ng and sagacity, by
Choiseul-Daillecourt, _De l'Influence des Croisades sur l'etat
des peuples de l'Europe_, Paris, 1809.]

[Sidenote: The Fourth Crusade.]

There can be no doubt that in these ways the Crusades were for our
forefathers in Europe the most bracing and stimulating events that
occurred in the whole millennium between the complicated disorders of
the fifth century and the outburst of maritime discovery in the
fifteenth. How far they justified themselves from the military point of
view, it is not so easy to say. On the one hand, they had much to do
with retarding the progress of the enemy for two hundred years; they
overwhelmed the Seljukian Turks so effectually that their successors,
the Ottomans, did not become formidable until about 1300, after the last
crusading wave had spent its force. On the other hand, the Fourth
Crusade, with better opportunities than any of the others for striking a
crushing blow at the Moslem, played false to Christendom, and in 1204
captured and despoiled Constantinople in order to gratify Venice's
hatred of her commercial rival and superior. It was a sorry piece of
business, and one cannot look with unmixed pleasure at the four superb
horses that now adorn the front of the church of St. Mark as a trophy of
this unhallowed exploit.[322] One cannot help feeling that but for this
colossal treachery, the great city of Constantine, to which our own
civilization owes more than can ever be adequately told, might, perhaps,
have retained enough strength to withstand the barbarian in 1453, and
thus have averted one of the most lamentable catastrophes in the history
of mankind.

[Footnote 322: They were taken from Chios in the fourth century
by the emperor Theodosius, and placed in the hippodrome at
Constantinople, whence they were taken by the Venetians in
1204. The opinion that "the results of the Fourth Crusade upon
European civilization were altogether disastrous" is ably set
forth by Mr. Pears, _The Fall of Constantinople_, London, 1885,
and would be difficult to refute. Voltaire might well say in
this case, "Ainsi le seul fruit des chretiens dans leurs
barbares croisades fut d'exterminer d'autres chretiens. Ces
croises, qui ruinaient l'empire auraient pu, bien plus aisement
que tous leurs predecesseurs, chasser les Turcs de l'Asie."
_Essai sur les Moeurs_, t