Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/197

 tine titles and ceremonies, would go. That was the main thing.

But on the night of August 19, six weeks before the day fixed for the embarkation of the troops, there happened a dreadful misfortune. A party of Flemish soldiers were drinking at the house of a Flemish merchant. Being probably drunk, they conceived the idea of plundering a church close to their friend's house, and of looting certain warehouses filled with valuable stuffs from Syria and Egypt. They were not too drunk to carry this brilliant conception into immediate execution. But the people rose upon them when they had as yet scarcely commenced their exploit, and they saw that flight was here the better part of valour. They fled, the Greeks vindictively pursuing them. Whether to save themselves by a diversion, or out of revenge, these gallant fellows, whose proceedings inspire one with a lively admiration for Crusaders, set fire to the houses as they passed. Unfortunately a strong wind blew across the peninsula, and spread the conflagration so rapidly that it was impossible to arrest the flames. The fire lasted for two nights and a day. When it was finally subdued, there remained a long belt of charred and smoking relics, stretching a mile and a half in length, from the Golden Horn to the Propontis. The fire had raged through the wealthiest quarter of the city. Innumerable monuments of ancient art, numbers of precious manuscripts, boundless accumulated wealth of that kind of which Constantinople was now the only depository, perished in those flames wantonly kindled by the drunken Flemings.