This, however, was another matter, and when the two emperors made even a half-hearted attempt to live up to their promises, the Byzantines revolted. Another Alexius—Alexius Bushy Eyebrows—was made emperor and he made it known that the Venetians and the crusaders could whistle for their money. Not a single copper coin, let alone 200,000 silver ones, would they ever get from him! This gave the crusaders the chance they had long been waiting for and probably planning for, and they didn’t waste any time in taking it. Proclaiming Bushy Eyebrows, as they called him, a traitor and a caitiff villain, they attacked the city with ships, ladders, and men-at-arms. On April 13, 1204, after five days of desperate fighting, they burst into it. There for three days and nights, the Christian soldiers—wearing the cross upon their shoulders—burned, robbed, and murdered the Christian Byzantines. “Even the followers of Mahound, the false prophet, were more merciful when they took Jerusalem!” cried a Byzantine. He was right. Little like it has ever happened anywhere else, except during the invasions of Attila the Hun. Constantinople has never been the same since. The robbery was even more wholesale than the slaying. Churches, private homes, and palaces were stripped to their bare stone walls, and then all that was not hidden by private looters was piled where it could be seen and divided. “The booty was so great that no one could tell you of it,” said Villehardouin. It included gold and silver; vessels and precious stones; silk and samite; robes of vair and robes of ermine; rare and irreplaceable books; icons; beautiful carved chests; and, of course, all the coinage in the treasury. In fact, everything that was not too heavy to move. The Venetians were immediately paid the 50,000 marks reckoned to be their share. Even after that, not counting what had been stolen and hidden, there may have been 400,000 silver marks’ worth of rare prizes. To say nothing—and there was no knight who didn’t want one—of 10,000 fiery steeds! There was no one who was too lofty or too pious to take his share of this booty. The abbots and the warrior-bishops laid their hands on every holy relic they could find. Most of these went to France, where they disappeared during the French Revolution. The doge took the four famous bronze horses of the Hippodrome, and even today the Venetians point to them on the façade of the church of Saint Mark just as proudly as if they had not helped themselves to them. There was hardly a knight who did not wear rich fur-trimmed robes. There was hardly a common foot soldier or even a jackallike camp follower who did not have a fat purse, and a heavy chain of gold to boot. The proud Byzantines returned to ruined churches and to charred and plundered houses. Fabled Byzantium had become an empty shell.