by Walter Scott
COUNT ROBERT OF PARIS.
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
_Leontius_.-------- That power that kindly spreads The clouds, a signal of impending showers, To warn the wandering linnet to the shade, Beheld without concern expiring Greece, And not one prodigy foretold our fate.
_Demetrius_. A thousand horrid prodigies foretold it: A feeble government, eluded laws, A factious populace, luxurious nobles, And all the maladies of sinking states. When public villany, too strong for justice, Shows his bold front, the harbinger of ruin, Can brave Leontius call for airy wonders, Which cheats interpret, and which fools regard? IRENE, _Act I_.
The close observers of vegetable nature have remarked, that when a newgraft is taken from an aged tree, it possesses indeed in exterior formthe appearance of a youthful shoot, but has in fact attained to thesame state of maturity, or even decay, which has been reached by theparent stem. Hence, it is said, arises the general decline and deaththat about the same season is often observed to spread itself throughindividual trees of some particular species, all of which, derivingtheir vital powers from the parent stock, are therefore incapable ofprotracting their existence longer than it does.
In the same manner, efforts have been made by the mighty of the earthto transplant large cities, states, and communities, by one great andsudden exertion, expecting to secure to the new capital the wealth, thedignity, the magnificent decorations and unlimited extent of theancient city, which they desire to renovate; while, at the same time,they hope to begin a new succession of ages from the date of the newstructure, to last, they imagine, as long, and with as much fame, asits predecessor, which the founder hopes his new metropolis may replacein all its youthful glories. But nature has her laws, which seem toapply to the social, as well as the vegetable system. It appears to bea general rule, that what is to last long should be slowly matured andgradually improved, while every sudden effort, however gigantic, tobring about the speedy execution of a plan calculated to endure forages, is doomed to exhibit symptoms of premature decay from its verycommencement. Thus, in a beautiful Oriental tale, a dervise explains tothe sultan how he had reared the magnificent trees among which theywalked, by nursing their shoots from the seed; and the prince's prideis damped when he reflects, that those plantations, so simply raised,were gathering new vigour from each returning sun, while his ownexhausted cedars, which had been transplanted by one violent effort,were drooping their majestic heads in the Valley of Orez. [Footnote:Tale of Mirglip the Persian, in the Tales of the Genii.]
It has been allowed, I believe, by all men of taste, many of whom havebeen late visitants of Constantinople, that if it were possible tosurvey the whole globe with a view to fixing a seat of universalempire, all who are capable of making such a choice, would give theirpreference to the city of Constantine, as including the greatrecommendations of beauty, wealth, security, and eminence. Yet with allthese advantages of situation and climate, and with all thearchitectural splendour of its churches and halls, its quarries ofmarble, and its treasure-houses of gold, the imperial founder musthimself have learned, that although he could employ all these richmaterials in obedience to his own wish, it was the mind of man itself,those intellectual faculties refined by the ancients to the highestdegree, which had produced the specimens of talent at which men pausedand wondered, whether as subjects of art or of moral labour. The powerof the Emperor might indeed strip other cities of their statues andtheir shrines, in order to decorate that which he had fixed upon as hisnew capital; but the men who had performed great actions, and those,almost equally esteemed, by whom such deeds were celebrated, in poetry,in painting, and in music, had ceased to exist. The nation, thoughstill the most civilised in the world, had passed beyond that period ofsociety, when the desire of fair fame is of itself the sole or chiefmotive for the labour of the historian or the poet, the painter or thestatuary. The slavish and despotic constitution introduced into theempire, had long since entirely destroyed that public spirit whichanimated the free history of Rome, leaving nothing but feeblerecollections, which produced no emulation.
To speak as of an animated substance, if Constantine could haveregenerated his new metropolis, by transfusing into it the vital andvivifying principles of old Rome,--that brilliant spark no longerremained for Constantinople to borrow, or for Rome to lend.
In one most important circumstance, the state of the capital ofConstantine had been totally changed, and unspeakably to its advantage.The world was now Christian, and, with the Pagan code, had got rid ofits load of disgraceful superstition. Nor is there the least doubt,that the better faith produced its natural and desirable fruits insociety, in gradually ameliorating the hearts, and taming the passions,of the people. But while many of the converts were turning meeklytowards their new creed, some, in the arrogance of their understanding,were limiting the Scriptures by their own devices, and others failednot to make religious character or spiritual rank the means of risingto temporal power. Thus it happened at this critical period, that theeffects of this great change in the religion of the country, althoughproducing an immediate harvest, as well as sowing much good seed whichwas to grow hereafter, did not, in the fourth century, flourish so asto shed at once that predominating influence which its principles mighthave taught men to expect.
Even the borrowed splendour, in which Constantine decked his city, borein it something which seemed to mark premature decay. The imperialfounder, in seizing upon the ancient statues, pictures, obelisks, andworks of art, acknowledged his own incapacity to supply their placewith the productions of later genius; and when the world, andparticularly Rome, was plundered to adorn Constantinople, the Emperor,under whom the work was carried on, might be compared to a prodigalyouth, who strips an aged parent of her youthful ornaments, in order todecorate a flaunting paramour, on whose brow all must consider them asmisplaced.
Constantinople, therefore, when in 324 it first arose in imperialmajesty out of the humble Byzantium, showed, even in its birth, andamid its adventitious splendour, as we have already said, someintimations of that speedy decay to which the whole civilised world,then limited within the Roman empire, was internally and imperceptiblytending. Nor was it many ages ere these prognostications of declensionwere fully verified.
In the year 1080, Alexius Comnenus [Footnote: See Gibbon, Chap. xlviii,for the origin and early history of the house of the Comneni.] ascendedthe throne of the Empire; that is, he was declared sovereign ofConstantinople, its precincts and dependencies; nor, if he was disposedto lead a life of relaxation, would the savage incursions of theScythians or the Hungarians frequently disturb the imperial slumbers,if limited to his own capital. It may be supposed that this safety didnot extend much farther; for it is said that the Empress Pulcheria hadbuilt a church to the Virgin Mary, as remote as possible from the gateof the city, to save her devotions from the risk of being interruptedby the hostile yell of the barbarians, and the reigning Emperor hadconstructed a palace near the same spot, and for the same reason.
Alexius Comnenus was in the condition of a monarch who rather derivesconsequence from the wealth and importance of his predecessors, and thegreat extent of their original dominions, than from what remnants offortune had descended to the present generation. This Emperor, exceptnominally, no more ruled over his dismembered provinces, than ahalf-dead horse can exercise power over those limbs, on which thehooded crow and the vulture have already begun to settle and selecttheir prey.
In different parts of his territory, different enemies arose, who wagedsuccessful or dubious war against the Emperor; and, of the numerousnations with whom he was engaged in hostilities, whether the Franksfrom the west, the Turks advancing from the east, the Cumans andScythians pouring their barbarous numbers and unceasing storm of arrowsfrom the north, and the Saracens, or the tribes into which they weredivided, pressing from the south, there was not one for whom theGrecian empire did not spread a tempting repast. Each of these variousenemies had
their own particular habits of war, and a way ofmanoeuvring in battle peculiar to themselves. But the Roman, as theunfortunate subject of the Greek empire was still called, was by farthe weakest, the most ignorant, and most timid, who could be draggedinto the field; and the Emperor was happy in his own good luck, when hefound it possible to conduct a defensive war on a counterbalancingprinciple, making use of the Scythian to repel the Turk, or of boththese savage people to drive back the fiery-footed Frank, whom Peterthe Hermit had, in the time of Alexius, waked to double fury, by thepowerful influence of the crusades.
If, therefore, Alexius Comnenus was, during his anxious seat upon thethrone of the East, reduced to use a base and truckling course ofpolicy--if he was sometimes reluctant to fight when he had a consciousdoubt of the valour of his troops--if he commonly employed cunning anddissimulation instead of wisdom, and perfidy instead of courage--hisexpedients were the disgrace of the age, rather than his own.
Again, the Emperor Alexius may be blamed for affecting a degree ofstate which was closely allied to imbecility. He was proud of assumingin his own person, and of bestowing upon others, the painted show ofvarious orders of nobility, even now, when the rank within the prince'sgift was become an additional reason for the free barbarian despisingthe imperial noble. That the Greek court was encumbered with unmeaningceremonies, in order to make amends for the want of that venerationwhich ought to have been called forth by real worth, and the presenceof actual power, was not the particular fault of that prince, butbelonged to the system of the government of Constantinople for ages.Indeed, in its trumpery etiquette, which provided rules for the mosttrivial points of a man's behaviour during the day, the Greek empireresembled no existing power in its minute follies, except that ofPekin; both, doubtless, being influenced by the same vain wish, to addseriousness and an appearance of importance to objects, which, fromtheir trivial nature, could admit no such distinction.
Yet thus far we must justify Alexius, that humble as were theexpedients he had recourse to, they were more useful to his empire thanthe measures of a more proud and high-spirited prince might have provedin the same circumstances. He was no champion to break a lance againstthe breast-plate of his Frankish rival, the famous Bohemond ofAntioch,[Footnote: Bohemond, son of Robert Guiscard, the Normanconqueror of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, was, at the time when thefirst crusade began, Count of Tarentum. Though far advanced in life, heeagerly joined the expedition of the Latins, and became Prince ofAntioch. For details of his adventures, death, and extraordinarycharacter, see Gibbon, chap. lix, and Mills' History of the Crusades,vol. i.] but there were many occasions on which he hazarded his lifefreely; and, so far as we can see, from a minute perusal of hisachievements, the Emperor of Greece was never so dangerous "undershield," as when any foeman desired to stop him while retreating from aconflict in which he had been worsted.
But, besides that he did not hesitate, according to the custom of thetime, at least occasionally, to commit his person to the perils ofclose combat, Alexius also possessed such knowledge of a general'sprofession, as is required in our modern days. He knew how to occupymilitary positions to the best advantage, and often covered defeats, orimproved dubious conflicts, in a manner highly to the disappointment ofthose who deemed that the work of war was done only on the field ofbattle.
If Alexius Comnenus thus understood the evolutions of war, he was stillbetter skilled in those of politics, where, soaring far above theexpress purpose of his immediate negotiation, the Emperor was sure togain some important and permanent advantage; though very often he wasultimately defeated by the unblushing fickleness, or avowed treacheryof the barbarians, as the Greeks generally termed all other nations,and particularly those tribes, (they can hardly be termed states,) bywhich their own empire was surrounded.
We may conclude our brief character of Comnenus, by saying, that, hadhe not been called on to fill the station of a monarch who was underthe necessity of making himself dreaded, as one who was exposed to allmanner of conspiracies, both in and out of his own family, he might, inall probability, have been regarded as an honest and humane prince.Certainly he showed himself a good-natured man, and dealt less incutting off heads and extinguishing eyes, than had been the practice ofhis predecessors, who generally took this method of shortening theambitious views of competitors.
It remains to be mentioned, that Alexius had his full share of thesuperstition of the age, which he covered with a species of hypocrisy.It is even said, that his wife, Irene, who of course was bestacquainted with the real character of the Emperor, taxed her dyinghusband with practising, in his last moments, the dissimulation whichhad been his companion during life. [Footnote: See Gibbon, chap. lvi.]He took also a deep interest in all matters respecting the Church,where heresy, which the Emperor held, or affected to hold, in greathorror, appeared to him to lurk. Nor do we discover in his treatment ofthe Manichaeans, or Paulicians, that pity for their speculative errors,which modern times might think had been well purchased by the extent ofthe temporal services of these unfortunate sectaries. Alexius knew noindulgence for those who misinterpreted the mysteries of the Church, orof its doctrines; and the duty of defending religion againstschismatics was, in his opinion, as peremptorily demanded from him, asthat of protecting the empire against the numberless tribes ofbarbarians who were encroaching on its boundaries on every side.
Such a mixture of sense and weakness, of meanness and dignity, ofprudent discretion and poverty of spirit, which last, in the Europeanmode of viewing things, approached to cowardice, formed the leadingtraits of the character of Alexius Comnenus, at a period when the fateof Greece, and all that was left in that country of art andcivilization, was trembling in the balance, and likely to be saved orlost, according to the abilities of the Emperor for playing the verydifficult game which was put into his hands.
These few leading circumstances will recall, to any one who istolerably well read in history, the peculiarities of the period atwhich we have found a resting-place for the foundation of our story.