Geoffrey de Villehardouin, Mathieu de Montmorency, and two Venetian lords rode to the gate of Blachernae, not quite trusting these Greeks. They dismounted when the gate opened and entered the palace, walking past members of the Varangian guard who stood as usual with axes in hand. There on a golden throne they saw Isaac Angelus dressed in costly robes, old and blind. There at his side a most beautiful woman, his wife, sister to the king of Hungary. Around them such a press of nobles and ladies that it was difficult to move. Here were mosaics depicting famous heroes, Ulysses, Alexander the Great, Achilles, Agamemnon. The ceiling glowed with luminous tesserae, water spouted from bronze fountains.
After these envoys talked with the emperor they felt reassured. They mounted their horses and rode back to camp. Then the young prince was escorted to the palace where his aged father embraced him, weeping for joy. Another throne was brought so he might sit beside his father until by the grace of God he alone should rule.
Isaac Angelus pointed out that if Latins bivouacked on the far side of the Golden Horn there would be less chance of dangerous quarrels. The barons admitted this was true so they moved across to Galata. Nevertheless, Constantinople drew many pilgrims to visit. They admired churches and palaces, gazed at stupendous wealth and holy relics. They looked toward the distant heliograph winking messages from a hill in Asia, messages that could be understood from a balcony in front of the senate. They visited the gate known as the Mantle of God, surmounted by a golden globe that protected the city from thunderbolts. They wondered at the triumphal gate with two elephants cast in copper. This gate was not opened except when the emperor returned in triumph after subjugating foreign lands. They saw a marble column fifty toises in height, wrapped in copper, bound with iron hoops. Atop this column an estrade holding a great copper horse, some emperor from ages past astride the animal, holding out one hand as if to chastise unbelievers. This might be Heraclius, some thought. Others thought Justinian. There was writing on the pedestal which declared that the Saracen would find no truce. Moreover, Constantinople was home to twenty thousand eunuchs. Pilgrims contemplated such remarkable sights and nudged one another. They looked up at two enormously high columns, each with a hut on top where a hermit lived. Each column had a little door through which one might enter and climb a staircase in order to watch the hermit. On the outside of these columns were prophecies that could not be understood until they had been fulfilled. Here were carvings that depicted strange ships, ladders, assailants with cropped hair who dressed in chain mail.
It happened that one day when certain Frankish lords went to the palace to visit Isaac Angelus they encountered a man with black skin and a cross burned on the middle of his forehead. They were astonished because they had not ever seen a man whose skin was black, nor any man with a cross burnt on his forehead. Interpreters asked if they knew who this man was. They replied that they did not. They were told that he was the king of Nubia who had come on pilgrimage to Constantinople and was lodged at a very rich abbey. The Franks talked to him through interpreters and asked where his country was. He answered that his country lay one hundred days’ travel below Jerusalem and sixty of his subjects accompanied him, but when they reached Jerusalem only ten were alive. And by the time they reached Constantinople there were only two. He said he would go on pilgrimage to Rome, thence to Santiago de Compostela in Spain because he wished to view the uncorrupted body of Saint James, miraculously transported there after martyrdom in Judea. Then, said this black king, from Santiago de Compostela he would return to Jerusalem and there would he die, if he should live so long. He said furthermore that all of his people in Nubia were Christian and when a child was baptized a cross was imprinted on its forehead with a hot iron. The Frankish lords, hearing this, wondered greatly.
In the cathedral of Sancta Sophia, on the first day of August in that year of our gracious Lord 1203, young Prince Alexius and his aged father were simultaneously crowned. Yet the people seemed indifferent, as if the ceremony had lost meaning. And each day brought quarrels between citizens and Latin soldiers because the people did not like armed foreigners dressed in chain mail who swaggered about the streets cursing, drinking wine, and staring rudely. Also, they began to dislike the youthful emperor who was propped on his throne by Franks and Venetians. They watched him go to the foreign encampment where he gambled and otherwise debauched himself. Nicetas Choniates asserts that he let drunken Franks wear the imperial crown. So the Franks, having no respect for one who demeaned himself, treated him with contempt. They snatched off his crown, replaced it with a wool cap. Young Alexius vainly sought to ingratiate himself by imitating his drunken hosts. Such was the heir to Constantine, Justinian, and Basil.
He confessed to Enrico Dandolo that his people despised him. They show a pleasant countenance, he admitted, yet they do not love me. If the Franks should leave Constantinople and proceed to the Holy Land, he said, he would lose his empire and his life. He implored them to stay, at least until spring, vowing to provide whatever the army required.
Presently, upon the advice of counselors, he set out with a huge following to establish peace throughout the realm and confirm his authority. While he was absent certain people set fire to
