volume one

HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. 89
by the predictions of astrologers and the opinions spread
among his people, became more serious as the Crusaders
advanced to^Yards liis capital.*
Seated on a throne from which he had hurled his master
and benefactor, he could liave no faith ui virtue, and was
better aware than another what ambition might dictate. He
had displayed some courage in gaining the purple, but only
governed by dissimulation,— the ordinary policy of the
Grreeks and all weak states. If Anna Comnena has made
an accomplished prince of him, the Latins have represented
him as a perfidious and cruel monarch. Impartial history,
which alike rejects the exaggerations of eulogy or satire,
can see nothing in Alexis but a weak ruler, of a superstitious
character, led away much more by a love of vain splendour
and display than by any passion for glory. He had it in his
power to put himself at the head of the Crusaders, and
reconquer Asia Minor, by marchiug with the Latins to
Jerusalem. This great enterprize alarmed his weakness.
His timid prudence made him believe that it would be sufficient
to deceive the Crusaders to have nothing to fear from
them, and to receive a vain homage from them in order to
profit by their victories. Everything appeared good and just
to him which would assist in extricating him from a position
of which his policy increased the dangers, and which the
unsteadiness of his projects made every day more embar-
rassing. The more earnestly he endeavoured to inspire
confidence, the more suspicious he rendered his good faith
By seeking to inspire fear, he discovered all the alarms which
he himself experienced. As soon as he had notice of the
march of the princes of the crusade, he sent them ambassadors
to compliment them, and to penetrate their intentions.
In the meanwhile, he placed troops everywhere to harass
them on their passage.
The count de A^ermandois, cast by a tempest on the shores
of Epirus, received the greatest honours from the governor
of Durazzo, and was led a prisoner to Constantinople by the
orders of Alexis. The Greek emperor hoped that the brother
* Nothing can be more diffuse than historians upon the march of the
different princes of the crusade ; each body of the Christian army has its
particular historian, which is very injurious to perspicuity: it is exceed-
ingly difficult to follow so many different relations.