Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/144

116 at war with his father-in-law and rival on the imperial throne, John Cantacuzene.

Palæologos at once engaged the Genoese adventurer in his service, and by his aid accomplished the daring stratagem which gave him possession of Constantinople, and dethroned Cantacuzene.

On a dark stormy night in December, 1354, a large ship was driven by the wind towards the port of HejDtaskalon at Constantinople. The soldiers who guarded the tower at the entrance of the port were induced to open their gates by the declaration of the crew that their vessel carried a valuable cargo of oil and was in danger of foundering, and that a large reward would be given for salvage. The guard having been thus inveigled from their post, two galleys following in the wake of the merchantman landed a body of troops, who seized the unguarded fortifications, and being joined by the partisans of Palseologos, proclaimed him emperor.

For this exploit Gatelusio was rewarded with the hand of the sister of Palæologos, and invested with the sovereignty of Mytilene as her dower.

He was succeeded by his son Jacobo, who obtained from the Sultan the ransom of the Count de Nevers and other lords of France, taken prisoners at the battle of Nicopolis, and conveyed them to Mytilene. Froissart, who tells us this, describes the wife of the lord of Mytilene as "perfectly well-bred, and as fully accomplished as any lady in Greece, for in her youth she had been brought up at the court of Constantinople, with the lady Mary of Bourbon." He adds, that she gave the French prisoners a most