nay, the last remains of his inheritance. [47] By such
shameful or ruinous expedients, he once more returned to Romania, with
an army of thirty thousand soldiers, whose numbers were doubled in the
apprehension of the Greeks. His first despatches to France and England
announced his victories and his hopes: he had reduced the country round
the capital to the distance of three days' journey; and if he succeeded
against an important, though nameless, city, (most probably Chiorli,)
the frontier would be safe and the passage accessible. But these
expectations (if Baldwin was sincere) quickly vanished like a dream: the
troops and treasures of France melted away in his unskilful hands; and
the throne of the Latin emperor was protected by a dishonorable alliance
with the Turks and Comans. To secure the former, he consented to bestow
his niece on the unbelieving sultan of Cogni; to please the latter, he
complied with their Pagan rites; a dog was sacrificed between the two
armies; and the contracting parties tasted each other's blood, as
a pledge of their fidelity. [48] In the palace, or prison, of
Constantinople, the successor of Augustus demolished the vacant houses
for winter fuel, and stripped the lead from the churches for the daily
expense of his family. Some usurious loans were dealt with a scanty hand
by the merchants of Italy; and Philip, his son and heir, was pawned at
Venice as the security for a debt. [49] Thirst, hunger, and nakedness,
are positive evils: but wealth is relative; and a prince who would be
rich in a private station, may be exposed by the increase of his wants
to all the anxiety and bitterness of poverty.

[Footnote 45: See the reign of Baldwin II. till his expulsion from
Constantinople, in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 1--34, the end l.
v. c. 1--33.]

[Footnote 46: Matthew Paris relates the two visits of Baldwin II. to the
English court, p. 396, 637; his return to Greece armata manu, p. 407
his letters of his nomen formidabile, &c., p. 481, (a passage which has
escaped Ducange;) his expulsion, p. 850.]

[Footnote 47: Louis IX. disapproved and stopped the alienation of
Courtenay (Ducange, l. iv. c. 23.) It is now annexed to the
royal demesne but granted for a term (_engage_) to the family of
Boulainvilliers. Courtenay, in the election of Nemours in the Isle de
France, is a town of 900 inhabitants, with the remains of a castle,
(Melanges tires d'une Grande Bibliotheque, tom. xlv. p. 74--77.)]

[Fo