Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/470

 448 THE DECLINE AND FALL crowd of Orientals ; the Franks were oppressed in a bold attempt 1 for its recovery, and Courtenay ended his days in the prison of Aleppo. He still left a fair and ample patrimony. But the victorious Turks oppressed on all sides the weakness of a widow and orphan ; and, for the equivalent of an annual pension, they] resigned to the Greek emperor the charge of defending, and the shame of losing, the last relics of the Latin conquest. Th< countess-dowager of Edessa retired to Jerusalem with her twc children : the daughter, Agnes, became the wife and mother oi a king ; the son, Joscelin the Third, accepted the office of seneJ schal, the first of the kingdom, and held his new estates in Pales-| tine by the service of fifty knights. His name appears witl honour in all the transactions of peace and war ; but he finally vanishes in the fall of Jerusalem ; and the name of Courtenay,^ in this branch of Edessa, was lost by the marriage of his two] daughters with a French and a German baron. ^^ iLThecourte 11. While Joscclin reigned beyond the Euphrates, his elder] nayso ance jjj.Q|-}^gj.^ Milo, the son of Joscclin, the son of Atho, continuedjj near the Seine, to possess the castle of their fathers, which wa at length inherited by Rainaud, or Reginald, the youngest of hid three sons. Examples of genius or virtue must be rare in the annals of the oldest families ; and, in a remote age, their pride will embrace a deed of rapine and violence ; such, however, ad could not be perpetrated without some superiority of courage, oi at least of power. A descendant of Reginald of Courtenay maj blush for the public robber who stripped and imprisoned severa merchants, after they had satisfied the king's duties at Sens anc Orleans. He will glory in the offence, since the bold offendeij could not be compelled to obedience and restitution, till the regent and the count of Champagne prepared to march againsti him at the head of an army.^^ Reginald bestowed his estated Their aiuance on his cldcst daughtci', and his daughter on the seventh son o| famuy/A.D* king Louis tlic Fat ; and their marriage was crowned with "^ numerous offspring. We might expect that a private shoulc have merged in a royal name ; and that the descendants of Pete of France and Elizabeth of Courtenay Avould have enjoyed th^ the feudal tenures of the kingdom, which must therefore have been collected betwee the years 1153 and 1187. His pedigree may be found in the Lignages d'Outremeij c. 16. s-*The rapine and satisfaction of Reginald de Courtenay are preposterouslj arranged in the epistles of the abbot and regent Suger (cxiv. c.wi. ), the memorials of the age (Duchesne, Scriptores Hist. Franc, torn. iv. p. 530).
 * 3 His possessions are distinguished in the Assises of Jerusalem (c. 326) amoc