Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/464

 442 THE DECLINE AND FALL tinople remembered their native sovereigns ; the Genoese mer- chants, their recent alliance and Venetian foes ; every quarter was in arms ; and the air resounded with a general acclamation of "Long life and victory to Michael and John, the august em- perors of the Romans ! " Their rival Baldwin was awakened by the sound ; but the most pressing danger could not prompt him to draw his sword in the defence of a city which he deserted, perhaps, with more pleasure than regret : he fled from the palace to the sea-shore, where he descried the welcoiTie sails of the fleet returning from the vain and fruitless attempt on Daphnusia. Constantinople was irrecoverably lost ; but the Latin emperor and the principal families embarked on board the Venetian galleys, and steered for the isle of Euboea, and afterwards for Italy, where the royal fugitive was entertained by the pope and Sicilian king with a mixture of contennpt and pity. From A.D. 1272] the loss of Constantinople to his death, he consumed thirteen years, soliciting the Catholic powers to join in his restoration : the lesson had been familiar to his youth ; nor was his last exile more indigent or shameful than his three former pilgrim- ages to the courts of Europe. His son Philip was the heir of an ideal empire ; and the pretensions of his daughter Catherine [AD. 1267] were transported by her marriage to Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip the Fair, king of France. The house of Courtenay was represented in the female line by successive alliances, till the title of emperor of Constantinople, too bulky and sonorous for a private name, modestly expired in silence and oblivion. ^2 General con- After this narrative of the expeditions of the Latins to Pales- Bequences of i/-, -it t t ^ • ■ ^ l the crusades tmc and Constantinople, 1 cannot dismiss the subject without revolving the general consequences on the countries that were the scene, and on the nations that were the actors, of these memorable crusades.*"^ As soon as the arms of the Franks were withdrawn, the impression, though not the memory, was erased in the Mahometan realms of Egypt and Syi'ia. The faithful 82 See the three last books (1. v. -viii.), and the genealogical tables of Ducange. In the year 1382, the titular emperor of Constantinople was James de Baux [titular Emperor, 1373-1383], duke of Andria in the kingdom of Naples, the son of Mar- garet, daughter of Catherine de Valois [married to Philip of Tarentum], daughter of Catherine [married to Charles of Valois], daughter of Philip, son of Baldwin II. (Ducange, 1. viii. c. 37, 38). It is uncertain whether he left any posterity. 83 Abulfeda, who saw the conclusion of the crusades, speaks of the kingdom of the Franks, and those of the negroes, as equally unknown (Prolegom. ad Geograph. ). Had he not disdained the Latin language, how easily might the Syrian prince have found books and interpreters!!