by others,
who fought so well that the defenders of the tower were either killed
or fled. The example gave new courage to the invaders. The knights who
were in the huissiers, as soon as they saw what had been done, leaped
on shore, placed their ladders against the wall, and shortly captured
four towers. Those on board the fleet concentrated their efforts on
the gates, broke in three of them, and entered the city, while others
landed their horses from the huissiers. As soon as a company of
knights was formed, they entered the city through one of these gates,
and charged for the Emperor's camp. Mourtzouphlos[45] had drawn up his
troops before his tents, but they were unused to contend with men in
heavy armor, and after a fairly obstinate resistance the imperial
troops fled. The Emperor, says Nicetas--who is certainly not inclined
to unduly praise the Emperor, who had deprived him of his post of
_grand logothete_--did his best to rally his troops, but all in vain,
and he had to retreat toward the palace of the Lion's Mouth. The
number of the wounded and dead was _sans fin et sans mesure_.

An indiscriminate slaughter commenced. The invaders spared neither age
nor sex. In order to render themselves safe they set fire to the city
lying to the east of them, and burned everything between the monastery
of Everyetis and the quarter known as Droungarios.[46] So extensive
was the fire, which burned all night and until the next evening, that,
according to the marshal, more houses were destroyed than there were
in the three largest cities in France. The tents of the Emperor and
the imperial palace of Blachern were pillaged, the conquerors making
their head-quarters on the same site at Pantepoptis. It was evening,
and already late, when the crusaders had entered the city, and it was
impossible for them to continue their work of destruction through the
night. They therefore encamped near the walls and towers which they
had captured. Baldwin of Flanders spent the night in the vermilion
tent of the Emperor, his brother Henry in front of the palace of
Blachern, Boniface, the Marquis of Montferrat, on the other side of
the imperial tents in the heart of the city.

The city was already taken. The inhabitants were at length awakened
out of the dream of security into which seventeen unsuccessful
attempts to capture the New Rome[47] had lulled them. Every charm,
pagan and Christian, had been without avail. The easy sloth into which
the pos