LXI. Imallness of their numbers and the defects of CHAP. their discipline; and fome failures and mischances revealed the fecret, that they were not invincible. As the fear of the Greeks abated, their hatred encreafed. They murmured; they confpired; and before a year of flavery had elapfed, they implored, or accepted, the fuccour of a Barbarian, whofe power they had felt, and whofe gratitude they trufted 23. garian war, 1205. The Latin conquerors had been faluted with a The Bulfolemn and early embaffy from John, or Joannice, or Calo-John, the revolted chief of the Bulgarians and Walachians. He deemed himself their brother, as the votary of the Roman pontiff, from whom he had received the regal title and an holy banner; and in the fubverfion of the Greek monarchy, he might afpire to the name of their friend and accomplice. But Calo-John was aftonished to find, that the count of Flanders had affumed the pomp and pride of the fucceffors of Constantine; and his ambaffadors were difmiffed with an haughty meffage, that the rebel muft deferve a pardon, by touching with his forehead the foot-ftool of the Imperial throne. His refent24 would have exhaled in acts of violence and blood; his cooler policy watched the rifing C ment 23 I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence, the eight books of the Hiftoire de C. P. fous l'Empire des François, which Ducange has given as a fupplement to Villehardouin; and which, in a barbarous style, deferves the praise of an original and claffic work. 24 In Calo-John's answer to the pope, we may find his claims and complaints (Gesta Innocent. III. c. 108, 109.) he was cherifhed at Rome as the prodigal son. LXI. CHAP. difcontent of the Greeks; affected a tender concern for their sufferings; and promised, that their first struggles for freedom should be supported by his perfon and kingdom. The confpiracy was propagated by national hatred, the firmeft band of affociation and fecrecy: the Greeks were impatient to sheath their daggers in the breasts of the victorious ftrangers; but the execution was prudently delayed, till Henry, the emperor's brother, had transported the flower of his troops beyond the Hellefpont. Most of the towns and villages of Thrace were true to the moment and the fignal: and the Latins, without arms or fufpicion, were flaughtered by the vile and merciless revenge of their flaves. From Demotica, the firft fcene of the maffacre, the furviving vaffals of the count of St. Pol efcaped to Adrianople; but the French and Venetians, who occupied that city, were flain or expelled by the furious multitude; the garrisons that could effect their retreat fell back on each other towards the metropolis; and the fortreffes, that feparately stood against the rebels, were ignorant of each other's and of their fovereign's fate. The voice of fame and fear announced the revolt of the Greeks and the rapid approach of their Bulgarian ally; and Calo-John, not depending on the forces of his own kingdom, had drawn from the Scythian wildernefs a body of fourteen thousand Comans, who drank, as it was faid, the blood of their captives, and facrificed the Christians on the altars of their gods "5. 25 Alarmed *5 The Comans were a Tartar or Turkman hord, which en camped LXI. Alarmed by this fudden and growing danger, CHAP.. the emperor dispatched a fwift meffenger to recall count Henry and his troops; and had Baldwin expected the return of his gallant brother, with a fupply of twenty thousand Armenians, he might have encountered the invader with equal numbers and a decifive fuperiority of arms and difcipline. But the spirit of chivalry could seldom discriminate caution from cowardice; and the emperor March. took the field with an hundred and forty knights, 'and their train of archers and ferjeants. The ́marshal, who diffuaded and obeyed, led the vanguard in their march to Adrianople; the main body was commanded by the count of Blois; the aged doge of Venice followed with the rear; and their scanty numbers were encreased from all fides by the fugitive Latins. They undertook to befiege the rebels of Adrianople; and fuch was 'the pious tendency of the crufades, that they employed the holy week in pillaging the country for their fubfiftence, and in framing engines for the destruction of their fellow-chriftians. But the Latins were foon interrupted and alarmed by the light cavalry of the Comans, who boldly fkirmished to the edge of their imperfect lines: and a proclamation was iffued by the marshal of Romania, that, on the trumpet's found, the cam valry should mount and form; but that none, under pain of death, should abandon themselves camped in the xiith and xiiith centuries on the verge of Moldavia. The greater part were pagans, but fome were Mahometans, and the whole hord was converted to Christianity (A.D. 1370) by Lewis king of Hungary. LXI. CHAP. to a defultory and dangerous purfuit. This wife injunction was first disobeyed by the count of Blois, who involved the emperor in his rafhness and ruin. The Comans, of the Parthian or Tartar school, fled before their first charge; but after a career of two leagues, when the knights and their horfes were almoft breathlefs, they fuddenly turned, rallied, and encompassed the heavy fquadrons of the Franks. The count was flain on the field; the emperor was made prifoner; and if the one difdained to fly, if the other refused to A. D. yield, their perfonal bravery made a poor atonement for their ignorance, or neglect, of the du ties of a general 6. Defeat and cap. tivity of Baldwin, 1205, April 15. Proud of his victory and his royal prize, the Bulgarian advanced to relieve Adrianople and atchieve the deftruction of the Latins. They must inevitably have been deftroyed, if the marfhal of Romania had not difplayed a cool courage and confummate fkill; uncommon in all ages, but most uncommon in thofe times, when war Retreat of was a paffion, rather than a science. His grief and fears were poured into the firm and faithful bofom of the doge; but in the camp he diffused an affurance of fafety, which could only be realized by the general belief. All day he maintained his perilous ftation between the city and the Barbarians: Villehardouin decamped in filence, at the dead of night; and his masterly retreat of the Latins. 36 Nicetas, from ignorance or malice, imputes the defeat to the cowardice of Dandolo (p. 383.); but Villehardouin shares his own glory with his venerable friend, qui viels home ére et gote ne veoit, mais múlt ére fages et preus et vigueros (N° 193-) three 27 LXI. three days would have deserved the praife of Xe- CHAP. nophon and the ten thousand. In the rear the marfhal fupported the weight of the purfuit; in the front he moderated the impatience of the fugitives; and wherever the Comans approached, they were repelled by a line of impenetrable fpears. On the third day, the weary troops beheld the fea, the folitary town of Rodosto ", and their friends, who had landed from the Afiatic fhore. They embraced, they wept; but they united their arms and counfels; and, in his brother's abfence, count Henry affumed the regency of the empire, at once in a state of childhood and caducity 28. If the Comans withdrew from the fummer heats, feven thousand Latins, in the hour of danger, deferted Conftantinople, their brethren, and their vows. Some partial fuccefs was overbalanced by the lofs of one hundred and twenty knights in the field of Rufium; and of the Imperial domain, no more was left, than the capital, with two or three adjacent fortreffes on the fhores of Europe and Afia. The king of Bulgaria was refistless and inexorable; and Calo-John refpectfully eluded the demands of the Pope, who con 27 The truth of geography, and the original text of Villehardouin (N° 194.), place Rodofto three days journey (trois jornées) from Adrianople; but Vigenere, in his version, has most abfurdly fubftituted trois heures; and this error, which is not corrected by Ducange, has entrapped several moderns, whose names I fhall fpare. 18 The reign and end of Baldwin are related by Villehardouin and Nicetas (p. 386-416.): and their omiffions are supplied by Ducange in his Observations, and to the end of his first book. |