Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/496

 474 THE DECLINE AND FALL A.D. 1280] The union dissolved. A.D. 1283 Charles of Anjou sub- dues Naples and Sicily. A.D. 1266, Feb. 26 [Manfred] they oppress ; but they commonly find some consolation in the testimony of their conscience, the applause of their party, and, perhaps, the success of their undertaking. But the hypocrisy of Michael, which was prompted only by political motives, must haA'e forced him to hate himself, to despise his followers, and to esteem and envy the rebel champions, by whom he was detested and despised.*'' While his violence was abhorred at Constantinople, at Rome his slowness was arraigned and his sincerity suspected ; till at length pope Martin the Fourth excluded the Greek emperor from the pale of a church into which he was striving to reduce a schismatic people. No sooner had the tyrant expired than the union was dissolved and ab- jured by unanimous consent ; the churches were purified ; the penitents were reconciled ; and his son Andronicus, after weep- ing the sins and errors of his youth, most piously denied his father the burial of a prince and a Christian.**^ II. In the distress of the Latins, the walls and towers of Constantinople had fallen to decay ; they were restored and fortified by the policy of Michael, who deposited a plenteous store of corn and salt provisions, to sustain the siege which he might hourly expect from the resentment of the Western powers. Of these, the sovereign of the Two Sicilies was the most for- midable neighbour ; but, as long as they were possessed by Mainfroy, the bastard of Frederic the Second, his monarchy was the bulwark rather than the annoyance of the Eastern empire. The usurper, though a brave and active prince, was sufficiently employed in the defence of his throne ; his proscrip- tion by successive popes had separated Mainfroy from the common cause of the Latins ; and the forces that might have besieged Constantinople were detained in a crusade against the domestic enemy of Rome. The prize of her avenger, the crown of the Two Sicilies, was Avon and worn by the brother of St. Louis, by Charles, count of Anjou and Provence, who led the ^TFinlay shows no mercy to Michael. " He was a type of the empire he re- established and transmitted to his descendants. He was selfish, hypocritical, able and accomplished, an inborn liar, vain, meddling, ambitious, cruel and rapacious. He has gained renown in history as the restorer of the Eastern Empire ; he ought to be execrated as the corrupter of the Greek race, for his reign affords a signal example of the extent to which a nation may be degraded by the misconduct of its sovereign when he is entrusted with despotic power" (vol. 3, p. 372).] •i^Pachymer, 1. vii. c. i-ii, 17. The speech of Andronicus the Elder (lib. xii. c. 2) is a curious record, which proves that, if the Greeks were the slaves of the em- peror, the emperor was not less the slave of superstition and the clergy.