d not Baldwin I, or Henry his uncle, or John de Brienne
his father-in-law have been able to effect with an army of thirty
thousand soldiers of the West? But Baldwin the Incapable did next to
nothing.

By this time the strip of country remaining to the Emperor was only
that immediately surrounding the city. All the rest was in the hands
of Greek or of Bulgarian. When these were at war, the city was safe;
when these were united, the city was every moment in danger of
falling. Baldwin used his new recruits in gaining possession of the
country for a distance of three days' journey round his capital--about
sixty miles in all--which was something. But how was the position to
be maintained or to be improved? There were no revenues in that
bankrupt city, from whose port the trade had passed away, and which
had lost the command of the narrow seas. What was the condition of the
citizens we know not. That of the imperial household was such that the
Emperor's servants were fain to demolish empty houses for fuel, and to
strip churches of the lead upon their roofs to supply the daily wants
of his family. He sent his son Philip to Venice as security for a
debt; he borrowed at enormous interest of the merchants of Italy; and
when all else failed, and the money which he had raised at such
ruinous sacrifices had melted away, and his soldiers were clamoring
for pay, he remembered the holy relics yet remaining to the city, in
spite of the cartloads carried off during the great sack of 1204, and
resolved to raise more money upon them.

There was, first of all, the Crown of Thorns. This had been already
pledged in Venice for the sum of thirteen thousand one hundred and
thirty-four pieces of gold to the Venetians. As the money was spent
and the relic could not be redeemed within the time, the Venetians
were preparing to seize it. They would have been within their right.
But Baldwin conceived an idea, so clever that it must have been
suggested by a Greek, which, if successfully carried out, would result
in the attainment of much more money by its means. He would _give_ it
to Louis IX of France. A relic of such importance might be pawned, it
might be given, but it could not be sold. Therefore Baldwin gave it to
King Louis. By this plan the Venetians were tricked of their relic, on
which they had counted; the debt was transferred to France, which
easily paid it; the precious object itself, to which Frederick II
granted a free passage through h