Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/367

 ASSAULT LTON THE CITY. 349 next attack should be made on the walls on the Marmora side, which were not so strong as those facing the Golden Ilurn. The Venetians, however, immediately touk an exce})ti(>n, which every one who knew Constantinople would at once rec- ognize as unanswerable. On that side the current is always much too strong to allow vessels to be anchored with any amount of steadiness, or even safety. Yillehardouin's irrita- tion at the suggestion shows how bitter the opposition still continued. There were some present, he says, who would have been very well content that the current or a wind — no matter what — should have dispersed the vessels, provided that they themselves could have left the country and have gone on their way. It was at length decided that the two following days, the 10th and 11th, should be devoted to repairini^ their sauit decided damages, and that a second assault should be deliv- °^°"* ered on the 12th. The previous day was a Sunday, and Boniface and Dandolo made use of it to appease the dis- content in the rank and file of the army. Once more, as at Corfu and before the first attack upon the city, the bishops and abbots were set to work to preach against the Greeks. They urged that the war was just, because Mourtzouphlos was a traitor and a murderer, a man more dislo^-al than Judas ; that the Greeks had been disobedient to Rome, and had per- versely been guilty of schism in refusing to recognize the supremacy of the Pope, and that Innocent himself desired the union of the two churches. They saw in the defeat the ven- geance of God on account of the sins of the Crusaders. The loose women were ordered out of the camp, and for better security were shipped and sent far away. Confession and communion were enjoined, and, in short, all that the clergy could do was done to prove that the cause was just, to quiet the discontented, and to occupy them until the attack next day.* The warriors had in the meantime been industriously repair- ing their ships and their machines of war. A slight, but not 'Robert (le Clan,lxxii.