Enrico Dandolo, now an old man of more than four score years, was made Doge in 1193. On his election he was made to subscribe to a _Promissione ducale_ (coronation oath), an ingenious instrument designed in the interests of the aristocracy, which defined and limited his powers. Dandolo had inherited the Dalmatian trouble, and was occupied with stubborn Zara, which for the fourth time had resisted the efforts of the Venetians to recover it from the King of Hungary, when a wail of distress from the hard-pressed Christians in Palestine reached the ears of the great Pope Innocent III. and the fourth crusade was launched. CHAPTER IV _Enrico Dandolo and the Capture of Constantinople_ “August pleasant Dandolo Worshipping hearts about him for a wall, Conducted blind eyes hundred years and all Through vanquished Byzant, where friends note for him What pillar, marble massive, sardius slim, ’Twere fittest to transport to Venice’ square.” --_Browning._ The fourth crusade afforded Venice an opportunity of rising to a commanding position in Europe. She seized it with resolution yet with the cautious deliberation so characteristic of her temper. Amid the fervent enthusiasm of the crusaders she kept a cool head, ever intent on directing the movement to the attainment of her secular policy--the extension of her commerce and of her dominion in the East. The story of the Conquest of Constantinople has been told for us by one who played a leading _rôle_ in the drama, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, Marshall of Champagne, who was one of the six envoys sent by the organisers of the crusade to Venice to treat for the transport of the army to the East. He was a man of simple piety and singleness of purpose, a heroic soldier and capable administrator, but like his fellows no match for the shrewd old Doge who then directed the policy of the republic. It is difficult to say how far the almost cynical exploitation of the crusaders’ enthusiasm, charged upon Venice by some historians, was redeemed by nobler motives. The policy of making the best of both worlds is not a modern invention, and states as well as individuals are moved by mixed impulses. To the Doge and his councillors it may well have seemed that the expansion of the Venetian Republic and the cause of Christendom were not incompatible. Certain it is that this, the finest armament that ever set sail to wrest the Holy Land over seas from the infidel, was diverted by Venetian policy to an attack on the possessions of a Christian prince, himself a crusader, and after wasting a precious year melted away in a wanton conquest and spoliation of the capital of Eastern Christendom, and in the attempt to maintain there a Franco-Venetian Empire.