Crusaders embarked from Provence or Italy; others, led by the Count
of Flanders and the Marquis of Montferrat, proceeded to Venice, with the
intention of embarking there. The party last mentioned were persuaded by
the skillful Dandolo to aid him in an attack upon Constantinople, upon
the pretext of upholding the rights of Alexis Angelus, the son of Isaac
Angelus, who had fought the Emperor Frederick and was the successor of
those Comnenuses who had connived at the destruction of the armies of
Conrad and Louis VII.

Twenty thousand men had the boldness to attack the ancient capital of
the world, which had at least two hundred thousand defenders. They
assailed it by sea and land, and captured it. The usurper fled, and
Alexis was replaced upon the throne, but was unable to retain his seat:
the Greeks made an insurrection in favor of Murzupha, but the Latins
took possession of Constantinople after a more bloody assault than the
first, and placed upon the throne their chief, Count Baldwin of
Flanders. This empire lasted a half-century. The remnant of the Greeks
took refuge at Nice and Trebizond.

A sixth expedition was directed against Egypt by John of Brienne, who,
notwithstanding the successful issue of the horrible siege of Damietta,
was obliged to give way before the constantly-increasing efforts of the
Mussulman population. The remains of his splendid army, after a narrow
escape from drowning in the Nile, deemed themselves very fortunate in
being able to purchase permission to re-embark for Europe.

The court of Rome, whose interest it was to keep up the zeal of
Christendom in these expeditions, of which it gathered all the fruits,
encouraged the German princes to uphold the tottering realm at
Jerusalem. The Emperor Frederick and the Landgrave of Hesse embarked at
Brundusium in 1227, at the head of forty thousand chosen soldiers. The
landgrave, and afterward Frederick himself, fell sick, and the fleet put
in at Tarentum, from which port the emperor, irritated by the
presumption of Gregory IX., who excommunicated him because he was too
slow in the gratification of his wishes, at a later date proceeded with
ten thousand men, thus giving way to the fear inspired by the pontifical
thunders.

Louis IX., animated by the same feeling of fear, or impelled, if we may
credit Ancelot, by motives of a higher character, set out from
Aigues-Mortes, in 1248, with one hundred and twenty large vessels, and
fifteen hundred smaller bo