Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/409

 ATTITUDE OF INNOCENT. 391 right principle to the last. While, however, making every allowance for the fact that Innocent could hardly help feeling liiniself slighted by the intentional disregard of his injunc- tions and of his rights, the whole tone of his correspondence shows that lie was filled with righteous indignation at the iniquities perpetrated by the Christian host which had de- stroyed the capital of Christendom. After many consulta- tions with the eminent men by whom he had surrounded himself. Innocent wrote a letter on the conquest of the city which will ever remain as a monument of just scorn and the lofty statesmanship of the greatest man of his time. His re- upon yoursclvcs the vow to deliver the Holy Land Sgai^nsuhe from the powcr of the pagans, and since you were expeditiou. forbidden, under pain of excommunication, to attack any Christian land or to do damage to it, unless its inhabitants opposed your passage or refused you what was necessary (and in such case you were to undertake nothing against the will of the legate), and since you had neither right nor pretence of right over Greece, you have slighted your vow; you have not drawn your sword against Saracens, but against Christians ; you have not conquered Jerusalem, but Constantinople ; you have preferred earthly to heavenly riches. But that which weighs more heavily upon you than all this is that you have spared nothing that is sacred, neither age nor sex ; you have given yourselves up to prostitution, to adultery, and to debauchery in face of all the world. You have glutted your guilty passions not only on married women or widows, but upon women and virgins dedicated to the Saviour; you have not been content with the imperial treasures and the goods of rich and poor, but you have seized even the wealth of the Church and what be- longs to it; you have pillaged the silver tables of the altars; you have broken into the sacristies, stolen the crosses, the images, the relics, in such a fashion that the Greek Church, although borne down by persecution, refuses obedience to the Apostolical See, because it sees in the Latins only treason and the works of darkness, and loathes them like dogs." As the conquest was already accomplished. Innocent de-
 * ' Since, in your obedience to the Crucified One, you took