Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/525

 I OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 503 humble ambition was bribed to become the instrument of treacher' ; and the revolution was accomplished without danger or bloodshed. Destitute of the powers of resistance or the hope of relief, the inflexible Anne would have still defended the palace, and have smiled to behold the capital in flames, rather than in the possession of a rival. She yielded to the prayers of her friends and enemies ; and the treaty was dictated by the conqueror, who professed a loyal and zealous attachment to the son of his benefactor. The marriacre of his daughter with John Palaeologus was at length consummated : the hereditary right of the pupil was acknowledged ; but the sole administration during ten years was vested in the guardian. Two emperors and three empresses were seated on the Byzantine throne ; and a general amnesty quieted the apprehensions, and confirmed the property, of the most guilty subjects. The festival of the coronation and nuptials was celebrated with the appearance of concord and magnificence, and both were equally fallacious. During the late troubles, the treasures of the state, and even the palace, had been alienated or embezzled : the royal banquet was served in pe^vter or earthenware ; and such was the proud poverty of the times that the absence of gold and jewels was supplied by the paltry artifices of glass and gilt leather. ^^ I hasten to conclude the personal history of John Cantacuseignof John 5-TT IT! Ill" 1 1 Cantacuzene. zene.^' He triumphed and reigned ; but his reign and triumph ad. 1347^ were clouded by the discontent of his own and the adverse i3», January faction. His followers might style the general amnesty an act of pardon for his enemies and of oblivion for his friends : ^^ in his cause their estates had been forfeited or plundered ; and, as they wandered naked and hungn' through the streets, they cursed the selfish generosity of a leader who, on the throne of the empire, mijjht relinquish without merit his private inherit- ance. The adherents of the empress blushed to hold their lives and fortunes by the precarious favour of an usurper ; and the sprinkled. The rest of the stones had only raiToSaTri)!' T^poiar nph<s to Siavye^. 5^ From his return to Constantinople, Cantacuzene continues his history, and that of the empire, one year beyond the abdication of his son Matthew, a.d. 1357 (1. iv. c. 1-50, p. 705-911^. Nicephorus Gregoras ends with the synod of Constanti- nople, in the year 1351 (]. xxii. c. 3, p. 660. the rest, to the conclusion of the xxirth book, p. 717, is all controversy) : and his fourteen last books are still Mss. in the king of France's library. rSee Appendix i.] '^The emperor (Cantactwen. 1. iv. c. t) represents his own virtues, and Nic. Gregoras fl. xv. c. 11) the complaints of his friends, who suffered by its effects. I have lent them the words of our poor cavaliers after the Restoration.
 * 'Nic. Gre^. 1. xv. 11. There were, however, some pearls, but very thinly