The easy sloth into which the possession of innumerable relics, and the consciousness of being under the protection of an army of saints and martyrs, had plunged a large part of the inhabitants, had been rudely dispelled. The Panhagia of the Blachern, with its relic of the Virgin's robe, the host of heads, arms, bodies, and vestments of saints and of portions of the holy Cross, had been of no more use than the palladium which lay buried then, as now, under the great column which Constantine had built.
The rough energy of the Westerns had disregarded the talismans of the Greek Church as completely as those of paganism. In vain had the believers in these charms destroyed during the siege the statues which were believed to be of ill-omen or unlucky. The invaders had a superstition as deep as their own, but with the difference that they could not believe that a people in schism could have the protection of the hierarchy of heaven, or be regarded as the rightful possessors of so many relics. During the night following its capture the Golden Gate, which was at the Marmora side of the landward walls, had been opened, and already an affrighted crowd was pressing forward to make its escape from the captured city. Others were doing their best to bury their treasures.
The widow of Alexis
The empery Fiight of the or himself, either seized with panic or finding that emperor was lost—as, indeed, everything was lost so soon as the army had succeeded in obtaining a foothold within the walls—fled from the city. He, too, escaped by the Golden Gate, taking with him Euphrosyne, the widow of Alexis. The brave Theodore Lascaris determined, however, to make one more attempt. His appeal to the people was useless. Those who were not panic-stricken appear to have been indifferent. Some, at least, were apparently still dreaming of a mere change of rulers, like those of which the majority of them had seen several.
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