Meanwhile within the walls disaffection with the government of Alexius III. was growing into readiness to accept the new sovereign to be set up by the Crusaders rather than to risk the chances of capture. Alexius himself would do nothing to protect the city: and when he brought out his troops to the sortie, he retired with them before any fighting took place. Before the next day he himself fled across the sea, deserting his wife and children and the city. The imprisoned Isaac was at once released and placed upon the throne. This was far from satisfying the greed of the Crusaders. It took away from them every honest cause for attack. So they demanded through Villehardouin, who has himself written us the account of it, that Isaac should consent to the hard terms which Alexius his son had agreed to--that the Empire should be placed under the Roman Pope; that 200,000 marks of silver should be given to the army, and that they should be supported for a year; that 10,000 of them should be taken to Egypt in Greek vessels at the Emperor's expense, and supported there for a year; and that Isaac should agree, during the whole of his life, to keep five hundred knights for the defence of the Holy Land. The Emperor, though from the first he said that he thought it would be impossible to carry it out, felt bound to give his consent to the convention. Alexius was crowned in S. Sophia as joint occupant of his father's throne, and it seemed as if the danger was at an end. But it was only just begun. Some of the Crusaders wanted to push on at once to the Holy Land or to Egypt; but they had not enough money, and no ships. And the Venetians who held the ships delayed: they cared for nothing but that the army should be divided. Within the city the fiercest opposition was aroused when it was known that Alexius had promised to subordinate the Church to Rome. He was making large exactions too, to pay the men who had brought him back to his country. Feeling against him rose rapidly in the capital. He left with Boniface of Montferrat to pursue the fugitive Emperor to Adrianople.