acteristic was, that they should be struggles between Christianity
and Islamism, between the fruitful civilization of Europe and the
barbarism and stagnation of Asia. Therein consist their originality and
their grandeur. It was certainly on this understanding, and with this
view, that Pope Innocent III., one of the greatest men of the thirteenth
century, seconded with all his might the movement which was at that time
springing up again in favor of a fresh crusade, and which brought about,
in 1202, an alliance between a great number of powerful lords, French,
Flemish, and Italian, and the republic of Venice, for the purpose of
recovering Jerusalem from the infidels. But from the very first, the
ambition, the opportunities, and the private interests of the Venetians,
combined with a recollection of the perfidy displayed by the Greek
emperors, diverted the new crusaders from the design they had proclaimed.
What Bohemond, during the first crusade, had proposed to Godfrey de
Bouillon, and what the Bishop of Langres, during the second, had
suggested to Louis the Young, namely, the capture of Constantinople for
the sake of insuring that of Jerusalem, the first crusaders of the
thirteenth century were led by bias, greed, anger, and spite to take in
hand and accomplish; they conquered Constantinople, and, having once made
that conquest, they troubled themselves no more about Jerusalem.
Founded, May 16th, 1204, in the person of Baldwin IX., Count of Flanders,
the Latin empire of the East existed for seventy years, in the teeth of
many a storm, only to fall once more, in 1273, into the hands of the
Greek emperors, overthrown in 1453 by the Turks, who are still in
possession.

One circumstance, connected rather with literature than politics, gives
Frenchmen a particular interest in this conquest of the Greek empire by
the Latin Christians; for it was a Frenchman, Geoffrey de Villehardouin,
seneschal of Theobald III., Count of Champagne, who, after having been
one of the chief actors in it, wrote the history of it; and his work,
strictly historical as to facts, and admirably epic in description of
character and warmth of coloring, is one of the earliest and finest
monuments of French literature.

But to return to the real crusades.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, whilst the enterprises which
were still called crusades were becoming more and more degenerate in
character and potency, there was born in France, on the