Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/222

 Of course the Latin empire of Constantinople was a thing which never ought to have existed, and which could not, in the nature of things, endure. Like its predecessor of Jerusalem, it maintained an uncertain existence by continually attracting recruits from the West. When the supply of men began to fail; when the attention of France was diverted by the holy wars of their saintly King Louis; when Flanders was exhausted, or when the Flemish sympathies perished with the death of Henry, then the end of the empire was not far distant. The early deaths of the knights show, too, how fatal was the climate and the life.

The alliance, however, was concluded, and the allies, with an immense army, estimated at a hundred thousand, besides three hundred ships of war, sat down before the city and besieged it by sea and land. The incident that follows reads like a story from the history of Amadis de Gaul. Gibbon says that he "trembles" to relate it. While this immense host lay outside his walls; while thirty ships armed with their engines of war menaced his long line of seaward defences in the narrow strait, brave old John de Brienne, who had but 160 knight, with their following of men-at-arms and archers—say a couple of thousand in all—led forth his little band, and at one furious onset routed the besieging army. Probably it was mainly composed of the Bulgarian hordes, undisciplined, badly armed, and, like all such hosts, liable to panic. Perhaps, too, the number of the enemy was by no means so great as is reported, nor were the forces of John de Brienne so small. There is