The alliance, however, was concluded, and the allies, with an immense army, estimated at a hundred thousand, besides three hundred ships-of-war, sat down before the city and besieged it by sea and land.  The incident that follows reads like a story from the history of Amadis de Gaul.  Gibbon says that he “trembles” to relate it.  While this immense host lay outside his walls; while thirty ships armed with their engines of war menaced his long line of seaward defences in the narrow strait, brave old John de Brienne, who had but one hundred and sixty knights with their following of men-at-arms and archers—–­say two thousand in all—­led forth his little band, and at one furious onset routed the besieging army.  Probably it was mainly composed of the Bulgarian hordes, undisciplined, badly armed, and, like all such hosts, liable to panic.  Perhaps, too, the number of the enemy was by no means so great as is reported, nor were the forces of John de Brienne so small.

Nor was his success limited to the rout of the army, for the citizens, encouraged by their flight, attacked the ships, and succeeded in dragging five-and-twenty of them within the port.  It would appear that the Bulgarians renewed their attempt in the following year, and were again defeated by the old Emperor.  It would have been well for the Latins had his age been less.  He died in the year 1237, and young Baldwin, who was married to his daughter Martha, became sole emperor.  John de Brienne made so great a name that he was compared with Ajax, Odin the Dane, Hector, Roland, and Judas Maccabaeus.  Baldwin, who came after him, might have been compared with any of those kinglings who succeeded Charlemagne, and sat in their palaces while the empire fell to pieces.

His incapacity is proved, if by nothing else, by his singular and uniform ill-luck.  If, after the fight of life is over, no single valiant blow can be remembered, the record is a sorry one indeed.  Baldwin’s difficulties were, it must be owned, very great:  they were so great that for a considerable portion of the four-and-twenty years during which he wore the Roman purple his crown was left him by sufferance, and his manner of reigning was to travel about Europe begging for money.  The Pope proclaimed a crusade for him, but it was extremely difficult to awaken general enthusiasm for a Courtenay in danger of being overthrown by a Lascaris; and the other point, the submission of Constantinople to Rome in things ecclesiastical, could not be said to touch the popular sentiment at all.  The Pope, however, supplemented his exhortation by bestowing upon the indigent Emperor a treasure of indulgences, which he no doubt sold at their marketable value, whatever that was.  One fears that it was not much.  From England he obtained, after an open insult at Dover, a small contribution toward the maintenance of his empire.  Louis IX of France would have rendered him substantial assistance, but for the more pressing claims of the