The news of the change of emperors was not assuring to the leaders of the Latins. Notwithstanding the pretence of having come to right the wrongs of Isaac, their plans necessitated either their own occupancy of the empire or the placing of young Alexius as the creature of their will upon the throne. Alexius, not Isaac, had made the bargain to pay the Westerners for their expedition two hundred thousand marks of silver, to furnish the army and fleet with provision for a year, and to bring the Greek Church into subjection to Rome. Would Isaac assume the same obligations? The Latins sent a deputation to the palace; they passed between the lines of the same hired soldiers that yesterday guarded Alexius III., equally loyal to whatever hand fed them. There, upon a throne of superlative splendor, the Latin deputies saw the resurrected relic of a former monarch, blind and emaciated. To have rendered the picture sensationally complete, old and blind Dandolo should have stood before Isaac. Villehardouin, who was one of the deputies, demanded of Isaac the confirmation of the contract made by young Alexius. On learning its nature, Isaac expressed his amazement and the impossibility of meeting it. The deputies assured the old man that his son should never be permitted to enter the city unless his father assumed his pledges. The emperor replied, “Surely the bargain is a hard one, and I cannot see how to carry it out; but you have done so much for him and me that you deserve our whole empire.” With hand trembling with age and fright he set to the compact the golden seal. The deputies returned to the camp. Young Alexius entered the city, riding, with a retinue of knights, between Dandolo and Baldwin of Flanders, and followed by the Latin clergy; they were met at the gates by the various ranks of Greek ecclesiastics, arrayed in splendid vestments. The churches throughout the city resounded with thanksgiving and the streets with festivity, while within the palace Isaac, having endured a dungeon for eight years, embraced his son whom he could not see. August 1st Alexius was crowned coemperor in St. Sophia; he immediately cancelled a portion of his indebtedness to his allies, and wrote to the Pope, avowing his purpose to recognize Rome as the ecclesiastical head of the Greek empire. The Pope, knowing the vicissitude of affairs and distrusting the volatile disposition of the youth, replied, urging him to speedily practicalize his good intention. At the same time the Holy Father addressed the crusaders, declaring that, “unless the emperor made haste to do what he had promised, it would appear that neither his protestations nor their intentions were sincere.”