422 THE DECLINE AND FALL nation bom to ti'emble and obey. Their resentment prompted them to show that they might have been useful friends, since they could be dangerous enemies ; their nerves were braced by adversity ; whatever was learned or holy, whatever was noble or valiant, rolled away into the independent states of Trebizond, Epirus, and Nice ; and a single patrician is marked by the am- biguous praise of attachment and loyalty to the Franks. The vul- gar herd of the cities and the country would have gladly submitted to a mild and regular servitude ; and the transient disorders of war would have been obliterated by some years of industry and peace. But peace was banished, and industry was crushed, in the disorders of the feudal system. The Roman emperors of Constantinople, if they were endowed with abilities, were armed with power for the protection of their subjects ; their laws were wise and their administration was simple. The Latin throne was filled by a titular prince, the chief, and often the servant, of his licentious confederates : the fiefs of the empire, from a king- dom to a castle, were held and ruled by the sword of the barons ; and their discord, poverty, and ignorance extended their ramifi- cations of tyranny to the most sequestered villages. The Greeks were oppressed by the double weight of the priest, who was in- vested with temporal power, and of the soldier, who was inflamed by fanatic hatred : and the insuperable bar of religion and lan- guage for ever separated the stranger and the native. As long as the crusaders were united at Constantinople, the meraoiy of their conquest and the terror of their arms imposed silence on the captive land ; their dispersion betrayed the smallness of their numbers and the defects of their discipline ; and some failures and mischances revealed the secret that they were not invincible. As the fear of the Greeks abated, their hatred increased. They murmured ; they conspired ; and, before a year of slavery had elapsed, they implored or accepted the succour of a barbarian, whose power they had felt, and whose gratitude they trusted.^^ TheBnigarian The Latin conqucrors had been saluted with a solemn and Im early embassy from John, or Joannice, or Calo-John, the re- volted chief of the Bulgarians and Walachians. He deemed himself their brother, as the votary of the Roman pontiff, from whom he had received the regal title and an holy banner ; and in the subversion of the Greek monarchy he might aspire to 29 I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence, the eight books of the Histoire de C. P. sous 1' Empire des Fran9ois, vhich Ducange has given as a supplement to Villehardouin ; and which, in a barbarous style, deserves the praise of an original and classic work.
