Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/225

 What would not Baldwin I., or Henry his uncle, or John de Brienne his father-in-law, have been able to effect with an army of 30,000 soldiers of the West? But Baldwin the Incapable did next to nothing.

By this time the strip of country remaining to the emperor was only that immediately surrounding the city. All the rest was in the hands of Greek or of Bulgarian. When these were at war, the city was safe; when these were united, the city was every moment in danger of falling.

Baldwin used his new recruits in gaining possession of the country for a distance of three days' journey round his capital—about sixty miles in all—which was something. But how was the position to be maintained, or to be improved? There were no revenues in that bankrupt city, from whose port the trade had passed away, and which had lost the command of the narrow seas. What was the condition of the citizens, we know not. That of the imperial household was such, that the emperor's servants were fain to demolish empty houses for fuel, and to strip churches of the lead upon their roofs to supply the daily wants of his family. He sent his son Philip to Venice as security for a debt; he borrowed at enormous interest of the merchants of Italy; and when all else failed, and the money which he had raised at such ruinous sacrifices had melted away, and his soldiers were clamouring for pay, he remembered the holy relics yet remaining to the city, in spite of the cartloads carried off during the great sack of 1204, and resolved to raise more money upon them.