er's absence, Count Henry assumed the
regency of the empire, at once in a state of childhood and caducity. [28]
If the Comans withdrew from the summer heats, seven thousand Latins, in
the hour of danger, deserted Constantinople, their brethren, and their
vows. Some partial success was overbalanced by the loss of one hundred
and twenty knights in the field of Rusium; and of the Imperial domain,
no more was left than the capital, with two or three adjacent fortresses
on the shores of Europe and Asia. The king of Bulgaria was resistless
and inexorable; and Calo-John respectfully eluded the demands of the
pope, who conjured his new proselyte to restore peace and the emperor to
the afflicted Latins. The deliverance of Baldwin was no longer, he said,
in the power of man: that prince had died in prison; and the manner of
his death is variously related by ignorance and credulity. The lovers
of a tragic legend will be pleased to hear, that the royal captive was
tempted by the amorous queen of the Bulgarians; that his chaste refusal
exposed him to the falsehood of a woman and the jealousy of a savage;
that his hands and feet were severed from his body; that his bleeding
trunk was cast among the carcasses of dogs and horses; and that he
breathed three days, before he was devoured by the birds of prey. [29]
About twenty years afterwards, in a wood of the Netherlands, a hermit
announced himself as the true Baldwin, the emperor of Constantinople,
and lawful sovereign of Flanders. He related the wonders of his escape,
his adventures, and his penance, among a people prone to believe and to
rebel; and, in the first transport, Flanders acknowledged her long-lost
sovereign. A short examination before the French court detected the
impostor, who was punished with an ignominious death; but the Flemings
still adhered to the pleasing error; and the countess Jane is accused
by the gravest historians of sacrificing to her ambition the life of an
unfortunate father. [30]

[Footnote 27: The truth of geography, and the original text of
Villehardouin, (No. 194,) place Rodosto three days' journey (trois
jornees) from Adrianople: but Vigenere, in his version, has most
absurdly substituted _trois heures_; and this error, which is not
corrected by Ducange has entrapped several moderns, whose names I shall
spare.]

[Footnote 28: The reign and end of Baldwin are related by Villehardouin
and Nicetas, (p. 386--416;) and their omissions are supplied by Duca