The Crusaders had made an easy conquest, but their main feeling was one of disgust that the premature surrender of the city had deprived them of a chance of a richer plunder than their imaginations had ever conceived before they saw the wonders of the New Rome. They settled down for the next winter in the suburbs of the capital, while Isaac and Alexius IV. left no stone unturned to satisfy their clamour for their pay. When the Emperors were reduced, in their efforts to appease the Latins, to plunder the churches of their jewels and reliquaries, and impose odious taxes on their subjects, the mob of Constantinople, taught by the success of recent revolutions to regard itself as all-powerful, rose in revolt against them, and murdered all the Latins within reach. Isaac, unnerved by captivity, died suddenly, it was said, of fright. [Sidenote: Revolution in Constantinople. Alexius V., Feb. 1204.] Alexius IV. was strangled. A strong and daring adventurer, Alexius Ducas, surnamed Murzuphlus from his shaggy eyebrows, was proclaimed the Emperor Alexius V. (February 1204). The house of Angelus thus quitted history even less gloriously than the house of Comnenus. [Sidenote: Second capture and sack of Constantinople, April 1204.] It was but a revolution in the capital, and the provinces hardly recognised the usurper. But Alexius V. threw a new energy into the defences of Constantinople, and the Crusaders found that they must either retire discomfited, or capture the city for a second time. After two months of preparations, they advanced in April to the final assault. This time they limited their attack to the sea-wall. The first effort was a failure, but a few days later a second onslaught admitted them into a corner of the city. There was still a chance for the Greeks, if they had had courage to stubbornly defend the city street by street. But the mercenary soldiers would not fight, and Alexius V., despairing of further resistance, fled from the capital, though he soon fell into the hands of the Crusaders, who put him to death. Constantinople now belonged to the Franks, and a hideous three days of plunder, murder, lust, and sacrilege, at last satisfied them for the moderation they had been forced to show upon the occasion of the first conquest. The priceless relics of ancient art were barbarously destroyed: the very churches were ruthlessly pillaged, and the city of Constantine was robbed for ever of that unique splendour that had made it for ages the wonder of the world. [Illustration: THE LATIN EMPIRE OF CONSTANTINOPLE]