The agreement between the delegates of the Crusaders and the Venetians was ratified, as we have seen, in May, 1201. The crusading army was to arrive in Venice not later than the 24th of June, 1202. In the interval between these dates Death of many events happened. Theobald, Earl of Champagne, the young noble who had taken the Cross on the preaching of Fulk—who had probably been induced to do so partly in order to escape the vengeance of Philip of France—who had been elected leader of the expedition, and in whom all had confidence, died in May, 1201. Ilis loss was the more serious that his great wealth was no longer available for the purposes of the crusade. A payment in advance which had been promised to Yen ice could not be met.

Adopted for the conduct of the expedition

The leaders were divided as to the course to be adopted for the conduct of the expedition. None among them possessed either position or ability sufficient to indicate him as the leader. After considerable delay the leadership was offered to the Duke of Burgundy, and, on his refusal, to Count Theobald of Bar, who also refused. Then a parliament of the Crusaders met at Soissons, and Villehardouin proposed Boniface, ot^ouiface!11 Marquis of Montferrat Visit Bulgaria. The proposal was finally, though reluctantly, accepted. From the first it was evident that Boniface had not the confidence of the Crusaders, and his election was the first severe blow given to the success of the expedition.

Fulk himself affixed the cross to the shoulders of Boniface in the Church of Our Lady at Soissons, and, as the great preacher died in May, 1202, he disappears from this history.1 The appointment of Boniface was in August, 1201. Two months later he was at the court of Philip of Swabia,2 on the invitation of that sovereign. What was the object of his visit may never be accurately known; His visit to but subsequent events raise the presumption that pinup. Philip either had the design of an attack upon Constantinople before this visit, or formed such a design at, and in consequence of, his interview with Boniface.

Prisoner in Constantinople

Philip, the head of the house of the Waiblings, or, as the name was now beginning to be spelled in Ital}r, Ghibelins, had married the daughter of Isaac Angelos, the emperor of the New Eome, who was at this moment a prisoner in Constantinople, deprived of his eyesight, though allowed to go about the city of which he had once been the ruler. The son of Isaac and heir to the throne—whom we may conveniently call, after the fashion of the time, young Alexis, to distinguish him from the reigning usurper Alexis in Constantinople—had made his escape from the capital. lie left the imperial city in the spring of 1201, arrived in Sicilia, and sent messengers to Germany announcing his safe arrival.

Allowing three months for the news to reach Philip, there was ample time for the messengers of Philip to reach the Marquis of Montferrat, and for the latter to have been at the Swabian court in October. Boniface remained with Philip until January or February, 1202, and then left with an embassy for Rome, sent thither in order to induce Innocent the Third to take up the cause of young Alexis. In the spring of the year the latter received letters of recommendation to the Crusaders from Philip. It therefore appears clear that, from the beginning of 1202, the leader of the expedition had become aware of the facts connected with the claims of Alexis. Subsequent evidence indicates that even at this time he had promised Philip to aid him.

At the time appointed—namely, the 24th of June most of the leaders of the expedition had arrived, according to the arrangement, in Venice. Baldwin of Flanders, Hugo Count of St. Paul, Geoffrey of Villehardouin, perhaps Boniface, and many also from Germany, were present, while the Abbot Martin and others from that country were on their way thither.

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