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 414 THE DECLIXE AND FALL all ecclesiastics^ the abbot of Loces, the archbishop elect of Acre in Palestine, and the bishops of Troyes, Soissons, Halberstadt, and Bethlehem, the last of whom exercised in the camp the office of pope's legate ; their profession and knowledge were respectable ; and, as theij could not be the objects, they were best qualified to be authors, of the choice. The six Venetians were the principal servants of the state, and in this list the noble families of Querini and Contarini are still proud to dis- cover their ancestors. The twelve assembled in the chapel of the palace ; and, after the solemn invocation of the Holy Ghost, they proceeded to deliberate and vote. A just impulse of re- spect and gratitude prompted them to crown the virtues of the doge ; his wisdom had inspired their enterprise ; and the most youthful knights might envy and applaud the exploits of blind- ness and age. But the patriot Dandolo was devoid of all per- sonal ambition, and fully satisfied that he had been judged worthy to reign. His nomination was overruled by the Vene- tians themselves ; his countrymen, and perhaps his friends,- re- presented, with the eloquence of truth, the mischiefs that might arise to national freedom and the common cause from the union of two incompatible characters, of the first magistrate of a re- public and the emperor of the East. The exclusion of the doge left room for the more equal merits of Boniface and Baldwin ; and at their names all meaner candidates respectfully withdrew. The marquis of Montferrat was recommended by his mature age and fair reputation, by the choice of the adventurers and the wishes of the Greeks ; nor can I believe that V'enice, the mis- tress of the sea, could be seriously apprehensive of a petty lord at the foot of the Alps.^ But the count of Flanders was the chief of a wealthy and warlike people; he was valiant, pious, and chaste ; in the prime of life, since he was only thirty-two years of age ; a descendant of Charlemagne, a cousin of the king of France, and a compeer of the prelates and barons who had yielded with reluctance to the command of a foreigner. Without the chapel, these barons, with the doge and marquis at their head, expected the decision of the twelve electors. It was 2 After mentioning the nomination of the doge b)' a French elector, his kins- man Andrew Dandolo approves his exclusion, quidam Venetorum fidelis et nobilis senex, usus oratione satis probabili, &c., which has been embroidered by modern writers from Blondus to Le Beau. ■" Nicetas (p. 384), with the vain ignorance of a Greek, describes the marquis of Moniferrat as a maritime power. AajxrrapSi'ai/ <Sf otKtierflci Tzapa.ki.av- Was he de- ceived by the Byzantine theme of Lombardy, which extended along the coast of Calabria .'