Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/205

 elected sovereign of one night, therefore, followed his predecessor in flight, so that there were now three Greek emperors fugitives. That was one remarkable result of the Crusade. A fourth emperor had died in his bed, and a fifth, had been strangled. Five emperors disposed of in six months.

Now, however, there was no more fighting. The city was in the hands of the Western Christians. They behaved as Christian soldiers, whether of the East or West, always have behaved: they pillaged, destroyed, burned, outraged, and murdered.

When there was a pause, from sheer fatigue, in a sack as full of horrors as that which three hundred years later was to fall on the sister city of Rome; when the men-at-arms sat down and slept, weary with murder and pillage; when before the stripped and naked altars, on which shameless women had been set to dance and sing for their amusement, lay the ribald soldiers, on whose arm was sewn in mockery the red cross; when the Latin clergy had run from church to church, collecting at every one the holy relics with which the city abounded—the chiefs began to take thought of order. A solemn thanksgiving was held in the Church of St. Sophia. It was ordered that all the booty should be collected and brought to certain churches, where it was valued and divided according to the agreement already concluded between the Venetians and the Flemings.

It was certainly necessary that some such agreement should be arrived at. The Venetians began by demanding that the freight of the expedition should first be paid