The taking of the city was disgraced by the most terrible scenes of violence, cruelty, and sacrilege. The {192} beautiful church of St Sophia was defiled by drunken wretches, who drained the sacred vessels from the altar, and sang low songs where only the stately psalms and hymns of the Eastern Church had been heard. Not one sacred building was spared, but rifled of its treasures; its costly lace and beautiful carving was left bare and desolate, too often stained with the blood of the slain. No wonder that the Greeks regarded with utter horror the behaviour of their fellow Christians, who had once been so eager to urge the union of the Churches of East and West. Well might the pope exclaim, when he heard of the horrible excesses, "How shall the Greek Church return to unity and to respect for the Bishop of Rome, when they have seen in the Latins only examples of wickedness and works of darkness, for which they might justly loathe them, worse than dogs?" Nor were the churches the only objects of the spoilers. Some of the beautiful statues, the work of Greek sculptors in the best days of the art of Greece, were smashed to atoms by the rough soldiers; others, of bronze, were ruthlessly melted down into money. Many of the inhabitants of the city fled, amongst whom was the Patriarch, or Archbishop, who had scarcely time to clothe himself, and was without food or money. The misery and humiliation of the proud city of Constantine were completed when Baldwin, Count of Flanders, a brave young baron, but utterly out of sympathy with Greek ideas, was crowned Emperor. The story of the Latin empire of Constantinople scarcely belongs to that of the Crusades. It lasted for fifty-seven years (1204-1261), and was marked by the constant unrest and revolution of one part of the empire or another. Thus it never became firmly settled, for the {193} Latin Emperor had no real power in the land. A short time after his election, most of the Crusaders returned to their own homes. Two years after the taking of the city, both Boniface of Montferrat, leader of the expedition, and the brave old Dandolo, Doge of Venice, died. The latter may perhaps be blamed as being the means of turning aside the Crusaders from their original undertaking, the relief of the Holy Land; but the real blame lies with those who broke their promise to share in the expenses of the expedition and thus forced the host to do as Dandolo required of them. What then had become of those faithless remnants of the Fifth Crusade? Their story is soon told.