Blois,
who involved the emperor in his rashness and ruin. The Comans, of the
Parthian or Tartar school, fled before their first charge; but after
a career of two leagues, when the knights and their horses were almost
breathless, they suddenly turned, rallied, and encompassed the heavy
squadrons of the Franks. The count was slain on the field; the emperor
was made prisoner; and if the one disdained to fly, if the other
refused to yield, their personal bravery made a poor atonement for their
ignorance, or neglect, of the duties of a general. [26]

[Footnote 26: Nicetas, from ignorance or malice, imputes the defeat to
the cowardice of Dandolo, (p. 383;) but Villehardouin shares his own
glory with his venerable friend, qui viels home ere et gote ne veoit,
mais mult ere sages et preus et vigueros, (No. 193.) * Note: Gibbon
appears to me to have misapprehended the passage of Nicetas. He says,
"that principal and subtlest mischief. that primary cause of all the
horrible miseries suffered by the _Romans_," i. e. the Byzantines. It is
an effusion of malicious triumph against the Venetians, to whom he
always ascribes the capture of Constantinople.--M.]

Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part II.

Proud of his victory and his royal prize, the Bulgarian advanced to
relieve Adrianople and achieve the destruction of the Latins. They
must inevitably have been destroyed, if the marshal of Romania had not
displayed a cool courage and consummate skill; uncommon in all ages,
but most uncommon in those times, when war was a passion, rather than
a science. His grief and fears were poured into the firm and faithful
bosom of the doge; but in the camp he diffused an assurance of
safety, which could only be realized by the general belief. All day he
maintained his perilous station between the city and the Barbarians:
Villehardouin decamped in silence at the dead of night; and his masterly
retreat of three days would have deserved the praise of Xenophon and
the ten thousand. In the rear, the marshal supported the weight of the
pursuit; in the front, he moderated the impatience of the fugitives;
and wherever the Comans approached, they were repelled by a line of
impenetrable spears. On the third day, the weary troops beheld the sea,
the solitary town of Rodosta, [27] and their friends, who had landed from
the Asiatic shore. They embraced, they wept; but they united their arms
and counsels; and in his broth