Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/407

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 385 The execution of the treaty was still opposed by unforeseen Assembly and •/ L I w d.6TDirtTij*6 or difficulties and delays. ^^ The marshal, on his return to Troyes, the cmsade 11 11 mi 1 r /-'I ' irma. Venice. was embraced and approved by Ihibaut, count or Champagne^ a^- 1202, 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 con- demned 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 elec- tion of a new general ; but such was the incapacity, or jealousy, or reluctance, of the princes of France that none could be found both able and Avilling to assume the conduct of the entei-prise. They acquiesced in the choice of a stranger, of Boniface, marquis [Augriat, a.d. of Montferrat, descended of a race of heroes, and himself of con- spicuous 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 •'■1 [In the meantime Venice had played the Crusaders false. It had been agreed that the object of the expedition was to be Egypt. During the months which elapsed between the treaty with the Crusaders (March, 1201) and the date they were to assemble at Venice (June 24, 1202), the Republic negotiated with the Sultan of Egj'pt ; her envoys concluded a treaty with him on May 13, 1202, and it was ratified at Venice in July. By this treaty, Venice undertook that the Crusade should not attack Egypt, and received in return important concessions : a quarter in Alexandria, and the privilege that all pilgrims who visited the Holy Sepulchre under her protection should be safe (a privilege of great pecuniary value). It is clear that this treaty, carefully concealed, proves that the diversion of the Fourth Crusade was a deliberate plan and not an accident. The treaty was first exposed by Hopf (Ersch und Gruber, Enzyklopadie, vol. 85, p. 188). It is mentioned by Ernoul (William of Tyre's Con- tinuator), Recueil, vol. 2, p. 250.] ^^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'ltalia, torn. X. p. 163, 202). '"[Boniface of Montferrat went in October, 1201, to the court of Philip of Swabia, who was son-in-law of Isaac Angelus ; and he remained there till the first months of 1202, when he departed with an embassy to Pope Innocent to plead at Rome the cause of young Alexius. (See Gesta Innocentii, 84.) At Philip's court a plot was hatched. See below, note 63.] VOL. VI. 25