J. Fr. Michaud

——

ATTEMPTED CRUSADES.

CRUSADES AGAINST THE TURKS.

A.D. 1291-1396.

We are now arrived at the end of the brilliant epoch of the crusades, but our task is not yet completed; for, as the curiosity of readers attaches a high value to the knowledge of the causes of events, in the same degree must it be desirous of knowing the influence that these events have had upon the laws, manners, and destinies of nations. After having witnessed the kindling of so many passions, which inflamed Europe and Asia during two centuries, who but must be curious to see in what manner these passions were progressively extinguished; what were the political combinations that weakened this universal enthusiasm; and what were the interests, the opinions, and the institutions which took place of the spirit of the holy wars. Here the philosophy of history comes at our wish to enlighten us with its lamp, and make clear to us the eternal course of human things. The end of a great revolution may be compared, in some sort, to the decline of the life of man, it is then that the fruits of long experience may be gathered, it is then that the past, with its remembrances and its lessons, is reflected as in a faithful mirror.

We will pursue, then, with confidence the work we have begun; if, in the career we have still to go through, we may have little to say that will awaken the curiosity of common minds, enlightened spirits will, doubtless, find some interest, in following with us all these long reverberations of a revolution which deeply agitated the world, and whose consequences will be felt by remotest posterity.

When the news of the taking of PtolemaÏs arrived in the West, Pope Nicholas IV. gave his whole attention to the preaching of a crusade. A bull addressed to all the faithful, deplored in pathetic terms the late disasters of the Christians; and the greater that these misfortunes were, the more fully did the pope offer the treasures of divine mercy and pontifical indulgences to new Crusaders. An indulgence of a hundred days was granted to those who would attend the sermons of the preachers of the crusade, or would come to the churches to listen to the groans of the city of God. The holy orators had permission to preach the war of the East in forbidden places; and, that great sinners might be induced to become soldiers of the cross, the preachers received the faculty of granting certain absolutions that had till that time been reserved for the supreme authority of the Holy See.

In many provinces, the clergy assembled in consequence of the directions of the pope, to deliberate upon the means of recovering Palestine. The prelates employed themselves in this pious mission with much zeal, and in order to secure the success of the enterprise, all united in conjuring the sovereign pontiff to labour without intermission in bringing about the reËstablishment of peace among Christian princes.

Several monarchs had already taken the cross; and Nicholas sent legates to press them to accomplish the vow they appeared to have forgotten. Edward, king of England, although he had levied the tenths upon the clergy for the expenses of the crusade, showed very little inclination to quit his states for the purpose of returning into Asia. The emperor Rodolph, who, in the conference of Lausanne, had promised the pope to make the voyage beyond the seas, died at this period, much more deeply engaged in the affairs of Germany, than in those of the Christians of the East. Nicholas IV. gave Philip to understand that the whole West had its eyes fixed upon him, and that his example might influence all Christendom; the sovereign pontiff at the same time exhorted the prelates of the Church of France to join with him in persuading the king, the nobles, and the people, to take arms against the infidels.

The father of the Christian world did not confine his endeavours to awakening the zeal of the princes and nations of the West; he sent apostolic messages to the Greek emperor, Andronicus PalÆologus, the emperor of Trebizond, and the kings of Armenia, Georgia, and Cyprus, in which he announced to them the approaching deliverance of the holy places. As the Christians in their distress had sometimes turned their looks towards the Tartars, two missionaries were sent to the coast of Argun, with directions to offer the Mogul emperor the benedictions of the sovereign pontiff, and to solicit his powerful aid against the Mussulmans.

The exertions and exhortations of the pope did not succeed in arming Europe against the Saracens; contemporary chronicles say that Nicholas was not able to endure this indifference of the Christians, and that he died in despair. After his death, the conclave could not agree in the nomination of a head of the Church, and the Holy See remained vacant during twenty-seven months. In this long interval, the pulpits which had resounded with the complaints of the faithful of the East, remained mute, and Europe forgot the last calamities of the Holy Land.

In the East, the affairs of the Christians took a not more favourable turn. The discord that had arisen between the princes of the family of Hayton desolated Armenia, and gave it up to the invasion of the barbarians. The kingdom of Cyprus, the last asylum of the Franks established in Asia, only owed a transitory security to the sanguinary divisions of the Mamelukes of Egypt, and appeared to be fully engaged by its own dangers.

But whilst Christendom gave up all thoughts of the deliverance of Jerusalem, the Tartars of Persia, to whom the pope had sent missionaries, all at once revived the hopes of the Christians, by forming a project for wresting Syria and Palestine from the hands of the Mussulmans; an enterprize which only wanted to be a crusade, to have been proclaimed by the head of the Church.

The Tartars, for a long time, threatened the Mussulman powers, whom the Christians regarded as their most cruel enemies. Argun, when he died, was busied in preparations for a formidable war. These preparations had spread such serious alarm among his enemies, that the disciples of Mahomet considered his death as one of the number of miracles operated in favour of Islamism.

Among the successors of Argun, who were by turns the enemies and the friends of the Mussulmans, there was one able leader, who was warlike, and more animated by the thirst for conquests than the others. The Greek historian Pachymerus, and the Armenian Hayton, lavish the highest praises upon the bravery, the virtue, and even the piety of Cazan. This Mogul prince considered the Christians as his most faithful allies; and in his armies, in which the Georgians served, the standard of the cross floated by the side of the imperial standard. The conquest of the banks of the Nile and the Jordan engaged all his thoughts. When new cities were built in his states, he took a delight in bestowing upon them the names of Aleppo, Damascus, Alexandria, and of several other places in Egypt and Syria.

Cazan quitted Persia at the head of an army; and the king of Cyprus with the orders of St. John and the Temple, being made aware of his projects, joined his standards. A great battle was fought near Emessa, which was decided against the sultan of Egypt, who lost the greater part of his army, and was pursued by the Armenian cavalry to the verge of the desert. Aleppo and Damascus opened their gates to the conquerors; and if we may believe the historian Hayton, Christians once more entered Jerusalem, and the emperor of the Tartars visited in their company the tomb of Christ.

It was from that place Cazan sent ambassadors to the pope and the sovereigns of Europe, to solicit their alliance, and to offer them possession of the Holy Land. Among the singularities of this period, our readers will no doubt be astonished to find a Mogul emperor endeavouring to revive the spirit of the crusades among the princes of Christendom; and to see barbarians from the banks of the Irtis and the Jaxartes waiting upon Calvary and Mount Sion for the warriors of France, Germany, and Italy, in order to combat the enemies of Christ. The sovereign pontiff received the ambassadors of Cazan with distinction; but could only answer their demands and propositions by promises doomed to remain unexecuted. The haughtiness with which Boniface VIII., the successor of Nicholas, spoke to the Christian princes, together with his exhortations, which resembled commands more than entreaties, disgusted the sovereigns, particularly the king of France. Genoa, which then lay under an interdict, was the only city of Europe in which a crusade was seriously spoken of; and by a whimsical circumstance, it was the ladies who gave the signal and set the example.

We are still in possession of a brief of the pope’s, in which the holy father felicitates the ladies who had taken the cross, upon their following the steps of Cazan, the emperor of the Tartars, who, although a pagan, had conceived the generous resolution of delivering the Holy Land. History has preserved two other letters of the pope, one addressed to Porchetto, archbishop of Genoa, and the other to four Genoese nobles, who had undertaken to direct the expedition. “Oh, prodigy! oh, miracle!” says he to Porchetto; “a weak and timid sex takes the advance of warriors in this great enterprise, in this war against the enemies of Christ, in this fight against the workers of iniquity. The kings and princes of the earth, regardless of all the solicitations that have been made to them, refuse to send succours to the Christians banished from the Holy Land, and here are women who come forward without being called! Whence can this magnanimous resolution come, if not from God, the source of all strength and all virtue!!!” The pope terminated his letter by directing the archbishop to call together the clergy and the people, and proclaim the devotion of the noble Genoese ladies, in order that their example may cast seeds of good works into the hearts of the people.

This crusade, notwithstanding, never took place; it was doubtless only preached to rouse the emulation of the knights, and the pope only directed his attention to it to give a lesson to the princes of Christendom, by which they did not at all profit. The letters written upon this occasion by Boniface VIII. were preserved in the archives of the republic of Genoa for a long time. Even in the last century, the helmets and cuirasses which were to have been worn by the Genoese ladies in this expedition were exhibited in the arsenal of that city.

The Tartars, in spite of their victories, were not able to triumph over the constancy and discipline of the Mamelukes, who, like themselves, had issued from the deserts of Scythia. That which had so often happened to the Franks in the height of the crusades, now happened to the Moguls; they at first obtained great advantages, but events foreign to the Holy War recalled them into their own country, and forced them to abandon their conquests. Cazan was obliged to quit Syria and return into Persia; he attempted a second expedition, which he again abandoned; and he died in the third, amidst his triumphs, bearing with him to the tomb the last hopes of the Christians.

The Armenian and Cyprian warriors left the holy city, the ramparts of which they had begun to re-erect, and which was doomed never again to see the standard of the cross unfurled within its walls. This last reverse of the Christians of the East was scarcely known in Europe, where the name of Jerusalem was still pronounced in the congregations of the faithful, but had no longer the power to awaken the enthusiasm of knights and warriors. At the Council of Vienna, Pope Clement V. proclaimed a crusade; but in this assembly, in which the abolition of the Templars was determined upon, Christians were exhorted very feebly to take up arms against the infidels.

The sovereign pontiff was then much more busy in levying tenths than in preparations for a holy war. One thing worthy of remark is, that Clement found himself obliged on this occasion to recommend moderation to the collectors of the tenths, and forbade them to seize the chalices, the books, or the ornaments of the churches. This prohibition of the pope’s proves to us that violence had often been committed in collecting the tributes destined to the expenses of the holy wars; this violence must have assisted in relaxing the zeal and ardour of nations for distant enterprises, as the results of which, Christian cities were ruined, and the altars of Christ plundered.

Europe at that time awaited with great impatience the issue of an expedition undertaken by the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. A great number of warriors, excited by the relation of the adventures of chivalry, and by a passion for military glory, followed the Hospitallers in their enterprise; women even were desirous of taking a part in this expedition, and sold their diamonds and jewels to provide for the expenses of the war.

This army of new crusaders embarked at the port of Brendisi, and it soon became known in the West that the knights of the Hospital had taken possession of the isle of Rhodes.

Renown published everywhere the exploits of the Hospitallers and their companions in arms; and these exploits, and the admiration they inspired throughout Christendom, naturally turned the attention and remembrances of the faithful to the Templars, who were reproached with the disgraceful repose in which they forgot both the Holy Land and the tomb of Christ.

The knights of the Temple, after having been received in the Isle of Cyprus, had returned to Sicily, where they were employed by the king in an expedition against Greece. United with the Catalans and some warriors from Italy, this warlike body took possession of Thessalonica, made themselves masters of Athens, advanced towards the Hellespont, and ravaged a part of Thrace. After this expedition the Templars disdained the possession of the cities which had fallen into their power, and leaving the conquered provinces to their companions in arms, they kept for themselves the riches of the people they had subdued. It was then that, loaded with the spoils of Greece, they came to establish themselves in the West, particularly in France, where their opulence, their luxury, and their idleness, scandalized the piety of the faithful, awakened envy, and provoked the hatred of both the people and the great.

It does not enter into the plan of this work to dilate upon the process instituted against the Templars; but if we have followed these noble knights in all their wars against the Mussulmans,—if we have been so long witnesses of their exploits, and, as it were, companions of their labours, we shall perhaps have acquired the right of expressing our opinion upon the accusations directed against them. We must at once declare that we have found nothing up to the period of the process, either in the chronicles of the East, or those of the West, which can give birth to or establish an idea, or even a suspicion, of the crimes imputed to them. How can it, in fact, be believed, that a warlike and religious order, which twenty years before had seen three hundred of its knights sacrifice themselves upon the ruins of Saphet, rather than embrace the Mussulman faith, that this order which had almost entirely buried itself under the ruins of PtolemaÏs could possibly have contracted an alliance with infidels, outraged the Christian religion with horrible blasphemies, and given up to the Saracens that Holy Land filled with its military glory.

And at what period were all these odious reproaches addressed to the Templars? at a time when Christendom seemed to have forgotten Jerusalem, and in which the name of Christ was not sufficient to awaken the bravery of a Christian warrior. No doubt the order of the Templars had degenerated from the austerity of early times, and that it was no longer animated by that spirit of humility and religion of which St. Bernard so much boasted; no doubt some of the knights had brought with them that corruption which was then the reproach of all the Christians of the East, and of which Europe itself could offer them numerous examples; no doubt, in short, some among them might have wounded morality by their conduct, and offended the religion of Christ by their irregularities; but we do not hesitate to say that it was not the province of men to judge them, and that upon this occasion the merciful God of the Christians had not deputed his vengeance to human laws.

The real error of the Templars was having quitted the East, and renounced the spirit of their institution, which was to receive and protect pilgrims, and to combat with the enemies of the Christian faith. This order, richer than the most powerful monarchs, and whose knights were as a regular army, always ready for fight, became, naturally, dreaded by the princes who granted them an asylum. The Templars had not been free from all reproach during their abode in Cyprus; accustomed to rule in Palestine, they must have contracted a habit of obedience with difficulty. The example of the Teutonic knights, who, after quitting the East, founded a power in the north of Europe which was dreaded by the neighbouring states, was not likely to reassure princes who mistrusted the warlike spirit, and the active and enterprising genius, of the knights of the Temple.

Such, probably, were the motives which armed the policy rather than the justice of sovereigns against them; nothing so clearly proves the fear they inspired as the rancour with which they were pursued, and the care that was taken to render them odious. As soon as their persecution began, they were only considered as enemies whom it was necessary to treat as criminals. As rigours without example preceded their abolition, it was necessary to justify that measure by fresh rigours. Vengeance and hatred finished that which the policy of princes had begun; a policy which had, perhaps, reasons for being suspicious, but which had none for proving itself barbarous. It is thus we must explain the tragical issue of this process, in which all the forms of justice were so violated, that even if the accusations be considered proved, we must still regard the Templars as victims and their judges as executioners.[61]

Philip-le-Bel had promised the council of Vienna to go into the East to combat the infidels, without doubt to procure pardon for having pursued the knights of the Temple with so much inveteracy. Amidst the festivals that welcomed the arrival of Edward in Paris, the French monarch and the princes of his family took the cross. Most of the nobles of his court followed his example, and the ladies promised to accompany the knights to the holy war; but no one took any measures for setting out. Promises were then made to cross the seas by persons who had not any serious intention of leaving their homes. The vow to combat the Saracens appeared to be a vain ceremony, which engaged the swearer to nothing. It was taken with perfect indifference, and violated in the same manner; considered as not more sacred than the vows the knights made to the ladies.

Philip-le-Bel died without ever having thought of accomplishing his vow. Philip-le-Long, who succeeded him, entertained for a moment the project of going into the East. Edward, who had already several times sworn to fight the Saracens, at the same time renewed his promise. But the sovereign pontiff, whether that he doubted their sincerity, or whether that he stood in need of the concurrence of these two monarchs to reËstablish tranquillity in Europe, and to resist the emperor of Germany, against whom he had armed himself with the thunders of the Church, or whether, in short, he thought the moment an unfavourable one, did not approve of their expedition into Syria. “Before thinking of the voyage beyond the seas,” wrote he to the king of England, “we would wish you to establish peace, first in your own conscience, then in your kingdom.” The father of the faithful represented to the king of France that the peace, so necessary to be firm before a crusade should be undertaken, was almost banished from Christendom. England and Scotland were at war; the states of Germany were divided against each other; the king of Sicily and the king of Naples were only bound by a truce of short duration; reciprocal mistrust prevented the kings of Cyprus and Armenia from uniting their forces against the common enemy; the kings of Spain were quite sufficiently employed in defending their states against the Moors; the republics of Lombardy were all in arms against each other; all the cities of Italy were torn by factions, the provinces a prey to tyrants, the sea impracticable, the route by land thickly strewed with dangers. After having given this picture of the deplorable state of Christendom, the pope pressed Philip to inquire seriously how he could provide for the expenses of the war without ruining his people, or without attempting, he added, to do that which is impossible, as has been done before.

The paternal advice of the sovereign pontiff, and some troubles which arose in the bosom of his kingdom, determined Philip to postpone the execution of his project. A multitude of herdsmen and shepherds, of adventurers and vagabonds, setting up, as in the time of the captivity of St. Louis, the pilgrims’ cross, assembled in many places, persecuted the Jews, and committed most culpable excesses. Force of arms and the full severity of the laws were obliged to be resorted to, in order to quell these disorders, of which the crusade was only a pretext. At the same time several provinces of France suffered greatly from an epidemic disease; the Jews were accused of having poisoned the wells, with the design of suspending the preparations for the holy war. They were accused of all sorts of plots against the Christians; and the general fermentation was the greater from the suspicions being vague, and from the impossibility of proving or contradicting the crimes alleged. Policy could discover no other means of dissipating the troubles than that of entering into the passions of the multitude, and driving all the Jews out of the kingdom. Amidst these unhappy circumstances, Philip fell ill, and died regretting his not having accomplished the vow he had made of warring against the Saracens.

In the state of abandonment to which the crusades had fallen, we are surprised at seeing the minds of the French still occasionally directed towards the delivery of the holy places. This last flickering of enthusiasm, which our ancestors kept alight amidst the general indifference, was not confined to religious sentiments, but extended to a feeling of patriotism and national glory. It was France which had given the first impulsion to the holy wars, as we have several times observed. The name of Palestine, the names of St. Jean d’Acre or PtolemaÏs, and that of Jerusalem appealed no less to patriotism than to piety. Although the two expeditions of Louis IX. had been unsuccessful, the example of the holy monarch was a great authority for the princes of his family, and often carried their thoughts to the places where he had suffered the glory of martyrdom. The memory of his exploits and even of his misfortunes, the memory of the heroes who had died on the banks of the Nile and the Jordan, interested all the families of the kingdom; and the city in which reposed the ashes of Godfrey and Baldwin of Bouillon, those distant regions in which so many glorious battles had been fought, could not be forgotten by French warriors.

After the death of Philip-le-Long, ambassadors arrived in Europe from the king of Armenia; this prince, abandoned by the Tartars, and threatened by the Mamelukes of Egypt, requested the assistance of the West. The pope wrote to Charles-le-Bel, the successor of Philip-le-Long, and conjured him to take up arms against the infidels. Charles received with respect the counsels and the exhortations of the sovereign pontiff, and was engaged in preparations for a crusade when the succession of the county of Flanders caused a war to break out in the Low Countries. From that time France became attentive only to the events that were passing before her eyes, and in which her own independence and safety were deeply interested. At the approach of death, and at a time when the kingdom had no longer anything to fear, Charles-le-Bel remembered his oath, and his last thoughts were directed towards the deliverance of Jerusalem. “I bequeath,” says he in his will, “to the Holy Land fifty thousand livres, to be paid and delivered when the general passage shall be made; and it is my intention, if the passage be made in my lifetime, to go thither in person.”[62] It was thus that at this period the spirit of the crusades still occasionally showed itself; most of the testaments[63] then made by princes and rich men (these words designated the nobility) contained some dispositions in favour of the Holy Land; but we must add, also, that the facility of purchasing the merit of pilgrimage for money must necessarily have greatly diminished the number of pilgrims and Crusaders.

Whilst dying people were thus prodigal of their treasure for the holy war, nobody took up arms. There still, however, remained some men endowed with a vivid imagination and an ardent temperament, who made incredible efforts to rekindle an enthusiasm on the point of being extinguished. The greater the indifference of nations, the greater were the ardour and zeal displayed by these men in their preachings. Among these latter apostles of the crusades, history cites the name of Raymond Lulli, one of the luminaries of the schools of the middle ages.[64]

Lulli was possessed during his life but by one thought, and that was, to combat and convert the infidels.[65] It was upon the proposition of this zealous missionary that the council of Vienna decided that chairs should be established in the universities of Rome, Bologna, Paris, and Salamanca, for instruction in the languages of the East. He presented to the pope several memorials upon the means of annihilating the worship of Mahomet and the domination of his disciples. Lulli, constantly occupied with his project, made a pilgrimage into Palestine, travelled through Syria, Armenia, and Egypt, and came back to Europe to describe the misfortunes, the captivity, and the disgraces of the Christians beyond the seas. On his return, he visited all the courts of the West, seeking to communicate to sovereigns the sentiments by which he was animated. Finding his efforts were vain, his zeal carried him to the coast of Africa, where he endeavoured to convert by his eloquence those same Saracens against whom he had invoked the arms of Christian warriors. He returned to Europe, passed through Italy, France, and Spain, preaching everywhere the necessity for another crusade. He embarked again for Jerusalem, and brought back, as the fruit of his pilgrimage, some useful notions upon the best manner of attacking the countries of the infidels. All his labours, all his researches, all his prayers, produced no effect upon the indifference of kings and nations. Lulli, at length despairing of seeing his projects realised, and deploring the blindness of his contemporaries, retired to the island of Majorca, which was his native country. From the depth of his retreat he still issued memorials upon an expedition to the East; but solitude soon wearied his ardent and restless spirit, and he quitted Majorca, no more to waste his words upon the princes of Europe, who would not listen to him, but to return to the Mussulmans, whom he still hoped to lead to the Gospel by his eloquence. He repaired a second time to Africa, and at length suffered, as the reward of his preachings, the torments and the death of martyrs.

Whilst Lulli was striving to direct the efforts of the faithful to the deliverance of the holy places, a noble Venetian likewise consecrated his life and his talents to the revival of the spirit of the crusades. Sanuti thus describes the first audience he obtained of the sovereign pontiff: “I am not sent hither,” said he, “by any king, any prince, or any republic; it is from the impulse of my own mind that I come to throw myself at the feet of your holiness, and to propose to you an easy means of crushing the enemies of the true faith, of extirpating the sect of Mahomet, and of recovering the Holy Land.[66] My voyages in Cyprus, Armenia, and Egypt, together with a long sojourn in Romania, have furnished me with knowledge and information that may be turned to the profit of Christianity.” On finishing these words, Sanuti presented two books to the pope, one covered with red and the other with yellow, and four geographical charts, the first of the Mediterranean Sea, the second of the earth and of the sea, the third of the Holy Land, the fourth, of Egypt. The two books of the noble Venetian contained the history of the Christian establishments in the East, and wise counsels respecting the undertaking of another crusade. His zeal, enlightened by experience, did not allow him to neglect the least detail upon the route that was to be followed, upon the point that it would be best to attack, upon the number of troops, and upon the fitting out and provisioning of the vessels. He advised that operations should commence by landing in Egypt, and weakening the power of the sultans of Cairo. The most certain means of effecting this latter purpose was to obtain directly from Bagdad the Indian merchandises which European commerce was accustomed to get by the cities of Alexandria and Damietta. Sanuti, at the same time, advised the sovereign pontiff to redouble the severity of his censures against those who carried into Egypt arms, metals, timber for building, or anything that could assist in equipping fleets or arming the Mameluke soldiery.

The pope bestowed great praises upon Sanuti, and furnished him with introductions to several sovereigns of Europe. The Christian princes, particularly the king of France, received him with kindness, lauded his piety, and admired his talents—but took care not to follow his advice. Sanuti addressed himself likewise to the emperor of Constantinople, to engage him in an expedition against the infidels; he sought everywhere, and by every means, to raise up enemies against the Mussulmans, and passed his life in preaching a crusade, without obtaining any more success than Raymond Lulli had done.

The zeal of the two men of whom we have just spoken can only be compared to that of Peter the Hermit; they were both much more enlightened than the cenobite Peter, but they could get no one to listen to them, and the fruitlessness of their efforts proves how much the times were changed. Peter preached in cities and in public places, and the multitude, inflamed by his discourses, led away and awakened the feelings of the great. In the times of Lulli and Sanuti, sovereigns alone could be addressed, and sovereigns, occupied by their own affairs, showed very little interest for projects which only concerned Christendom in general. In the early times of the crusades, the deliverance of the holy places was a matter of importance; simply to pronounce the name of Jerusalem was sufficient to appease differences among princes; later, the least interest of jealousy, ambition, or self-love had the power to arrest the progress of, or completely put an end to, a holy enterprise. Frequently, in the twelfth century, popes and simple preachers, arming themselves with the authority of Christ, commanded princes to take up the cross and set out for the East; in the thirteenth, but more particularly in the fourteenth century, it was necessary to pray and solicit; and, generally, the most humble prayers produced no effect.[67]

Thus, the groans of Sion no longer melted hearts, and Christian eloquence was powerless against infidels. In order to awaken attention, it was necessary to mingle something of profane grandeur with the pathetic exhortations of religion; thus, Europe, which scarcely listened to the missionaries of the cross, appeared, all at once, to be aroused by the arrival of the king of Cyprus, soliciting, in person, the assistance of Christian princes. The pope, who was then at Avignon, eagerly announced to the faithful that an Eastern king was come to his court, and conjured the warriors of the West to take up arms against the Saracens. The king of Cyprus and Jerusalem described the invasions of the Mamelukes, the progress of the Turks, the dangers which surrounded his kingdom, that of Armenia, and the isle of Rhodes, and omitted no instance of the numerous persecutions endured by the Christians who remained in Syria and Egypt. These sad recitals, coming from a royal mouth, awakened some generous sentiments in men’s minds; a league was formed between the sovereign pontiff, the king of France, and the republic of Venice; and the pope published a bull by which he ordered the bishops to cause a crusade to be preached.

Philip of Valois convoked an assembly at Paris, in the Holy Chapel, at which were present John, king of Bohemia, the king of Navarre, the dukes of Burgundy, Brittany, Lorraine, Brabant, and Bourbon, with most of the prelates and barons of the kingdom. Peter de la Palue, named patriarch of Jerusalem, and who had recently passed through Egypt and Palestine, harangued the auditory upon the necessity for attacking the infidels, and stopping the progress of their domination in the East. Philip, who had already taken the cross, renewed the vow he had made, and as he was preparing to quit his kingdom, the barons took the oath of obedience to his son Prince John, by raising their hands towards the crown of thorns of Christ. John of Bohemia, the king of Navarre, and a great number of princes and nobles, received the cross from the hands of the archbishop of Rouen. The crusade was preached throughout the kingdom, “and gave to all noble lords,” says Froissart, “great delight, particularly to those who wished to pass their time in arms, and knew no means then of employing it otherwise more reasonably.”[68]

The king of France sent to the pope the archbishop of Rouen, who afterwards ascended the chair of St. Peter under the name of Clement VI. The archbishop, in full consistory, pronounced a discourse upon the crusade, and declared, in the presence of divine majesty, to the holy father, to the church of Rome and all Christendom, that Philip of Valois would set out for the East in the month of August, in the year 1336. The pope felicitated the French monarch upon his resolution, and granted him the tenths during six years. These circumstances are related by Philip Villani, who was at Avignon at the time, and who, after having spoken in his history of the promise made in the Dame of the king of France, exclaims:—“And I, the historian, I heard the oath pronounced which I have just related.”

Philip gave orders that a fleet, assembled in the port of Marseilles, should be made ready to receive forty thousand Crusaders. Edward III., to whom the crusade offered an easy means of imposing taxes, promised to accompany the king of France with an army in the pilgrimage beyond the seas. Most of the republics of Italy, with the kings of Arragon, Majorca, and Hungary, engaged to supply money, troops, and vessels for the expedition. In the midst of their preparations, the Crusaders lost him who directed and was the soul of the enterprise. Everything was interrupted by the death of Pope John XXI., and in this place it becomes necessary to point out one of the causes which rendered abortive, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, so many attempts to carry the war into the East. As the successors of St. Peter scarcely ever succeeded to the pontifical chair before they were of an advanced age, they were wanting in the energy and activity necessary for exciting the Christian world, directing distant wars, and kindling an enthusiasm, formerly so difficult to be restrained, now so difficult to be revived. Each crusade requiring long preparations, the life of one sovereign pontiff scarcely sufficed for the completion of such great enterprises. It most frequently happened, that he who had preached a holy war could not behold the departure of the Crusaders; and that he who saw the Christian armies set out, never lived long enough to follow them through their expeditions, conduct them in their triumphs, or succour them in their reverses. Thus we never find in the projects which circumstances had formed, that spirit of sequence and wholeness necessary to secure execution and success. Add to this, that since the popes had been established at Avignon, and their apostolic seat was no longer in the centre of Christendom, they did not exercise the same ascendancy over the distant provinces, and their authority every day lost something of that influence attached to the name only of Rome, considered, during so many centuries, the capital of the world.

The news of a fresh crusade having reached the East, the Christians who dwelt in Syria or Egypt, with pilgrims and European merchants, were exposed to all sorts of persecutions. The sultan of Cairo and several Mussulman princes assembled armies for the purpose of resisting the Crusaders, or to go and attack the Christians in the West. A descendant of the Abassides, who resided in Egypt, and assumed the title of caliph, sent letters and messages in every direction to engage all true believers to take up arms; promising the martyrs of the Mussulman faith that they should be present at delicious banquets, and that each of them should have seven virgins for wives.

The aim of this crusade, preached in the name of the prophet of Mecca, was to penetrate into Europe by the way of Gibraltar; the Mussulman warriors swore to annihilate Christianity, and to convert all the Christian temples into stables. In proportion as the Saracens were thus becoming inflamed for an expedition, which they also called a holy war, Europe beheld the zeal of the princes and warriors who had sworn to combat the enemies of Christ, grow fainter and fainter, and at length die away. When Benedict XI. succeeded John XXI., he found the minds of all changed; hatreds, mistrusts and jealousies had taken place of a transitory and insincere enthusiasm; it was in vain that Christians from the East described the persecutions they had undergone and the preparations of the infidels against the nations of the West; it was in vain that the pope continued his exhortations and his prayers; the greater that the reason was for undertaking a crusade, the more indifferent people became, and the more all ranks seemed to shun the idea of contending with the Saracens. It was at this period that Brother Andrew of Antioch came to Avignon with the design of imploring the aid of the pope and the princes of Christendom. Philip of Valois had come to the court of the sovereign pontiff, to inform him that he should defer his voyage into the East, and had mounted his horse to return to Paris, when Brother Andrew presented himself before him, and said: “Art thou Philip king of France, who promised God and his Church to deliver the Holy Land?” The king answered, “Yes.” Then the monk resumed: “If thy intention is to perform that which thou hast promised, I implore Jesus Christ to direct thy steps, and grant thee the victory; but if the enterprise thou hast commenced is only to turn to the shame and misfortunes of Christians, if thou art not, with the help of God, determined to finish it, if thou hast deceived the holy Catholic Church, divine justice will fall heavily on thy family and on thy kingdom, and the blood which the news of thy expedition has caused to flow will rise up against thee.” The king surprised at this strange appeal, answered: “Brother Andrew, come with us:” and Brother Andrew replied without being moved, and in an inspired tone: “If thou wast going into the East, I would go before thee, but as thou art going to the West, go on; I will return to perform penance for my sins in the land thou hast abandoned.”

Such was even then the authority of the orators who spoke in the name of Jerusalem, that the last words of Brother Andrew left trouble and uneasiness in the mind of a powerful monarch; but fresh political storms had recently broken out. Edward III. had laid claim to the throne of the Capets, and his ambition was the signal for a war which lasted more than a century, and brought the greatest calamities upon France. Philip, attacked by a formidable enemy, was obliged to renounce his expedition beyond the seas, and employ, for the defence of his own kingdom, the troops and fleets that he had collected for the deliverance of the heritage of Christ.

The pope did not, however, abandon the project of the holy war. The poet Petrarch, who was then at Avignon, proved one of the most ardent apostles of the crusade. This illustrious poet, whom we are now accustomed to consider only as the ingenious singer of the praises of the fair Laura, and who was then deemed the most worthy interpreter of the wisdom of the ancients, and one of the great spirits of his age, addressed an eloquent letter to the Doge of Venice, to induce him to enter into a war against the Mussulmans. Some of the states of Italy united their forces to make an expedition into the East. A chronicle of the counts of Ason relates that a great number of Crusaders, clothed in white, with a red cross, marched out of Milan; and that a fleet, equipped by the sovereign pontiff, passed through the Archipelago, and surprised the city of Smyrna, in which the Crusaders were themselves quickly besieged by the Turks. The pope’s legate and several knights perished in a sortie, which circumstance determined the sovereign pontiff to employ new efforts to revive a zeal for the crusade. It was at this period that the dauphin of Viennois, Humbert II., resolved to take the cross, and came to Avignon, to supplicate the pope to allow him to be the captain of the holy voyage against the Turks, and against the faithless vassals of the church of Rome. Humbert easily obtained all he asked, and returned to his states to make preparations for his expedition. He alienated his domains, he sold privileges to the nobility, and immunities to his cities; he levied considerable sums upon the Jews, and upon the Italian merchants established in the Viennois; he exacted a tribute from all his subjects who would not accompany him to the crusade, and having embarked, with a hundred men-at-arms, he went to seek in Asia either the fortune of a conqueror or the glory of a martyr. He found neither the one nor the other, and returned to Europe without renown and burdened with debts. History represents Humbert as a weak, inconstant and irresolute prince. He ruined himself, in the first place, by his dissipation, then by the expenses of the crusade; weary of the world and its affairs, he finished by abandoning to the crown of France his principality, which he had pledged to Philip of Valois, and retired to a monastery of Dominican Friars. In order to console him for not having conquered Egypt or any other country, the pope bestowed upon him the title of patriarch of Alexandria; and the king of France, to make him forget Dauphiny, named him archbishop of Rheims.

Such were the events and the consequences of the crusade occasioned in Europe by the arrival of Hugh of Lusignan, king of Cyprus. Some years having glided away, this prince came again to solicit the aid of the sovereign pontiff; at this period most of the sovereigns were in a state of war, and the pope not being able to do anything for the king of Cyprus, conceived the singular idea of naming him tribune of Rome. Hugh of Lusignan accepted this function, and died in Italy, without having been able to send any succour to the East.

War was not then the only scourge that ravaged the world; the horrors of the plague were added to the destruction of arms; this contagion which was called the black plague, and which took its rise upon the great level plain of Tartary, extended its devastations over all the countries of the East and West, and in a few years carried off more than thirteen millions of men. Historians have remarked that this scourge in its funeral march followed the footsteps of the merchants who brought into Europe the productions of India, and of the pilgrims who returned from Palestine.

As soon as pestilence had ceased its ravages, war resumed all its fury. The deplorable state in which discord had plunged Europe at that time, and particularly France, must have made people regret the periods when the preaching of a crusade imposed silence upon all passions and suspended all hostilities. The pope had several times undertaken to reËstablish peace: he at first addressed supplications to the English monarch; he afterwards threatened him with the thunders of the Church, but the voice of the father of the faithful was lost in the din of arms.

Philip of Valois died amidst the terrible struggle he had to maintain against England. The loss of the battle of Poictiers and the captivity of King John became the signal for the greatest troubles that afflicted the kingdom of France in the middle ages. The plots of the king of Navarre, the intrigues of the great, the disorders of the people, the fury of factions, the sanguinary scenes of the Jacquerie, spread terror and desolation in the capital and through the provinces. When France had completed the exhaustion of her treasures by paying the ransom of King John, the presence of her monarch was not able to restore to her the repose she required to repair her misfortunes. The soldiers of both nations, who were disbanded without pay, and who found themselves without an asylum, formed themselves into armed bands, and under the name of white companies, pervaded the kingdom, braving the orders of the king and the excommunications of the pope, and carrying wherever they went license, murder and devastation. All that had escaped the sword of the English, and the avidity of the collectors of the imposts, became the prey of these brigands, whose numbers increased in proportion with their impunity and their excesses. The fields remained uncultivated; all commercial pursuits were interrupted; and terror and misery reigned in the cities. Thus the suspension of hostilities had brought no relief to the evils of nations, and the disorders which broke out during the peace were more insupportable than those which had been endured during the war.

It was in these unfortunate circumstances that Peter, the son of Hugh of Lusignan, came, after the example of his father, to solicit the assistance of the Christian princes against the infidels, and caused Urban V. to adopt the project of a new crusade. Perhaps he hoped that the state of confusion in which France was plunged offered him a means of raising troops, and that he might turn against his enemies of the East, all the furies of war which desolated the kingdom.

Peter of Lusignan proposed to attack the power of the sultans of Cairo, whose dominions extended to Jerusalem. Christendom had at that time more redoubtable enemies among the Mussulman nations than the Mamelukes of Egypt. The Turks, who had become masters of Asia Minor, had recently passed the Hellespont, pushed their conquests as far as Mount Hemus, and placed the seat of their empire at Adrianople. That was the enemy that doubtless ought to have been attacked, but the Turks did not as yet inspire serious alarm, except in the countries they had invaded or menaced. At the court of Avignon, at which were assembled the king of Cyprus, the king of France, and the king of Denmark, there was no mention made of the invasion of Romania, or of the dangers of Constantinople, but of the loss of the Christian colonies in Syria, and of the captivity in which the city of Christ was still held.

Peter of Lusignan spoke with enthusiasm of the war against the infidels, and of the deliverance of the holy places; King John did not listen to him without emotion, and finished by forgetting his own misfortunes, to interest himself about those of the Christians beyond the seas. Waldemar III., king of Denmark, was equally affected by the discourse and the accounts of the king of Cyprus. The pope preached the crusade before the three monarchs: it was holy week; the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ appeared to add authority to the words of the pontiff, and when he deplored the misfortunes of Jerusalem, the princes who listened to him could not refrain from shedding tears, and swore to go and fight the Saracens.

We may, doubtless, believe that the king of France was led to take the cross by a sentiment of piety, and by the eloquence of the pope; but we must likewise suppose that the counsels of policy were not entirely foreign to this determination. The spirit of the holy war, if once really awakened, would necessarily go far to appease, if not extinguish, the discords and passions kindled by revolution and civil war. King John might entertain the hope of uniting under the standard of the crusade, and seducing to follow him beyond the seas, the white companies, over whom he could exercise no authority; and the sovereign pontiff was no less anxious to get rid of these bands of brigands, who braved his spiritual power, and threatened to make him a prisoner in Avignon.

Several great nobles, John of Artois, the count of Eu, the count Dammartin, the count de Tancarville, and Marshal Boucicault, followed the example of King John. The Cardinal Talleyrand de PÉrigord was named legate of the pope in the crusade. The king of Denmark promised to unite his forces with those of the French. To encourage his zeal, the sovereign pontiff gave him a fragment of the true cross, and several other relics, the sight of which would constantly remind him of the holy cause he had sworn to defend. Waldemar III. had come to the court of Avignon to place his kingdom under the protection of the Holy See; he took all the oaths required of him; but the bulls he obtained from Urban, as the price of his submission, had no efficacy in restoring peace to his dominions, and the troubles which followed his return soon made him forget his promises regarding the holy war.

The king of Cyprus, with most pressing recommendations from the pope, visited all the courts of Europe; the zeal and the chivalric eloquence of the hero of the cross were universally admired; but he derived nothing but vague promises from his enterprise, and received nothing but vain felicitations for a devotion which found no imitators.

The king of France was the only one of all the Christian princes who appeared to engage himself earnestly in the crusade. Urban V., however, showed but little confidence in the firmness of his resolution, as he felt it necessary to threaten with excommunication all who should seek to divert him from the holy enterprise. But all these precautions of the pope, with the example of the king and the indulgences of the crusade, were powerless in inducing the nation to take arms, or in persuading the white companies to leave the chamber, as they called the kingdom they desolated with their brigandages. The time fixed for the expedition was very near at hand, and nothing was ready; there was neither an army nor a fleet. It was at this period King John died in London, whither he had returned to offer himself as an hostage for the duke of Anjou, who had escaped from prison; and perhaps also to get rid of the cares of an enterprise which he had no means of executing or directing with success.

The pope trembled in Avignon, and was compelled to use his utmost efforts to free himself from these formidable bands, whose leaders styled themselves the friends of God and the enemies of all the world. History says that he employed in his contests with them the small quantity of money which had been raised for the crusade, and that this excited violent murmurs. In this state of things, Charles IV., emperor of Germany, in concert with the king of Hungary, proposed to take the companies into their pay, and send them against the Turks. If this project had been executed, we should have been able to join the name of Bertrand Duguesclin to the glorious names that adorn the pages of this history; the Breton hero was to have been the leader of the troops destined to contend with the Mussulmans on the banks of the Danube. The sovereign pontiff himself wrote several letters to him to induce him to take part in this crusade; but the project of Charles IV. was in the end abandoned, and Duguesclin led the white companies into Spain.

The king of Cyprus, however, had succeeded in enrolling under his banners a great number of adventurers of all sorts and conditions, men who were accustomed to live amidst perils, and who were attracted by the hope of pillaging the richest countries of the east. The republic of Venice did not disdain to take part in an expedition from which her commerce was likely to derive great advantages. Peter of Lusignan likewise received succours from the brave knights of Rhodes, and, on his return to the isle of Cyprus, he embarked at the head of ten thousand men to realize his projects of conquests over the infidels. The Crusaders, to whom the pope sent a legate, went to attack Alexandria, which they found almost without defence. When the place had fallen into their power, the king of Cyprus wished that they should fortify themselves in it, and there await the armies of Cairo; but his soldiers and allies could not resist their inclination to plunder a flourishing city, and fearing to be surprised by the Mamelukes, they set fire to Alexandria, and abandoned it on the fourth day after the conquest. Without subduing the Mussulmans, they irritated them. After the precipitate departure of the Crusaders, the Egyptian people, listening to nothing but hatred and vengeance, indulged in all sorts of violence against the unfortunate Christians who dwelt in Egypt. By the orders of the sultan of Cairo, everything was seized that belonged to the Venetians; and the Mamelukes, having prepared a fleet, threatened, in their turn, to make descents upon the isles of Rhodes and Cyprus. Again the nations of the West were applied to; the pope intreated all Christian princes to take arms against the infidels; but not one of them would assume the cross, and the king of Cyprus was left alone, to fight out the war he had provoked.

To the ardour for crusades, in the minds of European warriors, had succeeded a passion for distinguishing and enriching themselves by chivalric enterprizes and adventurous expeditions, in which, however, some remembrances of the holy wars were always mingled. The Genoese having formed the project of making war upon the coasts of Barbary, whose piratical inhabitants infested the Mediterranean, demanded a leader and troops of the king of France. On the report alone of such an enterprize, a crowd of warriors, eager to signalize their bravery, issued from all the provinces; the count d’Auvergne, the sieur de Coucy, Guy de la Trimouille, and Messire Jean de Vienne, admiral of France, solicited the honour of combating the infidels in Africa; fourteen hundred knights and nobles, under the orders of the duke of Bourbon, repaired to Genoa, and embarked on board the fleet of that republic; the French and the Genoese, the first led by a desire for booty and the love of glory, the latter by the more positive interests of their commerce, went to this war beyond the sea as to a banquet. “Beautiful and pleasant,” says Froissart, “was it to behold the order of their departure, and how those banners, pennons, and streamers, fairly and richly wrought with the arms of the noble knights, floated to the wind and glistened in the sun; and to hear those trumpets and clarions sound and resound, and other musicians performing their parts, with pipes, flutes, and macaires, as well as the sound and the voice which issued from them, reverberate over all the sea.” After a few days’ sailing, the Christian army arrived on the coast of Barbary, and laid siege to the city of Africa. The inhabitants offered some resistance, and not being able to conceive why they were thus attacked by an enemy they did not know, and of whom they had never heard, they sent deputies to the camp of the Christians to demand of them what motive had brought them beneath their walls. The Genoese, doubtless, reminded the deputies of the piracies carried on in the Mediterranean and upon the coasts of Italy; but the knights could not allege any grievance, and must have felt considerably embarrassed how to answer the questions of the besieged. Froissart, who gives an account of this expedition, informs us that the duke of Bourbon called a council of the principal leaders, and after they had deliberated upon the question proposed by the Saracens, he addressed this reply to them, which we shall report in the old language as near that of the times as we are able: “They who demand why war is made against them, must know that their lineage and race put to death and crucified the son of God named Jesus Christ, and that we wish to avenge upon them this fact and evil deed. Further, they do not believe in the holy baptism, nor in the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ; and all these things being considered is why we hold the Saracens and all their sect as enemies.” The besieged were not likely to be convinced by this explanation, “so,” adds the good Froissart, “they only laughed at it, and said it was neither reasonable nor proved, for it was the Jews who put Christ to death, and not they.”

The French knights had more bravery than knowledge, and were much more expert in fighting than in reasoning. They prosecuted the siege and made several assaults, but in all their attacks met with a determined resistance. They were, however, persuaded that Heaven declared in their favour, and performed miracles to assure them the victory. It was said in the camp, that a battalion of ladies in white had appeared amidst the combatants, and created great terror among the Saracens. They likewise told of a miraculous dog which God had sent to the Christian soldiers as a vigilant sentinel, and which had several times prevented their being surprised by the Mussulmans. We repeat these marvellous stories, in order to exhibit the spirit of the knights, who saw nothing but ladies under circumstances in which the early Crusaders would have seen saints and angels. The story of the miraculous dog serves to prove that the French warriors kept but a bad watch around their camp, and that they carried on the siege with more bravery than prudence. Several battles were fought, in which the most rash lost their lives. The heat of the climate and the season gave birth to contagious diseases. In proportion as obstacles multiplied around them, the ardour of the besiegers inclined daily towards depression. Discord, likewise, broke out in the Christian army, in which the French and the Genoese mutually reproached each other with their miseries: winter was drawing near, and they despaired of reducing the place; the duke of Bourbon resolved to raise the siege, and to return to Europe with his knights and soldiers.

During several months no news of this expedition had arrived in France; processions were made and public prayers were put up in all the provinces to ask of Heaven the safe return of the Crusaders. Old chronicles inform us,—“that the lady of Coucy, the lady of Sully, the dauphiness of Auvergne, and all the ladies of France whose lords and husbands were engaged in this voyage, were in great dismay for them whilst the voyage lasted; and when the news came to them that they had already passed the sea, they were all much rejoiced.”

This expedition, which the Genoese had promoted with the intention of defending their commerce against the brigandages of pirates, only served to increase the evil they wished to remedy; vengeance, indignation, and fear armed the infidels against the Christians in every direction. Vessels issued from all the coasts of Africa, covered the Mediterranean, and intercepted the communications with Europe; the merchandizes which had been accustomed to flow from Damascus, Cairo, and Alexandria, no longer appeared; and the historians of the times deplore, as a calamity, the impossibility of procuring spices in either France or Germany.

The war which had begun between Egypt and the kingdom of Cyprus was prosecuted with equal animosity on both sides. Whilst the sultan of Cairo threatened the poor remains of the Christian colonies of the East, the king of Cyprus and the knights of Rhodes spread terror along all the coasts of Syria; in one incursion they took possession of Tripoli, and gave the city up to the flames. Tortosa, Laodicea, and Belinas met with the same fate: this manner of making war in a country that they professed to wish to conquer for the sake of delivering it, excited everywhere the fury of the Mussulmans, without raising the hopes or the courage of the Christians who dwelt there. Pilgrimage to the Holy Land became impracticable, and, during several years, no European Christians were able to visit Jerusalem.

The sultan of Egypt, however, after many fruitless efforts to avenge the expedition against Alexandria, made peace with the king of Cyprus and the knights of Rhodes. It was agreed that the prisoners should be liberated on both sides, and that the king of Cyprus should receive half of the dues levied upon the merchandize which entered at Tyre, Berouth, Sidon, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Damascus. The treaty regulated the tribute which pilgrims should pay in those places of the Holy Land to which their devotion called them. The sultan of Egypt restored to the knights of St. John the house they had formerly possessed in Jerusalem, and the knights had permission to cause the churches of the holy sepulchres of Bethlehem, of Nazareth, &c. to be repaired.

Europe at this period turned its eyes from countries which had so long excited its veneration and enthusiasm to direct them towards regions invaded or threatened by the Turks. We have seen, towards the end of the eleventh century, hordes from this nation spread themselves as conquerors over the whole of Asia. It may be remembered that it was their invasion of Palestine, and their violent domination over the holy city, which roused Christendom, and provoked the first crusade. Their power, which then extended as far as Nice, and which, even at that time, alarmed the Greeks, was checked by the victorious armies of the West. The Turks of whom we are now speaking, and of whom Christendom, towards the end of the fourteenth century, began to be very much in dread, like those who had preceded them, drew their origin from the Tartars. Their warlike tribes, formerly established in Carismia, had been driven thence by the successors of Gengiskhan; and the remains of this conquering nation, after ravaging Syria and Mesopotamia, came, a few years before the first crusade of St. Louis, to seek an asylum in Asia Minor.

The weakness of the Greeks and the division of the Mussulman princes enabled them to conquer several provinces, and to found a new state among the ruins of several empires. The terror inspired by their fierce and brutal valour facilitated their progress, and opened for them the road to Greece. Countries which had been the cradle of civilization, of the arts, and of knowledge, soon succumbed beneath the laws of Ottoman despotism.

There can be no doubt that despotism, such as it was known then in Asia, and as it is seen in our days, is the most fragile of human institutions. The violent measures which it took to preserve itself, showed plainly that it itself felt a consciousness of its own fragility. When we see it immolate all the laws of nature to its own laws, hold the sword constantly suspended over all that approach it, and itself experience more fear than it inspires, we are tempted to believe that it has no veritable support. Whilst reading the oriental history of the middle ages, we are astonished to see all those empires which the genius of despotism raised in Asia, fall almost without resistance, and disappear from the scene of the world. But we must admit, when this monstrous government supports itself upon religious ideas, and upon the prejudices and passions of a great nation, it has also its popular ascendancy; it is also, to employ a mode of speaking very common at present, the expression of all its wills, and nothing can resist its action, or arrest the development of its power.

Thus arose the Ottoman empire, which had for its springs of action a hatred of the Christians, and the conquest of the Greek empire, and which sustained itself by the double fanaticism of religion and victory. The Turks had but two ideas, or rather two ever-acting passions, which with them supplied the place of patriotism,—to extend their dominions and propagate the Mussulman faith. The ambition which led the sovereign to conquer Christian provinces, was found to be that of the whole nation, accustomed to enrich themselves by all the violences of war, and who believed they obeyed the most sacred precept of the Koran, by exterminating the race of infidels. If the prince was unceasingly obliged to animate the religious enthusiasm and the warlike ardour of his subjects, the subjects, in their turn, kept the prince as constantly in exercise. The absolute leader of the Ottomans might commit all sorts of crimes with impunity; but he could not live long in a state of peace with his neighbours, without risking his authority and his life. The Turks could not endure either a pacific prince, or a prince unfortunate in war; so thoroughly were they persuaded that they ought to be always fighting, and that they ought always to conquer. The Ottoman people, to whom nothing was good or right but conquest, would obey none but a conqueror; and if they consented to be slaves, and tremble beneath the frown of a master, it was upon the sole condition that this all-powerful master should carry abroad the terror of his arms, and should give chains to other nations.

The Ottoman dynasty which began with the Turkish nation and gave its name to it, that dynasty, always the object of veneration, and respected by revolt itself, has presented by its stability a new spectacle in the East. It has exhibited to the world a succession of great princes, who have in history almost all the same physiognomy, and resemble each other in their pride, their ambition and their military genius: which proves that all these barbarian heroes were formed by their national manners, and that among the Turks, there is but one single road to greatness. We may judge what advantages this harmony between subjects and sovereign must have given to the Ottoman nation, in its wars against the Christians, or even against other Mussulman people.

Whilst the only defence of Europe consisted in feudal troops which were assembled at certain periods, and could not be held beneath their banners for any length of time together, the Ottomans were the only people who had a regular army always under arms. Their warriors, always animated by one same spirit, had moreover the advantage of discipline over the insubordinate chivalry of the Franks, who were constantly agitated by discord, and were put in action by a thousand different passions.

As the population of the Turks was not always sufficient for their armies, they forced each family of the countries they conquered to give up a fifth part of its male children for the military service. They thus levied a tribute upon the population of the Christians, and the sons of the effeminate Greeks became those invincible janissaries who were one day to besiege Byzantium, and destroy even the ruins of the empire of the CÆsars. Such were the new people who were about to place themselves between the East and the West, and engross all the attention of Christian Europe, until that time occupied with the deliverance of the holy places.

When we are acquainted with the power and the character of the Ottomans, we are astonished at seeing what remained of the Greek empire subsist a long time in their vicinity. We must here resume from a past period, the history of the feeble successors of Constantine, sometimes forming alliances with the Turks ready to plunder them, at others, imploring the assistance of the Latins, whom they hated, and seeking to awaken the spirit of the crusades whose consequences they dreaded.

At the period of the first invasions of Greece by the Turks, the emperor Andronicus sent an embassy to the Pope, to promise him to obey the Romish Church, and to request of him apostolic legates, with an army capable of driving away the infidels and opening the route to the Holy Sepulchre. Cantacuzenes, who followed the example of Andronicus, said to the envoys from the sovereign pontiff: “I shall consider it my glory to serve Christendom; my states shall afford the Crusaders a free and safe passage; my troops, my vessels, my treasures shall be devoted to the common defence, and my fate will be worthy of envy if I obtain the crown of martyrdom.” Clement VI., to whom Cantacuzenes addressed himself, died without having been able to interest the Christian warriors in the fate of Constantinople. A short time afterwards, the emperor buried himself in a cloister; and the brother Josaphat Christodulus, confounded among the monks of Mount Athos, troubled himself no longer with a crusade among the Latins.

Under the reign of John PalÆologus, the progress of the Turks became more alarming. The emperor himself went to solicit the aid of the sovereign pontiff. After having, in a public ceremony, kissed the hands and feet of the pope, he acknowledged the double procession[69] of the Holy Ghost, and the supremacy of the Church of Rome. Touched by this humble submission, the pope protested he would come to the succour of the Greeks; but when he applied to the sovereigns of Europe, he could obtain nothing from them but vain promises. At the moment at which PalÆologus was about to embark on his return to the East, he was arrested by his creditors, and remained thus during several months, without the pope or the princes he had come to solicit, and who had promised to assist him in the deliverance of his empire, making the least attempt to deliver him himself. PalÆologus returned to Constantinople, to his divided family; and his subjects, who despised him, waited in vain for the performance of the promises of the pope and the European monarchs. In his despair, he at length formed the resolution of imploring the clemency of the sultan Amurath, and of purchasing by a tribute, permission to continue to reign over the wreck of his empire. He complained of this hard necessity to the pontiff of Rome, who caused a new crusade to be preached; but the Christian monarch beheld with indifference, a prince who had returned to the bosom of the Catholic Church, condemned to declare himself the vassal of infidels. The emperor of Byzantium and the head of the Church, by promising, the one, to arm the West in the cause of Greece, and the other, to subject the Greeks to the Roman Church, had formed engagements that they every day found it more difficult to fulfil. Whilst they were reciprocally upbraiding each other with not having kept their word, Amurath, who accomplished his threats better than the pope and the Christian princes did their promises, added new rigours to the fate of PalÆologus, and interdicted even the repairing of the ramparts of his capital. Again the supplications to the sovereign were renewed, and again these supplications were passed on to the monarchs of Christendom; but they made no reply, or at most contented themselves with expressing pity for the emperor and people of Byzantium.

There is no doubt that the Greek emperors stood in great need of succour from the Latins, but this pusillanimous policy, which unceasingly invoked the assistance of other nations, only proclaimed the weakness of the empire, and necessarily deprived the Greeks, in the hour of peril, of all confidence in their own strength. On the other side, these cries of alarm, which constantly resounded throughout Europe, met with nothing but incredulous minds and indifferent hearts. It was in vain that the warriors of the West heard it for ever repeated that Constantinople was the barrier of Christendom; they could not consider a city which was unable to provide for its own defence, and was always in want of succour, as a barrier capable of arresting the course of a powerful enemy. When Gregory XI. solicited the emperor of Germany to assist Constantinople, that prince replied sharply that the Greeks had opened the gates of Europe to the Turks, and let the wolf into the sheep-fold.

At this time the miserable remains of the empire of the CÆsars was comprised within the extent of less than twenty leagues, and in this narrow space there was an empire of Byzantium, and an empire of Rodesto or Selivrea; the princes, whom ties of blood ought to have united, quarrelled with inveterate fury for the rags of the imperial purple. Brother was armed against brother, and father and son declared open war; all the crimes that had formerly been inspired by the ambition of obtaining the sceptre of the Roman world, were still committed for the advantage of reigning over a few miserable cities. Such was the empire of the East, upon which the Ottoman dominions continued on all sides to encroach.

At the period of which we are speaking, all the princes of the family of PalÆologus having been commanded to repair to the court of Bajazet, obeyed his supreme order tremblingly; and if they came out safe and sound from the palace of the sultan, which was for them the den of the lion, it was because pity disarmed the executioner, and because the contempt they inspired among the Mussulmans was their safeguard. The Ottoman emperor contented himself with commanding Manuel, the son and successor of John PalÆologus, not to deliver Constantinople up to him, but to remain shut up in it as in a prison, under the penalty of losing both his crown and his life.

Whilst the Greeks were thus trembling in the presence of the Turks, the janissaries passed through the straits of ThermopylÆ without obstruction, and advanced into the Peloponnesus. On the other side, Bajazet, for whom the rapidity of his conquests procured the surname of Iberim, or Lightning, invaded the country of the Servians, afterwards that of the Bulgarians, and was preparing to carry the war into Hungary.

A deplorable schism then divided Christendom. Two popes shared the empire of the Church, and the European republic had no longer a head that could warn it of its dangers, an organ that could express its wishes and its fears, or a tie that could bind together its forces; religious opinions had no longer sufficient influence to bring about a crusade, and Christendom had nothing left to defend it but the spirit of chivalry, and the warlike character of some of the nations of Europe.

The ambassadors whom Manuel sent into the West, repeating the eternal lamentations of the Greeks over the barbarities of the Turks, solicited in vain the piety of the faithful. The envoys of Sigismund, king of Hungary, were more fortunate in their appeal to the bravery of the knights and barons of France. Charles VI. had not renounced, if the historians of the time may be believed, the idea of undertaking some great enterprise against the enemies of the true faith: “in order,” says Froissart, “to free the souls of his predecessors, King Philip, of excellent memory, and King John, his grandfather.” The Hungarian envoys took care to insinuate in their speeches, that the sultan of the Turks held Christian chivalry in contempt; nothing more was wanting to inflame the ardour of the French warriors; and when their monarch declared his intention of entering into the league against the infidels, every gallant knight in the kingdom flew to arms. This brave band was commanded by the duke de Nevers, son of the duke of Burgundy, a young prince whose rash courage afterwards procured for him the surname of Jean-sans-Peur (John the Fearless). Among other leaders were the count de la Marche, Henry and Philip de Bar, relations of the king of France, Philip of Artois, constable of the kingdom; John of Vienne, admiral; the sieur de Coucy, Guy de la Tremouille, and the marshal de Boucicault, whose name is mixed with the history of every war of his time.

All ideas of glory, all sentiments of religion and chivalry were bound up with this expedition. The leaders ruined themselves to make preparations for their voyage, and to astonish the East by their magnificence; the people implored the protection of Heaven for the success of their arms. The enterprise of the new Crusaders was already compared to that of Godfrey of Bouillon, and the poets of the times celebrated the near deliverance of the Holy Land.

The French army, in which were fourteen hundred knights and as many squires, traversed Germany, and was increased on its way by a crowd of warriors from Austria and Bavaria. When they arrived on the banks of the Danube, they found the entire nobility of Hungary and Bohemia under arms. Whilst reviewing the numerous soldiers thus assembled to oppose the Turks, Sigismund exclaimed with delight: “If heaven were to fall, the lances of the Christian army would stop it in its descent.”

Never was a war begun under more happy auspices; not only had the spirit of chivalry drawn together a great number of warriors beneath the banners of the cross, but several maritime nations of Italy had taken up arms for the defence of their eastern commerce. A Venetian fleet, commanded by the noble Mocenigo, joined the vessels of the Greek emperor and of the knights of Rhodes near the mouth of the Danube, to procure the triumph of the standard of the Franks in the Hellespont, whilst the Christian army should march against Constantinople.

As soon as the signal for war was given, nothing could resist the impetuous valour of the Crusaders; they beat the Turks everywhere; they took several towns of Bulgaria and Servia, and laid siege to Nicopolis: happy had it been if these first advantages had not given them a blind confidence in victory!

The French knights, who were always found at the head of the Christian army, could not believe that Bajazet would dare to attack them; and when it was announced to them that the sultan, with his army, was drawing near, they chastised the bold scout who gave them the first intelligence of it. The Mussulman army, however, had crossed Mount Hemus, and was advancing towards Nicopolis. When the two armies were in presence of each other, Sigismund conjured his allies to moderate their warlike ardour, and to wait for a favourable opportunity of attacking an enemy with whom they were totally unacquainted. The duke de Nevers and the young nobles who accompanied him, listened with impatience to the advice of the Hungarians, and believed that they were desirous of disputing with them the honour of beginning the fight. Scarcely had the standard of the crescent[70] met their eyes, than they rushed out of the camp and fell upon the enemy; the Turks retreated, and appeared to fly; the French pursued them in a disorderly manner, and soon became separated from the Hungarian army. All at once, clouds of spahis and janissaries poured down from the neighbouring forests, in which they had been placed in ambush. All about the country, pikes had been planted to impede the march of cavalry. The French warriors being unable either to advance or retreat, and surrounded by an innumerable army, no longer fought to conquer, but to die with glory, and sell their lives dearly. After having, during several hours, carried slaughter into the enemy’s ranks, all the French engaged in the conflict either perished by the swords of the Mussulmans, or were made prisoners.

Bajazet, after this first victory, directed all his forces against the Hungarian army, which terror had already seized, and which was dispersed at the first shock. Sigismund, who, on the morning of that day, had counted a hundred thousand men beneath his banners, threw himself into a fishing-boat, and coasting along the shores of the Euxine, found refuge in Constantinople, where his mere presence announced his defeat, and spread consternation.

Such were the fruits of the presumption and want of discipline of the French warriors. History has lamented their reverses more than it has blamed their conduct; it has satisfied itself with saying, that in order to conquer the Turks, the Hungarians should have shown the valour of the French, or the French should have imitated the prudence of the Hungarians.

Bajazet, who was wounded in the battle, proved barbarous after victory. Some historians have said that the sultan had to avenge the death of many Mussulman captives, who had been massacred by the Christian army. He commanded all the prisoners, many of whom were wounded and plundered of their clothes, to be brought before him, and then gave order to his janissaries to slaughter them before his eyes. Three thousand French warriors were immolated to his vengeance; but he spared the duke de Nevers, the count de la Marche, the sieur de Coucy, Philip of Artois, the count de Bar, Marshal Boucicault, and some other leaders, on account of the ransom he hoped to procure for them.

When fame carried the news of so great a disaster into France, the first who spoke of it were threatened with being thrown into the Seine: many were imprisoned in the chÂtelet of Paris by the king’s orders. At length the most sinister reports were confirmed by the account of messire de HÉly, whom Bajazet sent into France to announce the defeat of the Christians and the captivity of their leaders. This intelligence spread desolation through both the court of Charles VI. and the kingdom of France. Froissart adds, in his natural style, “that the high dames of France were much enraged, and had good cause, for this affected their hearts too closely.”

In order to mitigate the wrath of the Turkish emperor, Charles VI. sent him magnificent presents. Messengers passing through Hungary and the territory of Constantinople, bore to the sultan white falcons from Norway, fine scarlet cloths, white and red linens from Rheims, draps de hautes-lices, or tapestries, worked at Arras, in Picardy, representing the history of Alexander, “which thing,” add contemporary chronicles, “was very agreeable to all persons of worth and honour to look upon.” At the court of France means could not be devised for sending into Turkey the money required for the liberation of the princes and nobles detained in the prisons of Bajazet. A banker of Paris performed that which no sovereign of Europe could then have done; in concert with some merchants of Genoa, he negotiated for the ransom of the prisoners, and undertook to pay for this ransom the sum agreed upon, of two hundred thousand ducats.

The noble captives, whom the sultan had dragged in his train as far as Brusa, at length were allowed to return to Europe. Of the number, all regained their native country, with the exception of two: Guy of Tremouille died in the isle of Rhodes. The lady de Coucy, who was incapable of consolation, sent a faithful knight among the Turks, to learn the fate of her husband, and the knight returned with the fatal intelligence that the sieur de Coucy had died in his prison.

When the duke de Nevers, with his companions in misfortune, quitted the camp of Bajazet, the sultan addressed the following words to him, as reported by Froissart:—“Count de Nevers, I know right well and am informed that thou art in thine own country a great lord, and the son of a great lord. Thou art young; thou mayest, perchance, take as an injury that requires vengeance that which has befallen thee in thy first chivalry, and wouldst willingly, to recover thy honour, assemble forces to come and give me battle; if I suspected this, and if it were my will, I would make thee swear upon thy faith and upon the law that thou shouldst never arm thyself against me, nor any of those that are in thy company; but no, I will neither require thee nor them to take this oath; but I wish to tell thee that if, when thou shalt have returned, it may please thee to assemble a power to come against me, thou wilt find me always ready and prepared for both thee and thy people.”

This speech, which exhibited all the Ottoman pride, must, without doubt, have been a lesson for young warriors, whose mad presumption had brought on all the evils of the war. They despised Bajazet before their defeat; and his haughty disdain after victory could not appear in their eyes a vain bravado. “So,” says Froissart, “they remembered it well as long as they lived.”

On their return to France, the noble knights were received with the interest that unfortunate bravery inspires. The court of Charles VI. and that of Burgundy were never tired of hearing them recount their exploits, their tragical adventures, and the miseries of their captivity; they told wonders of the magnificence of Bajazet; and when they repeated the speeches of the sultan, who was accustomed to say that he would be lord over all the world, that he would yet come to Rome, and make his horse eat his oats on the altar of St. Peter; when they spoke of the armies which the emperor raised daily to accomplish his menaces, what fear must, doubtless, have been mixed in the minds of his auditors with feelings of curiosity and surprise.

The accounts of the duke de Nevers and his companions awakened, however, the emulation of the warriors, and their misfortunes in Asia inspired less compassion than a desire to avenge their defeat. A new expedition against the Turks was soon announced in France, and a crowd of young nobles and knights eagerly took up arms. The duke of Orleans, the brother of the king, was inconsolable at not being able to obtain permission to place himself at their head, and go with them to combat the infidels. It was the Marshal Boucicault, scarcely returned from captivity, who led these new Crusaders into the East. Their arrival on the shores of the Bosphorus delivered Byzantium, which was then besieged by Bajazet. Their exploits raised the courage of the Greeks, and redeemed the honour of the soldiers of the West among the Turks. When, after a year of labours and glorious combats, they returned to their own country, the Greek emperor Manuel believed he saw fresh evils ready to overwhelm him, and he resolved to follow Marshal Boucicault and solicit more assistance from Charles VI.; thus placing all the hopes of his empire in the French warriors. He was received with great honours on his passage through Italy; when he had crossed the Alps, brilliant festivities awaited him in all the great cities. At two leagues from Paris he found Charles VI., who, with all his nobles, had come out to meet him. He made his public entry into the capital, clothed in a robe of white silk, and mounted on a white horse, marks of supreme rank among the Franks. It was gratifying to see a successor of the CÆsars imploring the arms of chivalry; and the confidence which he placed in the bravery of the French, flattered the pride of the nation; but in the condition of France at that period, it was much more easy to offer Manuel the spectacle of tournaments, and the brilliant ceremonies of courts, than to furnish him with the treasures and armies of which he stood in need. Charles VI. began to feel the approach of that fatal malady which left the field open to factions, and threw the kingdom into the greatest misfortunes. England, whose assistance the emperor of Constantinople likewise solicited, was disturbed by the usurpation of Henry of Lancaster; and if the English monarch then took the cross, it was less with the intention of succouring the Greeks than to divert attention from his own injustice, and to have a pretext for levying imposts upon his people. At the same time, the deposition of Winceslaus set the whole German empire in motion; and the nascent heresy of John Huss already gave the signal for the disorders that were destined to trouble Bohemia during the fifteenth century. Amidst all these agitations in Christendom, the only power that could have reËstablished harmony was itself divided, and the Catholic Church, still a prey to the rival pretensions of two pontiffs, could neither give its attention to promote peace among the Christians, nor war against the Turks.

This state of France and Europe completely destroyed all the hopes of the Greek emperor. After passing two years in Paris, without obtaining anything, he determined to leave the West, and having embarked at Venice, he stopped in the Peloponnesus, where he waited patiently till Fortune should herself take charge of the entire ruin or the deliverance of his empire.

This deliverance, which could no longer be expected from the Christian powers, arrived all at once by means of a people still more barbarous than the Turks, whose conquests made the entire East tremble. Tamerlane, or Timour, from the bosom of civil wars, had been elevated to the throne of the Moguls, and revived in the north of Asia the formidable empire of Gengishan. History is scarcely able to follow this new conqueror in his gigantic expeditions. The imagination is terrified at the rapidity with which, to make use of an expression of Timour himself, he carried “the destroying wind of desolation” from ZagathaÏ to the Indus, and from the Indus to the icy deserts of Siberia. Such was the scourge that Heaven sent to destroy the menacing pride of Bajazet. The historians of the times are not agreed as to the motives which armed the leader of the Moguls against the Ottoman emperor; some attribute Tamerlane’s determination to the complaints of the Mussulman princes of Asia Minor, whom the sultan of the Turks had driven from their states; others, faithful to the spirit of their age, and seeking the causes of great events in celestial phenomena, explain the invasion of the Tartars by the appearance of a comet, which was visible during two months to affrighted Asia. Disdaining marvellous explanations, we will confine ourselves to saying that peace could not last between two men urged on by the same ambition, and who were not likely to pardon each other for having at the same time entertained the thought of conquering the world. Their character, as well as their policy, is plainly enough indicated in the violent threats they reciprocally addressed to each other before hostilities, and which became the signal for the most sanguinary catastrophes.

Tamerlane, having set out from Samarcand, first reduced Seborto, and as if he wished to give Bajazet, before he attacked him, the spectacle of the ravages which accompanied his arms everywhere, he all at once directed the course of his Tartar hordes towards Syria and the provinces governed by the Mamelukes of Egypt. The valour of his soldiers, the discords of his enemies, the treachery and perfidy which he never disdained to call in to the assistance of his power, opened for him the gates of Aleppo, Damascus, and Tripoli. Torrents of blood and pyramids of human heads marked the passage of the Mogul conqueror. His approach spread terror everywhere, as well among the Christians as among the Mussulmans; and although he boasted in his discourses of avenging the cause of the oppressed, Jerusalem might, on this occasion, be grateful that he did not think of delivering her.

At length the Tartars advanced towards Asia Minor. Timour traversed Anatolia with an army of eight hundred thousand men. Bajazet, who raised the siege of Constantinople to come to meet his redoubtable adversary, encountered him in the plains of Ancyra. At the end of a battle which lasted three days, the Ottoman emperor lost at once his empire and his liberty. The Greeks, to whom fame soon brought the news of this victory, tremblingly returned thanks to their fierce liberator; but the indifference with which he received their embassy, proved that he had had no intention of meriting their gratitude. Arrived on the shores of the Bosphorus, the conqueror of Bajazet directed his looks and his projects towards the West; but the master of the vast kingdoms of Asia had not a single barque in which to transport himself to the other side of the canal. Thus Constantinople, after having escaped the yoke of the Ottomans, had the good fortune to escape also the presence of the Tartars, and Europe saw this violent tempest dissipate itself at a distance from her.

The conqueror vented his anger upon the city of Smyrna, which was defended by the Knights of Rhodes. This city was carried by assault, delivered up to pillage, and reduced to ashes; the Mogul emperor returned to Samarcand in triumph, dragging the sultan Bajazet in his train, and meditating by turns the conquest of Africa, the invasion of the West, and a war against China.

After the battle of Ancyra, several princes of the family of Bajazet disputed the ravaged provinces of the Ottoman empire. If the Franks had then appeared in the Strait of Galliopoli and in Thrace, they might have profited by the defeat and discords of the Turks, and have driven them back beyond the Taurus; but the indifference of the Christian states, with the perfidy and cupidity of some of the maritime nations of Europe, allowed the Ottoman dynasty time and means to renovate its depressed power.

The Greeks derived no more advantage from the victory of Tamerlane than the Latins. Twenty years after the battle of Ancyra, the Ottomans had retaken all their provinces; their armies again environed Constantinople, and it is at this point we may apply to the power of the Turks the oriental comparison of that serpent of the desert which an elephant had crushed in its passage, which joins its dispersed rings together again, raises its head by degrees, reseizes the prey it had abandoned, and clasps it within its monstrous folds.

As long as the Greek emperors were in no fear for the safety of their capital, they kept up very little intercourse with the Christian princes of Europe; but upon the appearance of danger, the court of Byzantium renewed its supplications and its promises of obedience to the Church of Rome. A conversation of Manuel, reported by Phrantza, throws a light upon the situation of the Greeks, and upon the policy of the timid successors of Constantine. “The only resource we have left against the Turks,” said this prince to his son, “is their fear of our union with the Latins, and the terror with which the warlike nations of the West inspire them. Whenever you are pressed by the infidels, send to the court of Rome, and prolong the negotiations, without ever taking a decisive part.” Manuel added, that the vanity of the Latins and the obstinacy of the Greeks would always prevent any real or durable harmony; and that a union of any kind with the pope, by arousing the passions of both parties, would only give Byzantium up to the mercy of the barbarians.

Such counsels, which announce but little frankness in the policy of the Greeks, could not be long followed up with success. The dangers became more pressing, the circumstances more imperative; as Christendom only replied to vain negotiations by vain promises, the successor of Manuel found himself obliged to give pledges of his faith and sincerity. The idea of a council was at length adopted, in which the two churches should come to an understanding, and should approximate. The emperor John PalÆologus and the doctors of the Greek Church repaired to Ferrara, and afterwards to Florence. After long debates, the union was sworn to on both sides, and solemnly proclaimed. In the West this event was celebrated as a victory; at Constantinople it raised cries of blasphemy, apostasy, and impiety. Thus was the prediction of Manuel accomplished; all the efforts employed to unite opinions, only served to raise a new barrier between the Greeks and the Latins.

At the councils of Ferrara and Florence, the deputies of the Armenians, the Maronites, the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt, the Nestorians, and the Ethiopians submitted, as well as the Greeks, to the pontifical authority, and without doubt also, in the same hope of being succoured by the Latins, and delivered from the tyranny of the Mussulmans. This solemn proceeding was less a submission to the Holy See than a homage rendered to the bravery of the Franks, in whom all the Christians of Asia and Africa beheld liberators.

Pope Eugenius, however, on receiving the submission of the Greeks, had promised to send succours to Constantinople and to the Christians of the East. The pontiff hoped that the union of the two churches and the preaching of a crusade would fix upon him the eyes of the Christian world, and restore to the pontifical authority the confidence and power of which the schisms of the West and the seditious decrees of the council of BÂle had deprived it. He wrote to all the princes of Christendom, exhorting them to unite to put a stop to the invasions of the Mussulmans. Eugenius, in his letter, described all the evils which the faithful suffered in the countries under the domination of the barbarians. “The Turks tied troops of men and women together, and dragged them along in their train. All the Christians whom they condemned to slavery, were confounded with the vilest booty, and sold like beasts of burden. In their barbarity, they separated the son from the father, the brother from the sister, and the husband from the wife. Those whom age or infirmities prevented from walking were killed upon the high roads or in the middle of cities. Even infancy could not excite their pity; they put to death innocent victims that had scarcely begun to exist, and who, being yet ignorant of fear, smiled upon their executioners whilst receiving the mortal blow. Every Christian family was compelled to give up its own sons to the Ottoman empire, in the same manner as the people of Athens had been formerly forced to send as a tribute the flower of their youth to the monster of Crete. Wherever the Turks had penetrated, the fields were cursed with barrenness, and the cities were without laws or industry; the Christian religion had no longer either priests or altars; humanity no longer either support or asylum.” In fact, the father of the faithful forgot none of the cruelties committed by the enemies of Christ; he could not restrain the sadness which so many painful images caused him, and conjured princes and nations to send assistance to the kingdom of Cyprus, the isle of Rhodes, and particularly to Constantinople, as these were the last bulwarks of the West.

The exhortations of the sovereign pontiff were addressed to none but indifferent hearts in the nations of England, France, and Spain. Neither the sentiment of humanity, nor that of patriotism, had power to revive the enthusiasm to which the spirit of religion and chivalry had in past times given birth. Distant crusades, whatever was their object, began to be considered as only the work of a jealous policy, the springs of which were set in motion, to banish the princes and nobles whose power and wealth were coveted. In the state in which Europe then was, such as loved war, had but too many opportunities for exercising their bravery, without quitting their homes. The Germans, who had set on foot forty thousand men to combat the heretics of Bohemia, remained motionless, when the Turks were represented to them as ready to carry the standard of Islamism to the extremities of the West.

The pope, however, was not satisfied with exhorting the faithful to take up arms, he was desirous of setting them the example; the pontiff levied soldiers and equipped vessels to make war against the Turks. The maritime cities of Flanders, and the republics of Genoa and Venice, which had great interests in the East, made some preparations; their fleets united under the standard of St. Peter, and directed their course towards the Hellespont. The fear of an approaching invasion awakened the zeal of the nations inhabiting the shores of the Dneister and the Danube. The crusade was preached in the diets of Poland and Hungary. Upon the frontiers threatened by the barbarians, the people, the clergy, and the nobility obeyed the voice of religion and patriotism.

The sovereign pontiff named, as legate with the Crusaders, Cardinal Julian, a prelate of an intrepid character of an ardent genius, arming himself by turns with the sword of fight and with that of speech; as redoubtable in the field of battle as in the learned contests of the schools. After having obtained the confidence of the council of BÂle, Cardinal Julian distinguished himself in the council of Florence, by defending the dogmas of the Latin church. His eloquence had roused up all Germany against the Hussites; now he burned to rouse up all Christendom against the Turks. The army collected under the banners of the cross had for leaders Hunniades and Ladislaus; the first, the waywode of Transylvania, was celebrated among Christian warriors, and the epithet of the brigand, which the Turks attached to his name, denoted the hatred and terror he inspired among the infidels. Upon the head of Ladislaus were united the two crowns of Poland and Hungary, and he merited, by the brilliant qualities of his youth, the love of both Poles and Hungarians. The Crusaders assembled on the Danube, and quickly received the signal for war. The fleets of the sovereign pontiff, of Venice, and Genoa cruised in the Hellespont. The inhabitants of Moldavia, Servia, and Greece promised to join the Christian army; the sultan of Caramania, the implacable enemy of the Ottomans, was to attack them in Asia. The Greek emperor, John PalÆologus, announced great preparations, and got ready to march at the head of an army to meet his liberators.

Hunniades and Ladislaus advanced as far as Sophia, the capital of the Bulgarians. Two battles opened for them the passages of Mount Hemus and the road to Byzantium. The rigours of winter alone arrested the victorious march of the Christian warriors; and the army of the Crusaders returned into Hungary, to await the favourable season for renewing the war. They returned to Buda in triumph, amidst the acclamations of an immense population. The clergy celebrated, by hymns and thanksgivings, the first victories of the Christians, and Ladislaus repaired, barefooted, to the church of Notre Dame, in which he hung up the standards taken from the infidels.

Before the beginning of the war, the Mussulmans had been persuaded that the destruction of the Christians was written in the book of destiny. “When all the enemies of the prophet,” said they among themselves, “shall be destroyed, each of us will have nothing to do but to guide his plough, and look at his war-horse in his stable.” This opinion, the offspring of pride and victory, had proved sufficient to relax the zeal of the Ottoman warriors; and most of them remained in their homes, whilst the Christians marched towards Adrianopolis.

When fame informed them of the victories of the Franks upon the Danube, this blind security all at once gave place to fear. The sultan Amurath immediately sent ambassadors to sue for peace. History is silent as to the means of seduction employed by the Ottoman envoys to win the victorious Crusaders; but it is well known that they succeeded in obtaining a favourable hearing for their proposals. Peace was determined upon in the council of the leaders of the Christian army. The parties swore, the one upon the Koran, and the other upon the Gospel, to a truce of ten years. This unexpected resolution irritated the pride and zeal of Cardinal Julian, whose mission was to stimulate the Christians to war. When he saw the leaders of the crusade unite in a desire for peace, he preserved a haughty silence, and refused to sign a treaty he disapproved of. The inflexible legate waited for an opportunity in which he might give vent to his discontent, and force the Crusaders to resume their arms. This opportunity was not long in presenting itself.

Amurath, satisfied with having restored peace to his states, and fatigued with earthly grandeur, renounced the cares of empire, and buried himself in a retreat at Magnesia. The sultan of Caramania informed the Christians that their most redoubtable enemy had lost his senses, and had just exchanged the imperial crown for the cap of a cenobite. He added that Amurath had left the supreme authority in the hands of a child, and in his message compared this child to a young plant which the slightest wind might tear up by the roots.

The same sultan was so thoroughly persuaded that the Ottoman empire was in its decline, that he entered Anatolia at the head of an army. About the same time reports were spread that the emperor of Constantinople was advancing towards Thrace; that the Greeks of the Peloponnesus had taken up arms, and that the confederate fleets still awaited a fresh signal for war in the Hellespont. Another circumstance, not less important, seemed calculated to awaken the warlike ardour of the Crusaders; the victory gained near Sophia had given them a powerful ally in Greece. In this battle, the son of John Castuct, who commanded the van of the Ottoman army, suddenly abandoned the banners and the religion of the Turks, to defend the worship and the heritage of his ancestors in Albania. The messengers of Scanderberg announced to the leaders of the Christian army, that he was ready to join them at the head of twenty thousand Albanians, assembled under the standard of the cross.

All these news, arriving at once, had an immediate effect in changing men’s minds as well as the face of affairs. A fresh council was called; Cardinal Julian arose among the leaders, and reproached them with having betrayed both their fortune and their glory; he reproached them in severe terms, with having signed a disgraceful peace, which was sacrilegious, fatal to Europe, and fatal to the Church. “You had sworn,” said he, “to combat the eternal enemies of Christendom, and now you have sworn upon the Gospel, to lay down your arms. To which of these two oaths will you be faithful? You have just thought proper to conclude a treaty with the Mussulmans; but have you not also treaties with your allies? Will you abandon these generous allies at the moment that they are flying from all parts to your assistance, and are coming to share the perils of a war in which God has so visibly protected your first labours?

“But, what do I say? You not only abandon your allies, you leave, without support and without hope, that crowd of Christians whom you have promised to deliver from an insupportable yoke, and who must now remain a prey to all the outrages of the Mussulmans whom your victories have irritated. The groans of so many victims will pursue you into your retreat, and will accuse you before God and before men.

“You close for ever the gates of Asia against the Christian phalanxes, and you restore to the Mussulmans the hopes they had lost of invading the countries of Christendom. To what interests, answer me, have you sacrificed your own glory and the safety of the Christian world? Had not war already given you all that the sultan Amurath promises? Would he not have already given you still more; and do not the pledges obtained by victory inspire more confidence than the promises of infidels?

“What shall I say to the sovereign pontiff who has sent me to you, not to treat with Mussulmans, but to drive them beyond the seas? What shall I say to all the pastors of the Christian Churches, and to all the faithful of the West, who are now offering up prayers to Heaven for the success of your arms?

“There is no doubt that the barbarians, whom we have twice conquered, would never have consented to a peace, if they had had the means of carrying on the war. Do you believe they will observe the truce, when fortune shall become more favourable to them? No; Christian warriors cannot remain bound by an impious compact which gives up the Church and Europe to the disciples of Mahomet. Learn that there is no peace between God and his enemies, between truth and falsehood, between Heaven and Hell. There is no necessity for me to absolve you from an oath evidently contrary to religion and morality, to all that which constitutes, among men, the sanctity and faith of promises. I exhort you then, in the name of God, in the name of the Gospel, to resume your arms and follow me in the road of salvation and glory.”

The safety of Christendom may, no doubt, be pleaded in extenuation of the violence of this discourse; but impartial history, whatever may be the reasons alleged, cannot approve of this open violation of the faith of oaths. The leaders of the crusade might merit the reproaches of the apostolic legate, who accused them of having made a peace disgraceful in itself and dangerous to Christian Europe; but they certainly also deserve the contempt of posterity for violating treaties they had so recently concluded. When Cardinal Julian began to speak, the minds of his auditors were already wavering; when he had finished his discourse, the warlike ardour which animated him seized upon the whole assembly, and manifested itself by the loud acclamations of a general approbation. With one unanimous voice they all swore to recommence the war, on the same spot where they had just sworn to maintain peace.

The enthusiasm of most of the leaders was at its height it scarcely allowed them to observe that they had lost half their army. A great number of the Crusaders had quitted their colours, some impatient to return to their homes, but by far the greater part dissatisfied with a treaty, which rendered their bravery and their exploits useless. The prince of Servia, a near neighbour of the Turks, and in dread of their vengeance, did not dare to run the risk of a new war, and sent no troops to the army of Hunniades and Ladislaus. They waited in vain for the reinforcements promised by Skanderberg, who was obliged to defend Albania. There remained not more than twenty thousand men under the banners of the cross. A chief of the Wallachians, on joining the Crusaders with his cavalry, could not refrain from expressing his surprise to the king of Hungary, at the smallness of his numbers; and told him that the sultan they were going to contend with, was frequently followed to the chase by more slaves than the Christian warriors amounted to.

The principal leaders were advised to defer the commencement of the war till the arrival of fresh Crusaders, or the return of those that had left them; but Ladislaus, Hunniades, and particularly Julian, were persuaded that God protected the defenders of the cross, and that nothing could resist them. They set forward on their march, and crossing the deserts of Bulgaria, encamped at Warna, on the shores of the Black Sea.

It was there the Crusaders, instead of finding the fleet which was to second them, learned that Amurath had left his retreat at Magnesia, and was hastening to meet them at the head of sixty thousand combatants. At this intelligence all the extravagant confidence infused by the Cardinal Julian faded away, and in their despair they accused the Greeks of having betrayed or abandoned them; and the Genoese, with the nephew of the Pope, who commanded the Christian fleet, of having yielded the passage of Galliopoli to the Turks. This accusation is repeated in all the chronicles of the West; but the Turkish historians make no mention of it; they, on the contrary, say that Amurath crossed the Hellespont at a considerable distance from the places occupied by the Christian fleet; and that the grand vizier, who was upon the European shore, protected the passage of the Ottoman army by a battery of cannon. “As soon as the troops of Amurath,” adds the Turkish historian Coggia Effendi, “gained the shore, they offered up prayers and thanks to the God of Mahomet, and the zephyr of victory breathed upon the Mussulman banners.” The sultan pursued his march, swearing by the prophets of Islamism, to punish its enemies for the violation of treaties. If some authors may be believed, the emperor of the Turks supplicated Jesus Christ himself to avenge the outrage committed upon his name by the perjured warriors. At the approach of the Ottomans, Hunniades and the legate advised retreat; but retreat became impossible, and Ladislaus determined to conquer or die. The battle began: and it was then, says the Ottoman historian, “that an infinite number of valiant men were borne to the valley of shadows by torrents of blood.” At the commencement of the battle both the right and left wings of the Mussulman army were broken. Some authors say that Amurath thought of flying, and that he was stopped by a janissary, who retained him by the bridle of his horse; others celebrate the firm courage of the sultan, and compare him to a rock which resists all the blasts of the tempest. Coggia Effendi, whom we have already quoted, adds that the Ottoman emperor addressed, upon the field of battle, a prayer to the God of Mahomet, and conjured him with tears to remove from the Mussulmans the bitter cup of contempt and affliction.

Fortune appeared to favour the arms of the Crusaders. A great part of the Ottoman army fled before twenty-four thousand Christian soldiers, and nothing could resist the impetuous courage of the king of Hungary. A crowd of prelates and bishops, armed with cuirasses and swords, accompanied Ladislaus, and intreated him to direct his attacks towards the point at which Amurath still fought, defended by the bravest of his janissaries. He listened but too willingly to their imprudent advice, and having rushed among the enemy’s battalions, he was instantly pierced by a thousand lances, and fell with all who had been able to follow him. His head, fixed upon the point of a lance, and shown to the Hungarians, spread consternation through their ranks. It was in vain Hunniades and the bishops endeavoured to revive the courage of the Crusaders, by telling them they were not fighting for an earthly king, but for Jesus Christ; the whole Christian army disbanded, and fled in the greatest disorder. Hunniades himself was carried away with the rest: ten thousand soldiers of the cross lost their lives, and the Turks made a great number of prisoners. Cardinal Julian perished either in the battle or the flight.

After his victory, Amurath traversed the field of battle; and as he observed he did not see among the Christian bodies one with a gray beard, his vizier replied that men arrived at the age of reason would never have attempted such a rash enterprize. These words were nothing more than a piece of flattery addressed to the sultan; but they might, nevertheless, serve to characterize a war in which the leaders of the Christian armies obeyed rather the impulses of the imprudent passions of youth, than the cooler dictates of experience and matured age.

The expeditions of the Christians against the Turks began almost all, like this, by brilliant successes, and finished by great disasters. Most frequently a crusade was terminated at the first or the second battle, because the Crusaders had only valour, and were totally deficient in qualities which could improve a victory or repair reverses. When conquerors, they quarrelled for the glory of the fight or the spoils of the enemy; when conquered, they were at once depressed and discouraged, and returned to their homes, accusing each other reciprocally of their defeats.

The battle of Warna secured to the Turks the European provinces they had invaded, and permitted them to make fresh conquests. Amurath, after having triumphed over his enemies, again renounced the imperial crown, and the solitude of Magnesia once more beheld the conqueror of the Hungarians clothed in the humble mantle of a hermit; but the janissaries, whom he had so often led to victory, would not permit him to renounce the world or enjoy the repose he was so anxious for. Forced to resume the command of armies and the reins of empire, he directed his views against Albania; and he afterwards returned to fight with Hunniades on the shores of the Danube. He passed the remainder of his days in making war against the Christians, and with his last breath recommended his successor to direct his arms against Constantinople.

Mahomet II., to whom Amurath bequeathed the conquest of Byzantium, did not succeed his father till six years after the battle of Warna. It was then that began the days of mourning and calamity for the Greeks; and it is at this period that history offers us, as a spectacle, a last and terrible conflict; on the one side, an old empire whose glory had filled the universe, and which had no defence or limits left but the ramparts of its capital; and on the other, a new empire, the name of which was scarcely known, and which already threatened the whole world with invasion.

Constantine and Mahomet, elevated almost at the same time,—the one to the throne of Otman, the other to that of the CÆsars, presented no less difference in their characters than in their destinies. The moderation and piety of Constantine were admired, and historians have celebrated his calm and prudent valour in the field of battle, with his heroic patience in reverses. Mahomet brought to the throne an active and enterprising spirit, an ardent and passionate policy, and an indomitable pride. It is asserted that he loved letters and the arts; but these peaceful pursuits were not able to soften his savage ferocity. In war, he neither spared the lives of his enemies nor of his soldiers; and the violences of his character often ensanguined even peace. Whilst in Constantine a monarch could be recognized brought up in the school of Christianity, in Mahomet was as easily known a prince formed by the warlike and intolerant maxims of the Koran. The last of the CÆsars had all the virtues that can honour and teach the endurance of a great misfortune. The son of Amurath exhibited the dark qualities of a conqueror, with all the passions which, in the day of victory, must leave nothing but despair to the vanquished.

When Mahomet succeeded to the empire, his first thought was the conquest of Byzantium. In the negotiations which preceded the rupture of the peace, Constantine did not conceal the weakness of the Greek empire, and displayed all the resignation of a Christian. “My confidence is in God,” said he to the Ottoman prince; “if it should please him to soften your heart, I shall rejoice at that happy change; if it should please him to deliver up Constantinople to you, I shall submit to his will without a murmur.”

The siege of Byzantium was fixed to begin in the spring of the year 1453; and the Greeks and the Turks passed the winter in preparation for the defence and the attack. Mahomet entered with ardour upon an enterprise to which, for a length of time, all the wishes of the Turkish nation and all the Ottoman policy has been directed. In the middle of a night, having sent for his vizier: “Thou seest,” said Mahomet, “the disorder of my couch. I have carried to it the trouble which agitates and devours me; henceforth there will be neither repose nor sleep for me but in the capital of the Greeks.”

Whilst Mahomet was getting together all his forces to commence the war, Constantine PalÆologus implored assistance from the nations of Europe. Cries of alarm had so often been heard from Constantinople, that some regarded the dangers of the Greek empire as imaginary, and others, its ruin as inevitable. In vain Constantine promised, as all his predecessors had done, to unite the Greek Church with the Roman Church; the remembrance of so many promises, made in the hour of peril and forgotten in times of safety, added to the antipathy of the Latins for the people of Greece. The Pope exhorted feebly the warriors of the West to take arms, and satisfied himself with sending to the Greek emperor a legate and some ecclesiastics versed in the art of argumentation and in the study of theology. Although the Cardinal Isidore brought with him a considerable treasure, and had in his suite some Italian soldiers, his arrival at Constantinople must have spread discouragement among the Greeks, who expected other succours, and appeared to have attached a very high value to their submission to the Church of Rome.

The princes of the Morea and the Archipelago, with those of Hungary and Bulgaria, some, in dread of being themselves attacked, the others, restrained by indifference or the spirit of jealousy, refused to take any part in a war in which victory would decide their own fate. As Genoa and Venice had counting-houses and commercial establishments at Constantinople, two thousand Genoese soldiers and five or six hundred Venetians presented themselves to assist in defending the city. A troop of Catalans also arrived, an intrepid soldiery, by turns the scourge and hope of Greece, whom a love of war and peril brought to the imperial city. And this was all that was to represent warlike Europe at the siege of Byzantium.

At this period, several Christian powers were at war with each other: the continuator of Baronius remarks on this subject, that the soldiers who then perished in battles fought in the bosom of Christendom, would have been sufficient to disperse the Turks, and drive them back to the outward verge of Asia. But if history, on this occasion, accuses the nations of the West of indifference, what ought it to say of that of the Greeks for their own defence? The efforts of Constantine to unite the two Churches had weakened the confidence and zeal of his subjects, who prided themselves upon being orthodox. Among the Greeks, some, in order to owe nothing to the Latins, declared that God himself had undertaken to save his people, and upon the faith of some prophecies they had made, they awaited in inaction a miraculous deliverance. Others, more dark in their scholastic reveries, were not willing that Constantinople should be saved, because they had predicted that the empire must perish to expiate the crime of the union. Every hope of victory had in their eyes something impious and contrary to the will of Heaven. When the emperor spoke of the means of safety that still remained, and of the necessity for taking arms, these atrabilarious doctors drew back with a kind of horror, and the multitude they had misled ran after the monk Genadius, who, from the depth of his cell, cried out constantly to the people, that there was nothing to be done, and that all was lost.

When we study the whimsicalities of the human mind, that which most affects the enlightened observer is, to see there are men whose passion is words, whom self-love attaches to vain subtleties, and for whom the ruin of the world would be a less painful spectacle than the triumph of an opinion they have opposed. On the eve of the greatest perils, Constantinople was filled with people whom hatred for the Latins made forgetful of even the approach and menaces of the Turks. The grand duke Notares went so far as to say that he would like better to see in Byzantium the turban of Mahomet than the tiara of the pontiff of Rome.

It is not useless to remind our readers here, that in all these debates there was no question that affected the truths of Christianity,—nothing but some points of ecclesiastical discipline: celebrating the mass in the Latin tongue, consecrating unleavened bread, mixing some cold water in the chalice, communicating with Azymites—these were things that were to be hated, things that were to be feared much more than Islamism. Such were the motives for which the Greeks repulsed the Franks, their natural allies, loaded them with anathemas, and invoked the maledictions of Heaven upon their own city.

Amidst these deplorable disputes the voice of patriotism was never listened to, and indifference, selfishness, and cowardice were able to conceal themselves under the respectable appearance of religion and orthodoxy. A great part of the population of Constantinople had abandoned the city; among those that remained, the richest had buried their treasures, which they might have employed in the general defence, and which they soon lost, with their liberty and their lives. The imperial city only contained within its bosom four thousand nine hundred and seventy defenders, and the emperor was obliged to plunder the churches to support them. Thus, from eight to nine thousand combatants formed the entire garrison of Byzantium, and the last hope of the empire of the East.

Mahomet had completed his immense preparations. As the conquest of Byzantium and the pillage of Constantinople were the richest recompense that could be offered to the valour of the Ottomans, all the soldiers were, in some sort, associated with the ambition of their leader. The warlike ardour and fanaticism which had distinguished the companions of Omar and the first champions of Islamism were now revived. From all the regions which extend from the chain of Taurus to the banks of the Ebro and the Danube came crowds of warriors, attracted to the army by the hopes of booty or the desire of distinguishing themselves in a religious and national war. In order at once to give a clear idea of the decay and weakness of the Greeks, and of the strength and power of the Ottomans, it will suffice to say, that Constantinople and all that remained of the territory of the empire contained a smaller number of inhabitants of all kinds than Mahomet mustered soldiers beneath his banners.

The Ottoman army set out from Adrianople at the beginning of March; and on the sixth of April Mahomet pitched his tent before the gate of St. Romanus. The signal for battle was speedily given on both sides. In the early days of the siege, the Greeks and the Turks displayed all that the art of war had invented or perfected among the ancients and moderns. Among his formidable preparations, Mahomet had not neglected artillery, the use of which was then spread through the West. One of his cannons, founded under his own eyes at Adrianople, was of such gigantic proportions, that three hundred oxen dragged it along with difficulty, and it launched a ball of seven hundred quintals (seven hundred pounds weight) to a distance of more than six hundred toises (six hundred fathoms). Almost all the historians of the time speak of this terrible instrument of war, but say very little of the effect it produced in the field of battle. On examining with care the accounts of contemporaries, and particularly the descriptions they have left us of these enormous machines of bronze, which they had so much trouble to move, we feel persuaded that at the siege of Byzantium the Ottoman artillery inspired more fright and surprise than it did execution. The Turks showed very little skill or zeal in seconding the Frank engineers and artillerymen whom Mahomet had taken into his service; and it was a great blessing for Christendom that so powerful a discovery was not perfected at once in the hands of barbarians, whom Europe could not have resisted if they had joined this new force to the advantages they already possessed in war.

The Turks employed other arms and other means of attack with much more success; such as mines dug under the ramparts, rolling towers, which were brought close up to the walls, rams which battered the walls, balistÆ, which launched beams and stones, arrows, javelins, and even the Greek fire, which still rivalled gunpowder, although the latter was destined soon to make it neglected and forgotten. All these means of destruction were employed at the same time, and assaults were renewed unceasingly. The besieged could not avail themselves of all their machines, from the want of hands to work them; and when we reflect on the smallness of the number of the defenders of Constantinople, we are astonished that they were able to resist, for more than fifty days, the innumerable host of the Ottomans. This generous soldiery occupied a line of more than a league in length, repelling, night and day, the assaults of the enemy, repairing the breaches in the walls, and making sorties; they appeared to be everywhere at the same time, and to be equal to everything, animated by the presence of their leaders, and particularly by the example of Constantine. Several times fortune favoured the efforts of this heroic troop, and tingled a few gleams of hope with the sentiment of sadness and terror which prevailed in Constantinople. The besieged preserved one advantage, the city was inaccessible towards the Propontis and on the side of the port. Mahomet had assembled a numerous fleet in the canal of the Black Sea; but it only served for the transmission of provisions and warlike stores. The Ottoman marine could not contend with the marine of the Greeks, particularly with that of the Franks; and the Turks themselves acknowledged that they must yield the empire of the seas to the Christian nations.

About the middle of the siege, five vessels from the coasts of Italy and Greece arrived in the canal. The whole Ottoman fleet was immediately in motion, and advanced to meet them; from their numbers they surrounded them, and attacked them several times, with the view of getting possession of them, or of turning them from their course. Mahomet encouraged the combatants with voice and gesture from the shore. When the Ottomans appeared to be failing in their attempt, he could not restrain his anger; urging his horse into the sea, he seemed to threaten the elements, and, like a barbarian king of antiquity, to accuse the waves of being obstacles to his conquests. On the other side, the Greeks, collected on the ramparts of the city, awaited the issue of the combat in great anxiety. At length, after an obstinate and bloody conflict, all the Turkish ships were dispersed or cast upon the shore; and the Christian fleet, laden with provisions and soldiers, sailed in triumph into the port of Constantinople.

The sultan burned to avenge this disgrace to his arms, and resolved to make a last effort to render himself master of the port of Constantinople. As the entrance of it was guarded by several large vessels, and closed by a chain of iron that could neither be broken nor passed, the Ottoman monarch employed an extraordinary method, which the besieged had not foreseen, and the success of which displayed the force of his will and the extent of his power. In a single night, between seventy and eighty vessels, which were at anchor in the canal of the Black Sea, were transported by land to the gulf of Ceras. The road was covered with planks, plastered with grease, along which a multitude of soldiers and workmen made the vessels slide. The Turkish fleet, commanded by pilots, with sails unfurled, as if upon a maritime expedition, advanced over a hilly country, and traversed a space of two miles by the light of torches and flambeaux, to the sound of clarions and trumpets, without the Genoese, who inhabited Galata, daring to offer any opposition to its passage. The Greeks, fully occupied in guarding their ramparts, had no suspicion of the designs of the enemy. They could not comprehend what could be the cause or the object of all the tumult that was heard during the whole night from the seashore, until the dawn of day showed them the Mussulman standards floating in their port.

We naturally here inquire what resistance was made by the vessels which guarded the iron chain, and by those which had entered the port, after having dispersed the Ottoman fleet. We may suppose that every warrior who had fought in the Christian ships was then employed in defending the ramparts of the city; or, it is probable, that the part of the gulf in which the Turkish ships descended, was not deep enough to be accessible to large vessels. However this may have been, the Mussulmans lost no time in taking advantage of their success. Scarcely were the Turkish boats launched, when a multitude of workmen were busily engaged in constructing floating batteries on the same spot where the Venetians made their last assault in the fifth crusade.

This bold enterprise, carried out with such audacity and success, spread trouble and consternation among the besieged. They made several attempts to burn the fleet and destroy the works the enemy had begun; but they in vain had recourse to the Greek fire, which had so often saved Constantinople from the attacks of the barbarians. Forty of their most intrepid warriors, betrayed by their imprudent valour, and perhaps also by the Genoese, fell into the hands of the Turks, and a death amidst tortures was the reward of their generous devotion.

Constantine used reprisals, and exposed the heads of seventy of his captives upon the ramparts. This mode of making war announced that the combatants no longer listened to anything but the inspirations of despair or the furies of vengeance. The Mussulmans, who daily received supplies of all kinds, prosecuted the siege without intermission. The certainty of victory redoubled their ardour; Constantinople was assaulted on several sides at once, and the garrison, already weakened by the conflicts and labours of a long siege, were obliged to divide their forces to defend all the points attacked.

The repairs of the fortifications on the side of the port had been neglected. Towards the west, several of the towers, particularly that of St. Romanus, were falling into ruins. In this almost desperate situation, what was, if possible, still more deplorable, the garrison of Byzantium was possessed by the spirit of discord. Violent debates arose between the grand duke Notares and Justiniani, who commanded the Genoese troops. The Venetians and the Genoese were several times on the point of coming to blows; and yet history can scarcely point out the subjects of these unfortunate quarrels. Such was the blindness produced by the spirit of jealousy, or rather by despair, that in this chosen band of warriors, who were every day sacrificing their lives in the noble cause they had embraced, it was not uncommon to hear mutual accusations of cowardice and treachery.

Constantine endeavoured to appease them; and himself, always calm in the midst of discord, appeared to be actuated by no other feeling than a love of country and a thirst for glory. The character he exhibited when surrounded by dangers, ought to have procured him the confidence and the affection of the people; but the turbulent and seditious spirit of the Greeks, and the vanity of their disputes would not permit them to appreciate true greatness. They reproached PalÆologus with misfortunes which were not his work, and which his virtue alone could have repaired. They accused him of completing the ruin of an empire which all the world abandoned, and which he alone was willing to defend. They not only no longer respected the authority or the intentions of the prince; but every one who was exalted either by rank or character, became an object of reprobation or mistrust. By a consequence of that restless spirit which, in public disorders, urges the multitude to seek obscure supports, certain predictions, fully credited by the people, announced that the city of the CÆsars could only be saved by a miserable mendicant, in whose hand God would place the sword of his wrath.

As the day of their great calamities approached, the congregations of the churches proportionately increased. The image of the holy Virgin, the patroness of Constantinople, was solemnly exhibited, and carried in procession through the streets. These pious ceremonies, doubtless, presented something edifying, but they did not inspire the bravery necessary for the defence of a country and a religion in extreme danger; and Heaven, amidst the perils of war, did not listen to the prayers of an unarmed trembling people.

During the siege, capitulation had been several times spoken of. Mahomet required that the capital of an empire, of which he already possessed all the provinces, should be given up to him, and he would permit the Greeks to retire with their treasures. PalÆologus was willing to consent to pay a tribute, but he would not give up Constantinople. At length, in a last message, the sultan threatened to immolate the Greek emperor with his family, and scatter his captive people throughout the earth, if he persisted in defending the city. Mahomet offered his enemy a principality in the Peloponnesus; Constantine rejected this proposition, and preferred a glorious death. From that moment peace was no more mentioned, and Byzantium was left to the chances of an implacable war.

The sultan announced to the army an approaching general assault: the wealth of Constantinople, the captives, the Greek women, were to be the rewards of the valour of the soldiers; he for himself, only reserved the city and the edifices. To add religious enthusiasm to that of war, dervises pervaded the ranks of the Ottoman army, exhorting the soldiers to purify their bodies by ablutions, and their souls by prayer; and promising the delights of paradise to the defenders of the Mussulman faith. At the end of the day, great fires, lighted by the orders of the sultan, spread a lurid splendour over all the shores of the sea, from the point of Galata to the Golden Gate. The Ottoman emperor then appeared in the midst of his army, promising again the plunder of Byzantium to his soldiers; and, to render his promise more solemn, he swore to it by the soul of Amurath, by four thousand prophets, by his children, and lastly by his cimeter. The whole army burst forth in exclamations of joy, and repeated several times: God is God, and Mahomet is the messenger of God. When this warlike ceremony was finished, the sultan ordered, under pain of death, that profound silence should be observed throughout the camp; and from that moment nothing was to be heard around Constantinople but the confused tumult of an army in which everything was in motion, preparing for a terrible and decisive combat.

In the city, the garrison kept watch upon the ramparts, and observed with anxiety the movements of the Ottoman army. They had heard with affright the noisy exclamations of the Turks; but the sudden silence which followed them redoubled their alarm. The light from the enemy’s fires was reflected from the summits of the towers and from the domes of the churches, and rendered the darkness which covered the city more awful. Constantinople, in which the labours of industry and all the ordinary cares of life were suspended, was plunged in a profound calm, which, however, afforded neither sleep nor repose to any one; it was the dismal aspect of a city which some great scourge has rendered desolate. Only around the temples some few plaintive sounds were heard, imploring with the voice of prayer the mercy of heaven. Already might the words of the Persian poet be applied to that unfortunate city, which the conqueror repeated on the morrow in the pride of his triumph: The spider silently spins his web beneath the roofs of the palaces, and the bird of darkness utters his mournful cries upon the towers of Efrasiab.

Constantine called together the principal leaders of the garrison to deliberate upon the dangers which threatened the empire. In a pathetic discourse, he endeavoured to revive the courage and the hopes of his companions in arms; speaking to the Greeks of patriotism, and to the Latin auxiliaries of religion and humanity, he exhorted them all to have patience, but above all to preserve concord. The warriors who were present at this last council, listened to the emperor in melancholy silence; they did not dare to interrogate each other upon the means of defence, which all knew to be useless. They embraced each other with tears, and returned to the ramparts, filled with the most sinister forebodings.

The emperor entered the church of St. Sophia, where he received the sacrament of the communion; the sadness which was observable on his countenance, the pious humility with which he solicited forgetfulness of injuries, pardon for his faults, the touching words which he addressed to the people, which resembled eternal adieus, redoubled the general consternation. The sun of the last day of the Roman empire arose: it was the 29th of May; the signal for assault was given to the Turkish army before dawn: the multitude of Mussulman soldiers rushed towards the walls of the city. The attack was made at the same time on the side of the port, and near the gate of St. Romanus. In the first charge, the assailants everywhere met with a firm resistance; the Catalans and the Genoese did all that the courage of Franks could effect. PalÆologus fought at the head of the Greeks, and the sight alone of the imperial banner filled the Ottoman soldiers with terror. Three hundred archers from the isle of Crete, sustained gloriously the ancient renown of the Cretans for their skill with the bow. Among this brave band it is but just to point out Cardinal Isidorus, who had caused the fortifications he was charged to protect to be repaired at his own expense, and who fought till the end of the siege, at the head of the soldiers he had brought from Italy. History likewise owes great praise to the monks of St. Basil, who had no doubt adopted the party of the union, and whose valour and glorious death expiated the blind and fatal obstinacy of the Byzantine clergy.

The historian Phrantza compares the close ranks of the Mussulmans to an extended tightened cord, which might have been placed round the city. The towers which defended the gate St. Romanus crumbled away beneath the blows of the rams and the discharges of the Ottoman artillery. The exterior walls were carried; the dead and the founded, confounded with the ruins, filled up the ditches. And yet upon this horrible field of battle the defenders of Byzantium fought still; nothing could weary their constancy nothing could shake their courage.

After two hours of frightful conflict, Mahomet advanced with his chosen troops and ten thousand janissaries. He appeared in the midst of them, with his mace in his hand, like the angel of destruction; his threatening looks animated the ardour of his soldiers, and he pointed out to them by his gestures the points that were to be attacked. Behind the battalions he led, a troop of those men whom despotism charges with the execution of its vengeance, punished or constrained all who wished to fly, and forced them forward to the carnage. The dust which arose from the steps of the combatants, with the smoke of the artillery, covered both the army and the city. The clang of the trumpets, the crash of the ruins, the explosion of the cannons, and the shock of arms completely drowned the voices of the leaders. The janissaries fought in disorder; and Constantine, who had remarked it, was exhorting his soldiers to make one last effort, when the aspect of the fight became all at once changed. Justinian having been struck by an arrow, the pain of the wound was so intense as to force him to quit the field of battle. The Genoese and most of the Latin auxiliaries followed his example. The Greeks, left alone, are soon overwhelmed by numbers; the Turks pass the ramparts, get possession of the towers, and break open the gates. Constantine fought still; but soon, covered with wounds, he fell among the heap of dead, and Constantinople was without a head and without defenders.

What a spectacle is that of an empire which has but one moment of existence left, and which is about to finish amidst the furies of war, and beneath the sword of barbarians! All at once every tie of society is broken; religion, patriotism, nature have no longer laws that can be invoked; even wisdom and experience can yield none but useless counsels. All the ascendancy and splendour of virtue, genius, or even valour, have no longer power to distinguish or protect the citizens. Those magnificent palaces which constituted the pride of princes, nobody possesses them now. Among all the numerous edifices of a great capital, no one can find an asylum or an abode. The city has no longer warriors or magistrates, nobles or plebeians, poor or rich; the whole population is but a troop of slaves, who await with terror the presence of an irritated master. Such was Constantinople at the moment the conquerors were preparing to enter it.

When some of those who had defended the ramparts retreated into the city, announcing the coming of the Turks, they could not obtain belief; when the Turkish battalions came pouring in, the people, says the Greek historian Ducas, “were half dead with fear, and could scarcely breathe.” The multitude rushed about the streets, without knowing whither to go, and uttering piercing cries. Women, children, and old people flocked to the churches, as if the altars of Christ could prove an asylum against the savage disciples of Mahomet!

It is not our task to describe the disasters which followed the taking of Constantinople. The massacre of the unarmed inhabitants, the city given up to pillage, holy places profaned, virgins and matrons overwhelmed with outrages, an entire population loaded with chains; such are the horrible pictures that are to be found in the annals of the Turks, the Greeks, and the Latins. Such was the fate of that city which frequent revolutions had covered with ruins, and which became at length the ridicule and the prey of a nation it had long despised. If there be anything consolatory amidst so many distressing scenes, it is the virtue of Constantine,[71] who would not survive his country, and whose death was the last glory of the empire of the East.[72]

When we consider the weakness of the Greek empire and the power of its enemies, we are astonished it was able to resist so long. The Ottomans were governed by all the passions which favour conquests; the Greeks had not one of the qualities which are useful in defence: to be convinced of this, we have but to see how the two nations acted. When Mahomet proclaimed his enterprise, the Ottomans flocked to his army from all parts of his empire; whilst at the first report of the siege, a great part of the population of Constantinople deserted the city. We have seen that the dervises encouraged the Mussulman soldiers, and held up to them the war against the Greeks as a holy war. The Greek priests, on the contrary, discouraged the defenders of Byzantium, and were not far from considering the resistance of Constantine as a sacrilegious action. During the assaults made upon the imperial city, the Turkish soldiers, to fill up the ditches, cast into them their tents and their baggage, preferring victory to all they possessed. It is well known that at the same time the richest Greeks were employed in burying their wealth, preferring treasures to patriotism. We could add other remarkable features, but these quite sufficiently show on which side the strength was. What most strongly foretold the ruin of Byzantium, was the small degree of confidence the Greeks had in the duration of their empire. Never did the ancient Romans more clearly show the power and ascendancy of their patriotism, than when they designated Rome, the eternal city. Constantinople saw the number of its defenders diminish, and their courage became weaker, in proportion with the facility with which the sinister predictions of its approaching ruin found credit among the people.

When Byzantium, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, fell into the hands of the Latins, the empire still possessed great means of defence, and yet twenty thousand Crusaders achieved the conquest of it; which places the valour of the Franks much above that of the Turks. This would perhaps be the best place to examine what was the influence of the crusades over the destiny of the empire of the East. In the first expedition of the Latins, Asia Minor was delivered from the Turks, who were already masters of Nice, and threatened Constantinople; but the Crusaders sold the services they had rendered at too high a price: on the one part, violence, on the other, perfidy, disturbed the harmony that ought to have subsisted between the Greeks and the Latins. At length the taking of Constantinople by the Franks was a mortal blow to the empire of Byzantium. Amidst the war, schism became enlarged by hatred; and schism, in its turn, doubled the reciprocal hatred. This division favoured the progress of the Turks, and opened the gates of Constantinople to them.