed in the Gesta Innocent 111. c. 66-82. p. 513–525. The pope acknowledges his pedigree, a nobili urbis Romæ prosapiâ genitores tui originem traxerunt. This tradition, and the strong re. semblance of the Latin and Wallachian idioms, is explained by M. D'Anville. (Etats de l'Europe, p. 258-262.) The Italian colonies of the Dacia of Trajan were swept away by the tide of emigration from the lower, was arrested, brought back to Constantinople, deprived of his eyes, and confined in a lonesome tower, on a scanty allowance of bread and water. At the moment of the revolution, his son Alexius, whom he educated in the hope of empire, was twelve years of age. He was spared by the usurper, and reduced to attend his triumph both in peace and war; but as the army was encamped on the seashore, an Italian vessel facilitated the escape of the royal youth; and, in the disguise of a common sailor, he eluded the search of his enemies, passed Danube to the Volga, and brought back by another wave from the y This parable is in the best savage style, but I wish the Wallach had not introduced the classic names of Mysians, the experiment of the magnet or loadstone, and the passage of an old comic poet. (Nicetas, in Alex. Comneno, 1. i. p. 299, 300.) z The Latins aggravate the ingratitude of Alexius, by supposing that he had been released by his brother Isaac from Turkish captivity. This pathetic tale had doubtless been repeated at Venice and Zara; but I do not readily discover its grounds in the Greek historians. a See the reign of Alexius Angelus, or Comnenus, in the three books of Nicetas, p. 291-352. the Hellespont, and found a secure refuge in the isle of Sicily. After saluting the threshold of the apostles, and imploring the protection of pope Innocent the third, Alexius accepted the kind invitation of his sister Irene, the wife of Philip of Swabia, king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy, he heard that the flower of western chivalry was assembled at Venice for the deliverance of the Holy Land; and a ray of hope was kindled in his bosom, that their invincible swords might be employed in his father's restoration. The fourth crusade, A. D. 1198. About ten or twelve years after the loss of Jerusalem, the nobles of France were again summoned to the holy war by the voice of a third prophet, less extravagant, perhaps, than Peter the hermit, but far below St. Bernard in the merit of an orator and a statesman. An illiterate priest of the neighbourhood of Paris, Fulk of Neuilly, forsook his parochial duty, to assume the more flattering character of a popular and itinerant missionary. The fame of his sanctity and miracles was spread over the land; he declaimed, with severity and vehemence, against the vices of the age; and his sermons, which he preached in the streets of Paris, converted the robbers, the usurers, the prostitutes, and even the doctors and scholars of the university. No sooner did Innocent the third ascend the chair of St. Peter, than he proclaimed in Italy, Germany, and France, the obligation of a new crusade. The eloquent pontiff described the ruin of Jerusalem, the triumph of the pagans, and the shame of Christendom: his liberality proposed the redemption of sins, a plenary indulgence to all who should serve in Palestine, either a year in person, or two years by a substitute;d and among his legates and orators who blew the sacred trumpet, Fulk of Neuilly was the loudest and most successful. The situation of the principal monarchs was averse to the pious summons. The emperor Frederic the second was a child; and his kingdom of Germany was disputed by the rival houses of Brunswick and Swabia, the memorable factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines. Philip Augustus of France had performed, and could not be persuaded to renew, the perilous vow; but as he was not less ambitious of praise than of power, he cheerfully instituted a perpetual fund for the defence of the Holy Land. Richard of England was b See Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 26, &c. and Villehardouin, No. 1, with the observations of Ducange, which I always mean to quote with the original text. The contemporary life of pope Innocent III. published by Baluze and Muratori, (Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. pars i. p. 486568.) is most valuable for the important and original documents which are inserted in the text. The bull of the crusade may be read, c. 84, 85. d Por-ce que cil pardon, fut issi gran, si s'en esmeurent mult li cuers des gens, et mult s'en croisierent, porce que li pardons ere si gran. Villehardouin, No. 1. Our philosophers may refine on the causes of the crusades, but such were the genuine feelings of a French knight. e This number of fiefs (of which 1800 owed liege homage) was enrolled in the church of St. Stephen at Troyes, and attested A. D. 1213, by the marshal and butler of Champagne. (Ducange, Observ. p. 254.) Campania.... militia privilegio singularius excellit.... in tyro ciniis.... prolusione armorum, &c. Ducange, p. 249. from the old Chronicle of Jerusalem, A. D. 1177-1199. g The name of Villehardouin was taken from a village and castle in the diocese of Troyes, near the river Aube, between Bar and Arceis, race. | satiated with the glory and misfortunes of his first adventure, and he presumed to deride the exhortations of Fulk of Neuilly, who was not abashed in the presence of kings. "You advise me," said Plantagenet, "to dismiss my three daughters, pride, avarice, and incontinence: I bequeath them to the most deserving; my pride to the knights-templars, my avarice to the monks of Cisteaux, and my incontinence to the prelates." But the preacher was heard and obeyed by the great vassals, the princes of the second order; and Theobald, or Thibaut, count of Champagne, was the foremost in the holy The valiant youth, at the age of twenty-two years, was encouraged by the domestic examples of his father, who marched in the second crusade, and of his elder brother, who had ended his days in Palestine with the title of king of Jerusalem: two thousand two hundred knights owed service and homage to his peerage: the nobles of Champagne excelled in all the exercises of war;f embraced by the and, by his marriage with the heiress barons of France. of Navarre, Thibaut could draw a band of hardy Gascons from either side of the Pyrenæan mountains. His companion in arms was Louis, count of Blois and Chartres; like himself, of regal lineage, for both the princes were nephews, at the same time, of the kings of France and England. In a crowd of prelates and barons, who imitated their zeal, I distinguish the birth and merit of Matthew of Montmorency; the famous Simon of Montfort, the Scourge of the Albigeois; and a valiant noble, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, marshal of Champagne," who has condescended, in the rude idiom of his age and country, to write or dictate an original narrative of the councils and actions in which he bore a memorable part. At the same time, Baldwin count of Flanders, who had married the sister of Thibaut, assumed the cross at Bruges, with his brother Henry and the principal knights and citizens of that rich and industrious province. The vow which the chiefs had pronounced in churches, they ratified in tournaments: the operations of the war were debated in full and frequent assemblies; and it was resolved to seek the deliverance of Palestine in Egypt, a country, since Saladin's death, which was almost ruined by famine and civil war. But the fate of so many royal armies displayed the toils and perils of a land expedition; and, if the Flemings The family was ancient and noble; the elder branch of our historian existed after the year 1400, the younger, which acquired the princi pality of Achaia, merged in the house of Savoy. (Ducange, p. 235245.) h This office was held by his father and his descendants, but Ducange has not hunted it with his usual sagacity. I find that, in the year 1356, it was in the family of Conflans; but these provincial have been long since eclipsed by the national marshals of France. This language, of which I shall produce some specimens, is explained by Vegenere and Ducange in a version and glossary. The president Des Brosses, (Mechanisme des Langues, tom. ii. p. 83.) gives it as the example of a language which has ceased to be French, and is understood only by grammarians. His age, and his own expression, moi qui ceste œuvre dicta, (No. 62, &c.) may justify the suspicion, (more probable than Mr. Wood's on Homer,) that he could neither read nor write. Yet Champagne may boast of the two first historians, the noble authors of French prose, Villehardouin and Joinville, 1 The crusade and reigns of the counts of Flanders, Baldwin and his brother Henry, are the subject of a particular history by the Jesuit Doutremens, (Constantinopolis Belgica; Turuaci, 1638. in 4to,) which I have only seen with the eyes of Ducauge. State of the Venetians, dwelt along the ocean, the French barons were des- | reigns of the Adriatic; and when they armed against titute of ships and ignorant of navigation. They the Normans in the cause of Alexius, the emperor embraced the wise resolution of choosing six depu- applied, not to the duty of his subjects, but to the ties or representatives, of whom Villehardouin was gratitude and generosity of his faithful allies. The one, with a discretionary trust to direct the motions, sea was their patrimony:P the western parts of the and to pledge the faith, of the whole confederacy. Mediterranean, from Tuscany to Gibraltar, were The maritime states of Italy were alone possessed indeed abandoned to their rivals of Pisa and Genoa; of the means of transporting the holy warriors with but the Venetians acquired an early and lucrative their arms and horses; and the six deputies pro- share of the commerce of Greece and Egypt. Their ceeded to Venice to solicit, on motives of piety or riches increased with the increasing demand of interest, the aid of that powerful republic. Europe their manufactures of silk and glass, perIn the invasion of Italy by Attila, I haps the institution of their bank, are of high antihave mentioned the flight of the Ve-quity; and they enjoyed the fruits of their industry in the magnificence of public and private life. To assert her flag, to avenge her injuries, to protect the freedom of navigation, the republic could launch and man a fleet of a hundred galleys; and the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Normans, were encountered by her naval arms. The Franks of Syria were assisted by the Venetians in the reduction of the sea-coast; but their zeal was neither blind nor disinterested; and in the conquest of Tyre, they shared the sovereignty of a city, the first seat of the commerce of the world. The policy of Venice was marked by the avarice of a trading, and the insolence of a maritime, power; yet her ambition was prudent; nor did she often forget that if armed galleys were the effect and safeguard, merchant vessels were the cause and supply, of her greatness. In her religion, she avoided the schism of the Greeks, without yielding a servile obedience to the Roman pontiff; and a free intercourse with the infidels of every clime appears to have allayed betimes the fever of superstition. Her primitive government was a loose mixture of democracy and monarchy: the doge was elected by the votes of the general A. D. 697-1200. netians from the fallen cities of the continent, and their obscure shelter in the chain of islands that line the extremity of the Adriatic gulf. In the midst of the waters, free, indigent, laborious, and inaccessible, they gradually coalesced into a republic: the first foundations of Venice were laid in the island of Rialto; and the annual election of the twelve tribunes was superseded by the permanent office of a duke or doge. On the verge of the two empires, the Venetians exult in the belief of primitive and perpetual independence." Against the Latins, their antique freedom has been asserted by the sword, and may be justified by the pen. Charlemagne himself resigned all claims of sovereignty to the islands of the Adriatic gulf; his son Pepin was repulsed in the attacks of the lagunas or canals, too deep for the cavalry, and too shallow for the vessels; and in every age, under the German Cæsars, the lands of the republic have been clearly distinguished from the kingdom of Italy. But the inhabitants of Venice were considered by themselves, by strangers, and by their sovereigns, as an inalienable portion of the Greek empire; in the ninth and tenth centuries, the proofs of their sub-assembly; as long as he was popular and successjection are numerous and unquestionable; and the vain titles, the servile honours, of the Byzantine court, so ambitiously solicited by their dukes, would have degraded the magistrates of a free people. But the bands of this dependence, which was never absolute or rigid, were imperceptibly relaxed by the ambition of Venice and the weakness of Constantinople. Obedience was softened into respect, privilege ripened into prerogative, and the freedom of domestic government was fortified by the independence of foreign dominion. The maritime cities of Istria and Dalmatia bowed to the sove m History, &c. p. 574, 575. The foundation and independence of Venice, and Pepiu's invasion, are discussed by Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. A. D. 810, No. 4. &c.) and Beretti. (Dissert. Chorograph. Italiæ medii Evi, in Muratori, Script. tom. x. p. 153.) The two critics have a slight bias, the Frenchman adverse, the Italian favourable, to the republic. When the son of Charlemagne asserted his right of sovereignty, he was answered by the loyal Venetians, ότι ήμεις δουλοι θέλομεν είναι Tou Prawn Barnews, (Constantin. Porphyrogenit. de Administrat, Imperii, pars 11. c. 28. p. 85.) and the report of the ninth, establishes the fact of the tenth, century, which is confirmed by the embassy of Liutprand of Cremona. The annual tribute, which the emperor allows them to pay to the king of Italy, alleviates, by doubling, their servi. tude; but the hateful word door must be translated, as in the charter of 827, (Laugier, Hist. de Venice, tom. i. p. 67, &c.) by the softer appellation of subditi, or fideles. P.See the twenty-fifth and thirtieth dissertations of the Antiquitates medii Evi of Muratori. From Anderson's History of Commerce, I understand that the Venetians did not trade to England before the year 1323. The most flourishing state of their wealth and commerce ful, he reigned with the pomp and authority of a prince; but in the frequent revolutions of the state, he was deposed, or banished, or slain, by the justice or injustice of the multitude. The twelfth century produced the first rudiments of the wise and jealous aristocracy, which has reduced the doge to a pageant and the people to a cypher. French and When the six ambassadors of the Alliance of the French pilgrims arrived at Venice, they were hospitably entertained in the palace of St. Mark, by the reigning duke: his name was Henry Dandolo ;" and he shone in the last in the beginning of the fifteenth century, is agreeably described by the Abbé Dubos. (Hist. de la Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p. 443-480.) The Venetians have been slow in writing and publishing their history. Their most ancient monuments are, 1. The rude Chronicle (perhaps) of John Sagorninus, (Venezia, 1765. in octavo,) which represents the state and manners of Venice in the year 1008. 2. The larger history of the doge, (1342-1354.) Andrew Dandolo, published for the first time in the twelfth tom. of Muratori, A. D. 1728. The History of Venice by the Abbé Laugier (Paris, 1728.) is a work of some merit, which I have chiefly used for the constitutional part. r Henry Dandolo was eighty-four at his election, (A. D. 1192.) and ninety-seven at his death. (A. D. 1205.) See the Observations of Ducange sur Villehardouin, No. 204. But this extraordinary longevity is not observed by the original writers, nor does there exist another example of a hero near a hundred years of age. Theophrastus might afford an instance of a writer of ninety-nine; but instead of evvEVNKOVTA, (Procem, ad Character.) I am much inclined to read eBooμnkovтa, with his last editor Fischer, and the first thoughts of Casaubon. It is scarcely possible that the powers of the mind and body should support them. selves till such a period of life. period of human life as one of the most illustrious characters of the times. Under the weight of years, and after the loss of his eyes," Dandolo retained a sound understanding and a manly courage; the spirit of a hero, ambitious to signalize his reign by some memorable exploits; and the wisdom of a patriot, anxious to build his fame on the glory and advantage of his country. He praised the bold enthusiasm and liberal confidence of the barons and their deputies; in such a cause, and with such associates, he should aspire, were he a private man, to terminate his life; but he was the servant of the republic, and some delay was requisite to consult, on this arduous business, the judgment of his colleagues. The proposal of the French was first debated by the six sages who had been recently appointed to control the administration of the doge: it was next disclosed to the forty members of the council of state; and finally communicated to the legislative assembly of four hundred and fifty representatives, who were annually chosen in the six quarters of the city. In peace and war, the doge was still the chief of the republic; his legal authority was supported by the personal reputation of Dandolo; his arguments of public interest were balanced and approved; and he was authorized to inform the ambassadors of the following conditions of the treaty. It was proposed that the crusaders should assemble at Venice, on the feast of St. John of the ensuing year: that flat-bottomed vessels should be prepared for four thousand five hundred horses, and nine thousand squires, with a number of ships sufficient for the embarkation of four thousand five hundred knights, and twenty thousand foot: that during a term of nine months they should be supplied with provisions, and transported to whatsoever coast the service of God and christendom should require; and that the republic should join the armament with a squadron of fifty galleys. It was required, that the pilgrims should pay, before their departure, a sum of eighty-five thousand marks of silver; and that all conquests, by sea and land, should be equally divided between the confederates. The terms were hard; but the emergency was pressing, and the French barons were not less profuse of money than of blood. A general assembly was convened to ratify the treaty: the stately chapel and place of St. Mark were filled with ten thousand citizens; and the noble deputies were taught a new lesson of humbling themselves before the majesty of the people. "Illustrious Venetians," said the marshal of Champagne, we are sent by the greatest and most powerful barons of France, to implore the aid of the masters of the sea for the deliverance of Jerusalem. They have enjoined us to fall prostrate at your feet; nor will we rise from 66 the ground, till you have promised to avenge with us the injuries of Christ." The eloquence of their words and tears," their martial aspect, and suppliant attitude, were applauded by a universal shout; as it were, says Jeffrey, by the sound of an earthquake. The venerable doge ascended the pulpit to urge their request by those motives of honour and virtue, which alone can be offered to a popular assembly: the treaty was transcribed on parchment, attested with oaths and seals, mutually accepted by the weeping and joyful representatives of France and Venice; and despatched to Rome for the approbation of pope Innocent the third. Two thousand marks were borrowed of the merchants for the first expenses of the armament. Of the six deputies, two repassed the Alps to announce their success, while their four companions made a fruitless trial of the zeal and emulation of the republics of Genoa and Pisa. Venice, The execution of the treaty was still Assembly and opposed by unforeseen difficulties and delays. The marshal, on his return to Troyes, was embraced and approved by Thibaut count of Champagne, who had been unanimously chosen general of the confederates. But the health of that valiant youth already declined, and soon became hopeless; and he deplored the untimely fate, which condemned him to expire, not in a field of battle, but on a bed of sickness. To his brave and numerous vassals, the dying prince distributed his treasures: they swore in his presence to accomplish his vow and their own; but some there were, says the marshal, who accepted his gifts and forfeited their word. The more resolute champions of the cross held a parliament at Soissons for the election of a new general; but such was the incapacity, or jealousy, or reluctance, of the princes of France, that none could be found both able and willing to assume the conduct of the enterprise. They acquiesced in the choice of a stranger, of Boniface marquis of Montferrat, descended of a race of heroes, and himself of conspicuous fame in the wars and negociations of the times; nor could the piety or ambition of the Italian chief decline this honourable invitation. After visiting the French court, where he was received as a friend and kins man, the marquis, in the church of Soissons, was invested with the cross of a pilgrim and the staff of a general; and immediately repassed the Alps, to prepare for the distant expedition of the east. About the festival of the Pentecost he displayed his banner. and marched towards Venice at the head of the Italians: he was preceded or followed by the counts of Flanders and Blois, and the most respectable barons of France; and their numbers were swelled by the pilgrims of Germany, whose object and plorée de pitié (No. 17.); mult plorant (ibid.): mainte lerme plorée (No. 34.); si orent mult pitié et plorerent mult durement (No. 60 ot mainte lerme plorée de pitié. (No. 202.) They weep on every occasion of grief, joy, or devotion. By a victory (A. D. 1191.) over the citizens of the Asti, by a cr sade to Palestine, and by an embassy from the pope to the German princes. (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. x. p. 163. 202.) y See the crusade of the Germans in the Historia C. P. of Gunther, |