Once only, before the coming of the Turk, was Constantinople, during its many centuries of varied prosperity and adversity, subjected to serious pillage. Hostile armies had again and again surged up to its almost impregnable walls, only to retire in discomfiture; and it seemed as though the grand old city was protected by some invisible agency from external violence. Internal dissension, however, was the bane of the capital, and was the true cause of the success of the Latins, and finally that of the Turks. The successful attack by the combined forces of the Latins and Venetians was one of the results of the Crusades. It took place in the commencement of the thirteenth century. The city, however, remained under the Latin power for only fifty-seven years, when it was recaptured by a bold stroke of the Greeks. Injured by the pillage of the Latins, and many of its beautiful edifices destroyed by fire during the siege or subsequent occupation, the Greek capital not only lost its prestige of divine protection, but it has never recovered its former splendor. How much of the spoils were removed by the captors is a matter of conjecture. The historians of the Greeks and Latins--the spoiled and spoiler--undoubtedly exaggerate the injury of the conquest and the quantity of booty obtained. Two of the Emperors, succeeding by usurpation, fled from the city with much treasure before it was finally captured. Even then one quarter of the accepted plunder was reserved for the elected ruler of Constantinople. And as to the remainder, which is said to have been divided equally between the French and Venetians, and valued at 11,125,000 marks of silver, or $11,000,000, there is no record extant of the articles. We know that the bronze horses of the Hippodrome were transferred to Saint Mark’s Palace, and the crown of thorns to the Sainte Chapelle at Paris. We also learn that many gems-the adamas, emerald, jacinth, ruby, sapphire--were among the spoils; but if the sack was complete, why did Venice years afterwards offer ten thousand ducats for the seamless vesture of the Redeemer, which was then among the sacred reliquaries of Constantinople? If these spoils were divided between the conquerors, how explain the fact recorded in French history, that the sacred relics sent to Paris and placed in the church erected to receive them were purchased? It is a matter of history that the crown of thorns, with the piece of the true cross, the antique gems, and other relics that were deposited in Sainte Chapelle, together with the construction of the building, cost Saint Louis of Baldwin, Emperor of Constantinople, a sum of money equal to 2,800,000 francs. This fact, coupled with the offer of the Venetians for the holy vestment, renders the accounts of the sack of the city still more obscure. The historian Yriarte declares that the only monuments of art deemed by the Venetians as worthy of transporting to their capital were the famous bronze horses.