ern blood,
though they had been settled in Normandy for two generations, came, and
after driving out the Saracens from Sicily and Southern Italy, set up two
little kingdoms there. Robert Guiscard, or the Wizard, the first and
cleverest of these Norman kings, had a great wish to gain Greece also,
and had many fights with the troops of the Emperor of the East, Alexis
Comnenus. Their quarrels with him made the Greeks angry and terrified
when all the bravest men of the West wanted to come through their lands
on the Crusade, or Holy War, to deliver Jerusalem from the Saracens.
Then, since the schism between the Churches, the Greeks and the Latins
had learnt scarcely to think of one another as Christians at all, and
certainly they did not behave to one another like Christians, for the
Greeks cunningly robbed, harassed, and deceived the Latins, and the
Latins were harsh, rude, and violent with the Greeks.

In the northern point of the Adriatic Sea lay the city of Venice, built
upon a cluster of little islands. The people had taken refuge there when
Italy was overrun by the barbarians. In course of time these Venetians
had grown to be a mighty and powerful people, whose merchant ships traded
all over the Mediterranean, and whose counsellors were famed for wisdom.
They had shaken off the power of the Greek emperor, and were governed by
a senate and council, with a chosen nobleman at its head, who was called
the Doge, or Duke. Just when the French, Germans, and Italians were
setting off on the Fourth Crusade, in the year 1201, meaning to sail in
Venetian ships, the young Alexius Angelus, son to the emperor Isaac
Angelus, came to beg for help for his poor old father, who had been
thrown into prison by his own brother, with his eyes put out. It was
quite aside from the main work of the Crusade, but the Venetians had
always had a quarrel with the Greek emperors, and they prevailed to turn
the army aside to attack Constantinople. With an immense pair of shears
they cut in twain the great chains which shut in the harbour of the
Golden Horn, and sailed safely in, led by their Doge, Dandolo, who,
though eighty years old, and blind, was as keen on the battle as the
youngest man there.

The French scaled the walls, the usurper fled, and blind old Isaac was
led out of his dungeon, and dressed in his robes again; his son was
crowned to reign with him, and they did everything to please the
Crusaders. Chiefly they made the Patriarch