“I am a soldier,” said he, “and will boldly enter the list with my accusers; but a layman, a sinner like myself, is not endowed with the gift of miracles.  Your piety, most holy prelate, may deserve the interposition of Heaven, and from your hands I will receive the fiery globe, the pledge of my innocence.”  The archbishop started, the emperor smiled, and the absolution or pardon of Michael was approved by rewards and new services.’  The voice of the people and the favour of the army placed the crown on his head, in recompense for his military exploits and his public merits.  With his accession terminated the reign of the last of the Latin emperors at Constantinople (Baldwin ii.), and Michael became the founder of the Grecian dynasty.

The labours of the new monarch to retrieve the calamities of war, by encouraging industry, planting colonies, and extending trade, were deserving of all praise.  His ambition raised up against him many enemies, spiritual and temporal; but if his policy was not always judicious, he increased his power and his fame by greatly enlarging his dominions.  It was by his intrigues that the revolt of Sicily was instigated.  A rude insult to a noble damsel by a Frank soldier, during a procession on the vigil of Easter (1282), spread the flame of insurrection over the whole island, and 8000 Franks were exterminated in a promiscuous massacre, which has obtained the name of the ‘Sicilian Vespers.’  His son and successor, Andronicus, was reckoned a learned and virtuous prince; but his long reign is chiefly memorable for the disputes of the Greek church, the invasion of the Catalans, and the rise of the Ottoman power.  He associated with him in the administration his son Michael, at the age of eighteen; and upon the premature death of the latter, his son Andronicus, the emperor’s favourite, became the colleague of his grandfather.  The reign of the elder Andronicus was consumed in civil discord and disputes with his family, the young princes having raised the standard of revolt in order to get possession of the throne.  He was at length compelled to abdicate; and assuming the monastic habit, he spent the last few years of his life in a cell, blind and wretched, his only consolation being the promise of a more splendid crown in heaven than he had enjoyed on earth.

After a series of inglorious struggles among the princes of the imperial house, the crown settled, in 1391, on Manuel, whose reign, however, was little else than a train of disasters.  His capital was besieged by Amurath, and the Turks were masters of nearly the whole of his dominions, which had now shrunk into a small corner of Thrace, between the Propontis and the Black Sea, about fifty miles in length and thirty in breadth.  To retrieve his fortunes, Manuel resolved on a journey to foreign countries, believing that the sight of a distressed monarch would draw tears and supplies from the sternest barbarians.  From Italy he proceeded to the coast of France, where