of the Franks, their courage was rekindled by enthusiasm and despair; but they were torn by the discord of seventeen chiefs, and overwhelmed on all sides by the powers of the sultan. After a siege of thirty three days, the double wall was forced by the Moslems; the principal tower yielded to their engines; the Mamalukes made a general assault; the city was stormed; and death or slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians. The convent, or rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three days longer; but the great master was pierced with an arrow; and, of five hundred knights, only ten were left alive, less happy than the victims of the sword, if they lived to suffer on a scaffold, in the unjust and cruel proscription of the whole order. The king of Jerusalem, the patriarch and the great master of the hospital, effected their retreat to the shore; but the sea was rough, the vessels were insufficient; and great numbers of the fugitives were drowned before they could reach the Isle of Cyprus, which might comfort Lusignan for the loss of Palestine. By the command of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of the Latin cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had so long resounded with the world’s debate. 109 108 (return) [ The state of Acre is represented in all the chronicles of te times, and most accurately in John Villani, l. vii. c. 144, in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. 337, 338.] 109 (return) [ See the final expulsion of the Franks, in Sanutus, l. iii. p. xii. c. 11—22; Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., in De Guignes, tom. iv. p. 162, 164; and Vertot, tom. i. l. iii. p. 307—428. * Note: * After these chapters of Gibbon, the masterly prize composition, “Essai sur ‘Influence des Croisades sur l’Europe,” par A H. L. Heeren: traduit de l’Allemand par Charles Villars, Paris, 1808,’ or the original German, in Heeren’s “Vermischte Schriften,” may be read with great advantage.—M.] Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part I. Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—State Of Constantinople.— Revolt Of The Bulgarians.—Isaac Angelus Dethroned By His Brother Alexius.—Origin Of The Fourth Crusade.—Alliance Of The French And Venetians With The Son Of Isaac.—Their Naval Expedition To Constantinople.—The Two Sieges And Final Conquest Of The City By The Latins. The restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne was speedily followed by the separation of the Greek and Latin churches. 1 A religious and national animosity still divides the two largest communions of the Christian world; and the schism of Constantinople,