rising ambition. It was not to acquire fame, or to diffuse happiness,
that he so eagerly aspired: wealth and impunity were in his eyes the
most precious attributes of a monarch; and his first indiscreet demand
was the sovereignty of some rich and fertile island, where he might lead
a life of independence and pleasure. The emperor was offended by the
loud and frequent intemperance which disturbed his capital; the sums
which his parsimony denied were supplied by the Genoese usurers of Pera;
and the oppressive debt, which consolidated the interest of a faction,
could be discharged only by a revolution. A beautiful female, a matron
in rank, a prostitute in manners, had instructed the younger Andronicus
in the rudiments of love; but he had reason to suspect the nocturnal
visits of a rival; and a stranger passing through the street was pierced
by the arrows of his guards, who were placed in ambush at her door. That
stranger was his brother, Prince Manuel, who languished and died of his
wound; and the emperor Michael, their common father, whose health was in
a declining state, expired on the eighth day, lamenting the loss of
both his children. [7] However guiltless in his intention, the younger
Andronicus might impute a brother's and a father's death to the
consequence of his own vices; and deep was the sigh of thinking and
feeling men, when they perceived, instead of sorrow and repentance, his
ill-dissembled joy on the removal of two odious competitors. By these
melancholy events, and the increase of his disorders, the mind of
the elder emperor was gradually alienated; and, after many fruitless
reproofs, he transferred on another grandson [8] his hopes and affection.
The change was announced by the new oath of allegiance to the reigning
sovereign, and the _person_ whom he should appoint for his successor;
and the acknowledged heir, after a repetition of insults and complaints,
was exposed to the indignity of a public trial. Before the sentence,
which would probably have condemned him to a dungeon or a cell, the
emperor was informed that the palace courts were filled with the armed
followers of his grandson; the judgment was softened to a treaty of
reconciliation; and the triumphant escape of the prince encouraged the
ardor of the younger faction.

[Footnote 6: He was crowned May 21st, 1295, and died October 12th, 1320,
(Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 239.) His brother Theodore, by a second marriage,
inherited the marquisate of Montfer