In the depth of their misery, the Greeks of the conquered provinces scarcely dared to lift their eyes to the sovereigns of Byzantium, who had not had the courage to defend them, and therefore left them no hope that they would assist them in their troubles. In the midst of revolutions and civil wars, the Greek empire was hastening to its fall. Since the reign of Heraclius, Constantinople had seen eleven of its emperors put to death in their own palace. Six of these masters of the world had terminated their days in the obscurity of cloisters; several had been mutilated, deprived of sight, and sent into exile; the purple, stained and degraded by so many revolutions, decorated only wicked and contemptible princes, or men without character or virtue. Their whole employment was their own personal safety; and they were compelled to share their power with the accomplices of their crimes, of whom they lived in a constant state of dread. They frequently sacrificed cities and provinces, to purchase from their enemies a few moments of security, and appeared to have nothing to ask of fortune beyond the existence of the empire during their own worthless lives.
The Greeks still cherished great names and great remembrances, of which they were proud, but which only served to show their present weakness and degradation. In the midst of the luxury of Asia and the monuments of Greece and Rome, they were scarcely less barbarous than other nations. In their theological disputes they had lost the true spirit of the Evangelists; among them everything was corrupted, even religion. A universal bigotry, says Montesquieu, depressed their courage and paralyzed the whole empire. They neglected the dangers of their country, and became zealots for a relic or for a sect. In war, superstition pointed out to the Greeks lucky and unlucky days, in which a general ought or ought not to give battle; and as religion inspired in them nothing beyond an apathetic resignation in reverses, they consoled themselves for the loss of provinces by accusing their inhabitants of heresy.
Among the Greeks, stratagem and perfidy were decorated with the name of policy, and received the same encomiums as valour; they esteemed it as glorious to deceive their enemies as to conquer them. Their soldiers were followed to the seat of war by light chariots, which carried their arms; and they had perfected every machine which could supply the place of courage in either sieges or battles. Their armies displayed great military pomp, but were deficient in soldiers. The only thing they inherited from their ancestors was a turbulent and seditious spirit, which mixed itself with their effeminated manners, and was sure to break out when their country was threatened with danger. Discord unceasingly reigned among both the army and the people; and they continued madly to dispute the right to an empire whose very existence was menaced, and blindly gave up its defence to barbarians and strangers. In short, the corruption of the Greeks was so great, that they could neither have endured a good prince nor good laws. Nicephorus Phocas, who had formed the project of re-establishing discipline, died assassinated. Zimisces had also paid with his life for his efforts to rouse the Greeks from their pusillanimous degradation. When the emperor Romanus-Diogenes was made prisoner by the Turks, his misfortunes were the signal for a fresh revolt against his person. Sent back with honours by the sultan of Persia, he met with nothing but executioners in an empire he had endeavoured to defend, and died with misery and despair in a desert island of the Propontis.
Whilst the empire of the East approached near to its fall, and appeared sapped by time and corruption, the institutions of the West were in their infancy. The empire and the laws of Charlemagne no longer existed. Nations had no relations with each other, and mistaking their political interests, made wars without considering their consequences or their dangers, and concluded peace, without being at all aware whether it was advantageous or not. Royal authority was nowhere sufficiently strong to arrest the progress of anarchy and the abuses of feudalism. At the same time that Europe was full of soldiers, and covered with strong castles, the states themselves were without support against their enemies, and had not an army to defend them. In the midst of general confusion, there was no security but in camps and fortresses, by turns the safeguards and the terror of the towns and the country. The largest cities held out no asylum to liberty, and the life of man was reckoned so trifling an object, that impunity for murder could be purchased with a few pieces of money. Frequently, to detect crime, the judges had recourse to water, fire, and iron; upon the blind and dumb evidence of the elements, victims were condemned to death; it was sword in hand that justice was invoked; it was by the sword that the reparation of wrongs and injuries was to be obtained. No one would then have been understood who would have spoken of the rights of nature, or the rights of man; the language of the barons and the lords comprised only such words as treated of war; war was the only science, the only policy of either princes or states.
Nevertheless, this barbarism of the nations of the West did not at all resemble that of the Turks, whose religion and manners repelled every species of civilization or cultivation, nor that of the Greeks, who were nothing but a corrupted and degenerated people. Whilst the one exhibited all the vices of a state almost savage, and the other all the corruption of decay; something heroical and generous was mingled with the barbarous manners of the Franks, which resembled the passions of youth, and gave promise of a better future. The Turks were governed by a gross barbarism, which made them despise all that was noble or great; the Greeks were possessed by a learned and polished barbarism, which filled them with disdain for heroism or the military virtues. The Franks were as brave as the Turks, and set a higher value on glory than any other people. The principle of honour, which gave birth to chivalry in Europe, directed their bravery, and sometimes assumed the guise of justice and virtue.
The Christian religion, which the Greeks had reduced to little formulæ and the vain practices of superstition, was, with them, incapable of inspiring either great designs or noble thoughts. Among the nations of the West, as they were yet unacquainted with the disputed dogmas of Christianity, it had more empire over their minds, it disposed their hearts more to enthusiasm, and formed amongst them, at once, both saints and heroes.
Although religion might not always preach its doctrines with success, and its influence was subject to abuse, it had a tendency to soften the manners of the barbarous people that had invaded Europe; it afforded a holy authority to the weak; it inspired a salutary fear in the strong, and frequently corrected the injustice of human laws.
In the midst of the darkness which covered Europe, the Christian religion alone preserved the memory of times past, and kept up some degree of emulation among men. It preserved, also, for happier days, the language of the royal people, the only one capable of expressing the grand and noble ideas of moral virtue, in which the genius of legislation had elevated its most splendid monuments. Whilst despotism and anarchy pervaded the cities and the kingdoms of the West, the people invoked religion against tyranny, and the princes called in its aid against license and revolt. Often, mid the troubles of states, the title of Christian inspired more respect, and awakened more enthusiasm than did the name of citizen in ancient Rome. As the Christian religion had preceded all the then existing institutions, it naturally remained for a long time surrounded by the veneration and love of the people. Under more than one relation the nations appeared to recognise no other legislators than the fathers of the councils, no other code than that of the gospel and the holy Scriptures. Europe might be considered as a religious society, wherein the preservation of the faith was the principal interest, and in which men belonged more to the church than to the country. In such a state of things it was easy to inflame the minds of the people, by showing them that the cause of religion and of Christians stood in need of defence.
Ten years before the invasion of Asia Minor by the Turks, Michael Ducas, the successor of Romanus-Diogenes, had implored the assistance of the pope and the princes of the West. He had promised