boea,
thence to Rome, and lived twelve or thirteen years longer in
obscurity. When he died, his only son, Philip, assumed the empty title
of emperor of Constantinople, which, Gibbon says, "too bulky and
sonorous for a private name, modestly expired in silence and
oblivion." It took, however, a long time to expire. Two hundred and
fifty years later one of its last holders was the inheritor of so many
shadowy claims that his very name in history is blurred by them. Rene
of Anjou gave himself, among other titles, that of emperor of
Constantinople.

Constantinople was taken, and the Latin Empire destroyed at a blow.
There were, however, still remaining the Venetian merchants, who had
the command of the port, and who might, by holding out until the
return of the ships from Daphnusia, undo all. Alexius set fire to
their houses, but was careful to leave their communications with the
vessels unmolested. They had therefore nothing left but to secure the
safety of their wives, families, and movable property, which they did
by embarking them on board the ships. And when the Daphnusian
expedition returned, they found, to their surprise, that the Greeks
held the whole city except a small portion near the port, and had
manned the walls. A hasty truce was arranged; the merchants loaded
every ship with their families and their property; the Latin fleet
sailed down the Dardanelles, and the Latin Empire in the East was at
an end.

It began with violence and injustice: it ended as it began. There were
six Latin emperors, of whom the first was a gallant soldier; the
second, a sovereign of admirable qualities, and an able administrator;
the third, a plain French knight, who was murdered on his way to
assume the purple buskins; the fourth, a weak and pusillanimous
creature; the fifth, a stout old warrior; and the last, a monarch of
whom nothing good can be said and nothing evil, except that which was
said of Boabdil (called _El Chico_), that he was unlucky. As the
Latins never had the slightest right or title to these possessions in
the East, so the western powers were never impelled to assist them,
and their downfall was merely a matter of time. In the interests of
civilization their occupation of the city seems to have been
unfortunate; they learned nothing for themselves, they taught nothing;
neither East nor West profited. They destroyed the old institutions,
so that the ancient Roman Empire was broken up by their conquest; they
infl