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 flatbottomed 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 * See the original treaty in the Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo, 512 * ASSEMBLY AND DEPARTURE OF [CH. LX. 66 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 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 dispatched 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. The execution of the treaty was still 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 inca p. 323-326. * A reader of Villehardouin must observe the frequent tears of the marshal and his brother knights. Sachiez que la ot mainte lerme plorée de pitié (No. 17); mult plorant (ibid.); mainte lerme plorée (No. 34); si orent mult pitié et plorerent mult durement (No. 60); i ot mainte lerme plorée de pitié (No. 202). They weep on every occasion of grief, joy, or devotion. pacity, 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 negotiations 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 kinsman, 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,t whose object and motives were similar to their own. The Venetians had fulfilled, and even surpassed, their engagements; stables were constructed for the horses, and barracks for the troops; the magazines were abundantly replenished with forage and provisions; and the fleet of transports, ships, and galleys, was ready to hoist sail, as soon as the republic had received the price of the freight and armament. But that price far exceeded the wealth of the crusaders who were assembled at Venice. The Flemings, whose obedience to their count was voluntary and precarious, had embarked in their vessels for the long navigation of the ocean and Mediterranean; and many of the French and Italians had preferred a cheaper and more convenient passage from Marseilles and Apulia to the Holy Land. Each pilgrim might complain, that after he had furnished. his own contribution, he was made responsible for the deficiency of his absent brethren; the gold and silver plate of the chiefs, which they freely delivered to the treasury of * By a victory (A.D. 1191) over the citizens of Asti, by a crusade to Palestine, and by an embassy from the pope to the German princes. (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. x. p. 163. 202.) + See the crusade of the Germans in the Historia C. P. of Gunther (Canisii Antiq. Lect. tom. iv. p. 5-8), who celebrates the pilgrimage of his abbot Martin, one of the preaching rivals of Fulk of Neuilly. His monastery, of the Cistertian order, was situate in the diocese of Basil. 544 SIEGE OF ZARA. [CH. LX. St. Mark, was a generous but inadequate sacrifice; and after all their efforts, thirty-four thousand marks were still wanting to complete the stipulated sum. The obstacle was removed by the policy and patriotism of the doge, who proposed to the barons, that if they would join their arms in reducing some revolted cities of Dalmatia, he would expose his person in the holy war, and obtain from the republic a long indulgence, till some wealthy conquest should afford the means of satisfying the debt. After much scruple and hesitation, they chose rather to accept the offer than to relinquish the enterprise; and the first hostilities of the fleet and army were directed against Zara,* a strong city of the Sclavonian coast, which had renounced its allegiance to Venice, and implored the protection of the king of Hungary. The crusaders burst the chain or boom of the harbour; landed their horses, troops, and military engines; and compelled the inhabitants, after a defence of five days, to surrender at discretion; their lives were spared, but the revolt was punished by the pillage of their houses and the demolition of their walls. The season was far advanced; the French and Venetians resolved to pass the winter in a secure harbour and plentiful country; but their repose was disturbed by national and tumultuous quarrels of the soldiers and mariners. The conquest of Zara had scattered the seeds of discord and scandal; the arms of the allies had been stained in their outset with the blood, not of infidels, but of Christians; the king of Hungary and his new subjects were themselves enlisted under * Jadera, now Zara, was a Roman colony, which acknowledged Augustus for its parent. It is now only two miles round, and contains five or six thousand inhabitants; but the fortifications are strong, and it is joined to the main land by a bridge. See the travels of the two companions, Spon and Wheeler (Voyage de Dalmatie, de Grèce, &c. tom. i. p. 64-70. Journey into Greece, p. 8-14); the last of whom, by mistaking Sestertia for Sestertii, values an arch with statues and columns at twelve pounds. If, in his time, there were no trees near Zara, the cherry-trees were not yet planted which produce our incomparable marasquin. [Reichard (Tab. x.) cites from coins, as an ancient designation of Jadera, COLONIA CLAUDIA AUGUSTA FELIX. The condition of Zara is not altered since Gibbon's time. See Malte Brun and Balbi, p. 461.-ED.] + Katona (Hist. Critica Reg. Hungariæ, Stirpis Arpad. tom. iv. p. 536-558) collects all the facts and testimonies most adverse to the conquerors of Zara, the banner of the cross; and the scruples of the devout were magnified by the fear or lassitude of the reluctant pilgrims. The pope had excommunicated the false crusaders who had pillaged and massacred their brethren,* and only the marquis Boniface and Simon of Montfort escaped these spiritual thunders; the one by his absence from the siege, the other by his final departure from the camp. Innocent might absolve the simple and submissive penitents of France; but he was provoked by the stubborn reason of the Venetians, who refused to confess their guilt, to accept their pardon, or to allow, in their temporal concerns, the interposition of a priest. The assembly of such formidable powers by sea and land had revived the hopes of young+ Alexius; and, both at Venice and Zara, he solicited the arms of the crusaders, for his own restoration and his father's deliverance. The royal youth was recommended by Philip king of Germany; his prayers and presence excited the compassion of the camp; and his cause was embraced and pleaded by the marquis of Montferrat and the doge of Venice. A double alliance, and the dignity of Cæsar, had connected with the imperial family the two elder brothers of Boniface; § he expected to derive a kingdom from the important service; and the more generous ambition of Dandolo was eager to secure the inestimable benefits of trade and dominion that * See the whole transaction and the sentiments of the pope, in the Epistles of Innocent III. Gesta, c. 86-88. [Without the aid of popular ignorance, excommunication would have been a mere "brutum fulmen." The dread which it inspired, and the efficacy with which it was employed in those times, tell us what stupid multitudes composed the mass of society, and what enormous power the popes had acquired. Well might they deprecate and retard the change that was coming on. -ED.] + A modern reader is surprised to hear of the valet de Constantinople as applied to young Alexius, on account of his youth, like the infants of Spain, and the nobilissimus puer of the Romans. The pages and valets of the knights were as noble as themselves. (Villehardouin and Ducange, No. 36.) The emperor Isaac is styled by Villehardouin, Sursac (No. 35, &c.), which may be derived from the French Sire, or the Greek Kup (KUρig) melted into his proper name; the farther corruptions of Tursac and Conserac will instruct us what licence may have been used in the old dynasties of Assyria and Egypt. § Reinier and Conrad : the former married Maria, daughter of the emperor Manuel Comnenus; the latter was the husband of Theodora Angela, sister of the emperors VOL. VI. 2 N |