nd sent
her back to Constantinople. Alexius Ducas, who had already divorced two
wives, was willing enough to wed the daughter of Euphrosyne, and after
his execution the hand of the accommodating Eudocia was bestowed on Leo
Sguros, the chief of Argos, Nauplia, and Corinth.

The stories of Euphrosyne and Eudocia are a sufficient confirmation of
the corrupt state of society in the latter days of the Comneni and the
Angeli. Andronicus and his mistresses, and Euphrosyne and her daughter,
are no exaggerated types of the higher classes of the Empire. The clergy
had grown indifferent to the licentiousness of the age, and many bishops
and patriarchs were themselves venal and degraded. The people were too
ready to follow in the footsteps of the higher classes. Therefore,
through the loss of womanly virtue and manly strength, the Empire was on
the verge of ruin.

Thus fell, on April 13, 1204, Constantinople--"The eye of the world, the
ornament of nations, the fairest sight on earth, the mother of churches,
the spring whence flowed the waters of faith, the mistress of orthodox
doctrine, the seat of the sciences, draining the cup mixed for her by
the hand of the Almighty, and consumed by fires as devouring as those
which ruined the five Cities of the Plain."

XV

WOMANHOOD OF THE BYZANTINE DECADENCE

The Byzantine Empire had fallen with its capital Constantinople, and the
Latin Empire of Romania had taken its place. But the rule of the Franks
was too weak to take an abiding hold on the provinces, and, after a
brief and flickering existence, 1204-1261, it passed away, and a Greek
dynasty was once more established in New Rome. While the Ottoman power
was gaining strength, the Greek Empire was suffered to exist; but in the
course of two centuries, through internal corruption and mismanagement,
Byzantine dominion ceased to be an effective force in the world's
affairs, and the city of Constantine easily fell a prey to the
Mohammedan forces.

Though the Crusaders had captured the capital, the provinces refused to
recognize the dominion of the Franks, and three Greek kingdoms were
carved out of the remains of the Byzantine Empire by adventurous spirits
who had left Constantinople rather than fall victims to the Western
conquerors. Theodore Lascaris, the last to strike a blow for the doomed
city, founded across the straits, out of the province of Bithynia, the
empire of Nicaea, though his rights to royal power lay merely in h