Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/408

 886 THE DECLINE AND FALL followed by the counts of Flanders and Blois, and the most re- spectable barons of France ; and their numbers were swelled by the pilgrims of Germany, ^^ whose object and motives were similar to their own. The Venetians had fulfilled, and even surpassed, their engagements ; stables were constructed for the hoi'ses, and barracks for the troops ; the magazines were abundantly replen- ished with forage and provisions ; and the fleet of transpoi'ts, ships, and galleys was ready to hoist sail, as soon as the republic had re- ceived the price of the freight and armament. ^^ But that price far exceeded the wealth of the crusaders who were assembled at Venice. The Flemings, whose obedience to their court was volun- tary and precarious, had embarked in their vessels for the long navi- gation of the ocean and Mediterranean ; and many of the French and Italians had preferred a cheaper and more convenient passage from Marseilles and Apulia to the Holy Land. Each pilgrim might complain that, after he had furnished his own contribution, he was made responsible for the deficiency of his absent brethren : the gold and silver plate of the chiefs, which they freely delivered to the treasury of St. Mark, was a generous but inadequate sacri- fice ; and, after all their efforts, thirty-four thousand marks were still wanting to complete the stipulated sum. The obstacle was removed by the policy and patriotism of the doge,^^ who pro- posed to the barons that, if they would join their arms in reduc- ing some revolted cities of Dalmatia, he would expose his person in the holy war, and obtain from the republic a long indulgence, till some wealthy conquest should afford the means of satisfying the debt. After much scruple and hesitation, they chose rather to accept the offer than to relinquish the enterprise ; and the first ^ See the crusade of the Germans in the Historia C. P. of Gunther (Canisii Antiq. Lect. torn. iv. p. v. viii.), who celebrates the pilgrimage of his abbot ^lartin, one of the preaching rivals of Fulk of Neuilly. His monaster)', of the Cistercian order, was situate in the diocese of Basil. [Gunther was, prior of Paris in Elsass. The work has been separately edited by the Count de Riant, 1875.] 55 [The price was 4 marks a horse and 2 a man ; which, reckoning the mark at 52 francs, amounts to ^^180,000. Pears, Fall of Constantinople, p. 234.] ^B [According to Robert de Clari, the Venetians kept the Crusaders imprisoned in the island of S. Niccolo di Lido, and applied the screw of starvation. T-wo proposals were then made ; the first was, that the expedition should start for the East, and that the spoil of the first city d'outremer which they attacked should be appropriated to pay the debt to Venice ; the second was that Zara should be at- tacked, but this was confided only to the chiefs and concealed from the mass of the host, until they reached the doomed city. The account in the text, which repre- sents the enterprise against Zara as started for the purpose of accommodating the diflSculty, and the Venetians as honestly prepared at this stage to transport the Crusaders to the East, provided they were paid, is the account which Villehardouin successfully imposed upon the world.]