We cannot follow Villeharduin through the vicissitudes of the siege and counter-siege. He himself confesses in the relation of one point alone that sixty books would not be able to recount all the words that were spoken, and the counsels that were given and taken. In the simple, terse and trenchant style that Frenchmen, and especially the Frenchmen of the old chronicles, know how to wield so perfectly, he tells us of the Doge’s wise counsel that the city should be approached by way of the surrounding islands whence they might gather stores; of the lords’ neglect of this counsel, “just as if no one of them had ever heard of it”; of their investment of the palace of Alexius in the place named Chalcedony, that was “furnished with all the delights of the human body that could be imagined befitting the dwelling of a prince”; of the capture of the city and the ravishing of its treasures that were so great “that no man could come to an end of counting the silver and the gold and plate and precious stones and samite and silken cloth and dresses _vaire_ and grey, and ermines and all precious things that were ever found on earth. And Jofroi de Villeharduin, the Marshall of Champagne, will bear good witness that to his knowledge since the centuries began there was never so great gain in a single city.” The division of the booty necessarily occasioned heart-burning and revealed certain vices of “covetoise” undreamed before. And as time went on and still the passage to Palestine was delayed the sanctuaries of the Greek Church were treated with barbarous irreverence and despoiled of their treasure and sacred vessels. Then with the retaking of Constantinople from Marzuflo there followed a time of abandonment of men and leaders to their fiercest passions and the almost total destruction of the city. Here again Venice stepped in, as the merchant had stepped in to rescue treasure from the pile of Savonarola, to enrich herself from the ruins of Constantinople.