Constantinople painted by Warwick Goble Part 4

When all traffic ceases, caques, lighters, steamboats, and craft of all kinds are taken to their moorings and the waters are silent and deserted.]

CHAPTER VI

ALONG THE LANDWARD WALLS

IN the third chapter, occupied with the story of the making of Constantinople, some account has been given of the portion of the landward walls erected in the earlier half of the fifth century, when the city was enlarged under Theodosius II., viz, the portion extending from the Sea of Marmora, on the south, to the ruins of the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus (Tekfour Serai) on the north. That seemed the most appropriate place to speak of the origin and character of fortifications which were built as much for the growth and convenience of the city in its civic relations, as for its security as the citadel of the Empire.

To that chapter the reader who desires to recall the information given on the subject, is referred. Here, after a brief account of the additions made to the Theodosian walls, in subsequent times, we shall consider the historical importance of the landward walls as a whole, and glance at some of the scenes enacted before them.

The post-Theodosian portions of the walls that guarded Constantinople on the side of the land extend from the courtyard of the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus to the sh.o.r.e of the Golden Horn at Aivan Serai. They replaced an older line of fortifications which ran, at a short distance to the rear, between the same points, and were constructed to strengthen the weak places which time revealed in this part of the city's armour.

First in the order of position, though not in the order of time, comes the wall erected by Manuel Comnenus (1142-1180), for the greater security of the Palace of Blachernae, his favourite residence, which stood within the old bulwarks, just mentioned. It terminates at the foot of the steep hill on which the quarter of Egri Kapou is situated. With its nine n.o.ble towers it presents a striking likeness to the fortifications of a feudal baronial castle, and its solid masonry defied the Turkish cannon in 1453. Then follow walls, the original date of whose construction cannot be precisely determined, as they evidently underwent frequent repairs and alterations. Here is found the Tower of Isaac Angelus, and, in the body of the wall to the north of the tower, are three stories of large chambers, very much ruined, which some authorities regard as the cells of the State Prison of Anemas. More probably, they were either barracks or store-rooms attached to the imperial residence, and at the same time b.u.t.tresses for the support of the terraced hill on which the palace was built. Beyond this chambered wall there is a double line of fortifications. The inner wall was erected in 627, under Heraclius, after the siege of the city by the Avars, to protect the quarter of Blachernae and its celebrated Church of S. Mary of Blachernae more effectively in the future than when a.s.sailed by that enemy.

The outer wall was built as an additional defence in 813, by Leo the Armenian (813-820), in view of an expected attack upon the city by the Bulgarians under Crum.

The territory outside the landward walls has indeed a charm of its own, in its quiet rural aspect, and in the glimpses it affords of distant blue water seen through dark groves of cypresses. But it cannot pretend to the splendid natural scenery which confronts the sh.o.r.es of the Sea of Marmora or of the Golden Horn, and makes the beauty of Constantinople famous throughout the world. This, however, is not altogether a disadvantage, for it allows the visitor to view without distraction the imposing line of bulwarks ranged across the promontory from sea to sea, and to appreciate calmly all their significance. On the other sides of the city, the fortifications which guarded the Queen of Cities are comparatively unimportant, and are easily lost sight of in the beauty of their surroundings. Here the walls and towers are everything. Here they attained their greatest strength; here they rendered their greatest service; here, like troops bearing the wounds and scars of a great campaign, they force the beholder to realise the immense debt which the civilised world owes to Constantinople for the strength, the valour, and the sacrifices devoted through long centuries to the defence of the highest life of mankind against terrible foes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WALLS; THE TOWER OF ISAAC ANGELUS

Part of the old fortifications, now in ruins, stretching from the Marmora to the Golden Horn.]

Nor does the scenery which the walls themselves present need to borrow attractions from any other source to render it the most picturesque and impressive spectacle of the kind in the world. The alternate courses of grey stone and red bricks in the structure of the fortifications; the long lines of wall ranged in ranks, and rising tier above tier to support one another in the terrible struggles they were called to maintain; the mult.i.tude of towers, marshalled to guard the city and Empire, great and small, of every shape, square, round, polygons looking in six, seven, or eight directions, some intact after all the storms of centuries, others bare, broken, fissured from head to foot, yet holding together; inscriptions recalling wars, earthquakes, names of men who have made history; towers crowned with ivy; trees interspersed between the walls or standing upon the summit, like banners; crenellated parapets affording glimpses of the blue sky behind, as though, in Oriental phrase, the ramparts rose to the very heavens; all this stretching for mile upon mile, from sea to sea, presents a scene of extraordinary beauty and grandeur, not less attractive because of the heroism and achievements of which it has been the theatre.

This is not the place for an extended history of the services which these walls, and the Empire of which they were the citadel, rendered as the s.h.i.+eld of European civilisation. Enough to remember that the dread of them dissuaded Attila and his Huns from delivering an attack upon the city, although he approached as near to Constantinople as Athyras, now Buyuk Tchekmedje, some twelve miles distant. Doubtless they often restrained the wrath also of other barbarous hordes. In vain did the Avars, in 627, beat against these walls between Top Kapou (Gate of S.

Roma.n.u.s) and the Gate of Adrianople (Charisius). In vain did the Arabs invest these bulwarks from the spring to the autumn of four successive years (673-677). As unsuccessful was the second siege of the city by the same foe for twelve months (717-718). These fortifications defied the Bulgarians both under Crum in 813 and under Symeon in 924. In 1203 they repelled the valour of the knights and barons engaged in the Fourth Crusade. They mocked the a.s.saults of Sultan Murad, in 1422. And when they succ.u.mbed, at length, to the artillery of Sultan Mehemet in 1453, it was because their defenders were few and divided, and their a.s.sailants were armed with weapons before which ramparts of stone, alike in the West and in the East, crumbled to pieces, and old systems of society were swept away.

The battles fought directly before the walls of New Rome do not, indeed, give us the complete story of her warfare "per benefitio de la Christiantade et per honor del mundo." On eight occasions, at least, the armies of the East Roman Empire were drawn up on the plain outside the Golden Gate to celebrate victories won on distant battlefields, and to enter the triumphal Gate of the capital with prisoners, standards, and spoils captured on hostile territory. To the shouts "Glory to G.o.d, who has restored to us our sovereign crowned with victory! Glory to G.o.d who has magnified you Emperor of the Romans! Glory to Thee All-Holy Trinity, for we behold our Emperor victorious! Welcome Victor! most valiant sovereign!" the triumphal car of Heraclius drove into the city, after his splendid campaign of seven years against the Persians; the campaign which brought the long struggle between Europe and Persia since 492 B.C.

to an end. The same shouts rent the air, when Constantine Cop.r.o.nymus returned from the defeat of the Bulgarians, and twice again, when Basil II., by two murderous wars with that people, earned the t.i.tle, the Slayer of Bulgarians, Bulgaroktonos. Theophilus, on two occasions, and Basil I. pa.s.sed through the Golden Gate as victors over the Saracens.

And Zimisces received the same honour for beating back the Russians under Swiatoslaf. These were great days in the history of the city, nay, of mankind, for they stayed the waves of barbarism that threatened to overwhelm the civilised world. But after all, it is when the enemy stands arrayed before the very capital of the Empire, and delivers a.s.sault after a.s.sault upon the citadel which guarded its fate and the destiny of Europe, that the struggle waged between civilisation and barbarism during the history of New Rome is fully recognised to have been, indeed, a struggle for life, and that we learn to appreciate what we owe to the Warden of the Gates to the Western World. To these walls may be applied the words in which Mr. Gladstone appraised the value of the services rendered by the Christian populations of the Balkan Peninsula, in a similar connection. "They are like a shelving beach that restrained the ocean. That beach, it is true, is beaten by the waves; it is laid desolate; it produces nothing; it becomes perhaps nothing save a ma.s.s of s.h.i.+ngle, of rock, of almost useless sea-weed. But it is a fence behind which the cultivated earth can spread and escape the incoming tide.... It was that resistance which left Europe to claim the enjoyment of her own religion, and to develop her inst.i.tutions and her laws."

Although inferior as military works to the other portions of the landward walls, great historical interest is a.s.sociated with the fortifications between the Wall of Manuel and the Golden Horn, for they guarded the Palace of Blachernae, the favourite residence of the Byzantine Court from the time of Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118) until the fall of the Empire. As already intimated, the palace stood on the terrace b.u.t.tressed by the Tower of Isaac Angelus and the chambered wall to the north of the tower, where the Mosque of Aivas Effendi is now found. The terrace was almost level with the parapet-walk of the fortifications, commanding fine views of the Golden Horn, and of the hills at the head of the harbour; and there the most splendid Court of the Middle Ages long displayed its wealth and pomp. What with the Crusades, and what with the relations, hostile and friendly, between the Italian Republics and the Government of Constantinople during the period of the Palaeologi, it was in that palace that Western and Eastern Europe came into closest contact for good or for evil. On the hills and in the valleys seen from the western windows of the palace, the armies of the First Crusade encamped. To that residence came Peter the Hermit, G.o.dfrey of Bouillon, Robert of Normandy, Bohemond, Tancred, "the mirror of knighthood," Count Robert of Paris, to wonder at the marvels of Byzantine Art, and to attempt the co-operation of the East and the West, in the great political and religious undertaking of the times. On the hill immediately in front of the walls the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade pitched their tents, and thence Baldwin of Flanders and Hainaut, Henry his brother, Louis of Blois and Chartres, and Hugo of Saint Paul, led four divisions of the army against the wall erected by Leo the Armenian. The wall was held by Varangian troops, the imperial body-guard, recruited from England, Denmark, Norway, and Russia. "The a.s.sailants," to quote the words of Ville-Hardouin, a witness of the combat, and the historian of the Crusade, "placed two scaling-ladders against an outer wall near the sea; the wall was furnished with Englishmen and Danes, and the attack was strong, and good, and hard. And by sheer force some knights and two sergeants mounted the ladders, and became masters of the wall. Fully fifteen reached the wall, and they fought hand to hand with axes and swords. And the men within returned to the charge and drove them (the a.s.sailants) out, right rudely, even taking two of them prisoners. And those of our men who were captured were led to the Emperor Alexis, and he was very highly delighted. So ended the attack by the French. And there was a considerable number of men wounded and of maimed; and the barons were very angry about it."

The recovery of Constantinople from the Latins in 1261 did not diminish Italian influence over the life of the city. On the contrary, from that time to the close of Byzantine history that influence, modified indeed by the rival force of Ottoman power, grew stronger and stronger.

Commercial interests, political necessities, schemes of ecclesiastical union, literary sympathies, possibilities of aggrandis.e.m.e.nt at the expense of an Empire hastening to ruin, made Italy, especially Genoa and Venice, take a most active part in the affairs of New Rome. A Western atmosphere, so to speak, then enveloped Constantinople, very much like that which surrounds the City of the Sultans to-day.

But the portion of the walls about which the greatest and most pathetic interest gathers is where Sultan Mehemet delivered his fatal blow upon the Byzantine Empire, and won the t.i.tle of "the Conqueror." It is the portion which stretches from Top Kapoussi (Gate of S. Roma.n.u.s) to Edirne Kapoussi (Gate of Charisius), across the ravine through which the little stream of the Lycus, on its way to the Sea of Marmora, enters the city. Owing to the depression of the ground and the impossibility of constructing a deep moat there, this was the weakest point in the Theodosian fortifications, and here the bravest of the defenders, under Giustiniani of Genoa and the Emperor Constantine, manned the walls to oppose the best troops under the command of the Sultan. Against this part of the walls the enemy pointed his heaviest cannon, and here the contest raged for more than seven weeks. Both the besieged and the besiegers fought with the determination and the valour worthy of the issues at stake. When the Turkish artillery broke down the Outer Wall, Giustiniani and his Genoese and Greek comrades held their ground, and replaced the fallen ramparts by a stockade built of stones, barrels full of earth, beams, branches of trees--of anything within reach that would hold together. Against that barricade wave after wave of Turkish troops dashed and beat furiously and long. There were moments when the defenders seemed to have gained the day. But like gleams of suns.h.i.+ne that pierce storm clouds, they only served to make the impending catastrophe more tragic. Giustiniani was wounded and left the field. A band of bold Turks entered the city through the postern of the Kerkoporta, thoughtlessly left open, and, mounting the walls, planted their banners upon the parapet. Anon, the cry "The city is taken" burst upon the air and reverberated from tower to tower. A panic seized the besieged. The Sultan, grasping his opportunity, roused his janissaries to a supreme effort, and hurled them against the battered and half-deserted barricade. The Emperor Constantine did everything in his power to rally his followers and repel the terrible onset. It was hopeless. He then sought and found a soldier's death, rather than survive the fall of his Empire. "All was lost save honour." And over his dead body the tide of conquest poured into the city.

Thus ended the history of more than a thousand years. Then Asia dealt its worst blow upon Europe. Then the last vestige of the State, ruled first by Rome from the seven hills beside the Tiber, and afterwards by New Rome enthroned on the seven hills beside the Bosporus, disappeared.

Then the Crescent gained its greatest triumph over the Cross. Not many spots in the world have been the scene of such momentous events as took place in the little valley of the Lycus on the 29th of May, 1453.

There an Empire died, and a long and great epoch closed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONSTANTINOPLE AND GOLDEN HORN FROM THE CEMETERY AT EYOUB

Many a charming vista may be seen through the cypress trees in the cemetery at Eyoub.]

It is very natural, when thoughtful men tread the road which skirts these ancient fortifications, that the mind should be profoundly impressed by the vanity of earthly might and greatness. On the one hand, the way is strewn with the wreck and ruin of ramparts once deemed impregnable:

O'er each mouldering tower, Dim with the mist of years, grey flits the shade of power.

On the other hand, stretch great silent cemeteries, beneath whose dark cypresses lies the dust of a dead mult.i.tude more than can be numbered.

As one has expressed the feeling awakened by this spectacle of wreckage and mortality, "It is walking through the valley of the Shadow of Death." And yet, seeing there must be an end to all things, is it not wiser and more just to dwell rather upon the glory that crowns these bulwarks for their long defence of the civilised life of the world?

For a full account of the Turkish Conquest, see E. Pears'

_The Destruction of the Greek Empire_.

CHAPTER VII

AMONG THE CHURCHES OF THE CITY

CONSTANTINOPLE was a city of churches. Clavijo, the Spanish envoy, who visited the city in 1403, was a.s.sured that it was hallowed by the presence of no less than 3000 sanctuaries, counting large and small.

This was obviously an exaggeration, intended to impress the stranger's mind with a due sense of the city's grandeur and sacredness. Ducange in his great work, _Constantinopolis Christiana_, gives the names of some 400 churches mentioned by the Byzantine authors whose works he had examined. But a wider acquaintance with Byzantine literature since the time of that great student of the antiquities of Constantinople has discovered the names of many churches not upon his list. It is therefore impossible to reach exact figures here, and we must be content with the vague statement that the number was so large as to form a striking feature of the city's aspect. This was only what might be expected in a city where the number of churches would be determined not only by the ordinary religious needs of a devout population, but also by the demands of the many monasteries which sought security from violence behind the bulwarks of the capital, notwithstanding the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, encountered there. What does cause surprise, however, is that so few of the numerous churches which once adorned the city, and embodied the piety of its people, have left one stone standing upon another to recall their existence. At most, thirty-five remain, and of these several of them are so dilapidated that they only serve for the identification of an interesting site, or to emphasise the vanity of earthly things.

Of course all the churches of the city were never contemporaneous. In a city which had a life of more then eleven centuries, the list of almost any cla.s.s of edifices erected in the course of that period would necessarily be a long one, without implying the existence of numerous edifices of that cla.s.s at one and the same time. According to the description of Constantinople which dates from the first quarter of the fifth century, the number of churches then in the city is given as only fourteen. Churches appeared and disappeared, and while some of them were, for special reasons, maintained throughout the whole course of the city's history, many came to flourish for a while and then decayed in the ordinary course of things, bequeathing as their memorial only the withered leaves of their names. Then we must remember the frequent and disastrous earthquakes which shook the soil of Constantinople during the Middle Ages, and the terrible conflagrations which again and again reduced the wealth and glory and beauty of extensive tracts of the city to dust and ashes. For example: the three fires a.s.sociated with the capture of the city by the Latins in 1203-1204 inflicted a blow from which the city never recovered. One of those fires raged for a night and a day; another for two days and two nights, with the result that almost all the territory along the Golden Horn, as well as the territory extending thence to the Hippodrome and the Sea of Marmora, as far away as Vlanga, were turned into a wilderness of smoking ruins. "The fire,"

says Ville-Hardouin, a spectator of the awful scene, "was so great and so terrible that no man could extinguish or check it. It was a sad and pitiful spectacle for the barons of the army encamped on the other side of the harbour to see those beautiful churches and those rich palaces fall in and be destroyed, and great business streets burned by the scorching flames; but they could do nothing. The fire spread beyond the harbour across to the densest part of the city, quite close to S.

Sophia, and as far as the sea on the other side. It lasted two days and two nights, without being ever touched by the hand of man, and the front of the fire was fully half a league long. Of the damage done, or of the property and wealth thus lost and consumed no estimate can be made, nor of the number of men, women, or children who perished." It is true that churches injured by the hand of time were often restored. There were even periods when such renovation was carried out on an extensive scale, as for instance under Justinian the Great and under Basil I. (867-886).

But not less frequently the old fabric was so weakened by age or shaken by earthquake that to repair it was out of the question, and the only thing to be done was to use its stones and bricks and marbles as materials in the construction of other buildings. Much of the material, for instance, employed in the erection of the Tower of Isaac Angelus, in front of the Palace of Blachernae, was taken from the ruins of old churches. While for the construction of the citadel which John VI.

Palaeologus (1341-1391) built near the Golden Gate, material was taken from the remains of churches so noted in their day as the Church of All Saints, the Church of the Forty Martyrs, and the Church of S. Mokius.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW FROM AN OLD CEMETERY

Close to the busy thoroughfare of Pera large tracts of land lie unoccupied save for a few mouldering old tombstones; they are the remains of old Turkish burying-grounds.]

Upon the recovery of Constantinople from the Latins in 1261, something indeed was done to repair the damage due to the occupation of the city, for some fifty-seven years, by barbarous and covetous strangers. But the last two centuries of the Empire were years of wars and civil broils, years of decline and poverty, and at length of despair, so that comparatively little could be undertaken to rebuild the sad ruins inherited from the past, or to arrest the decay whose withering touch was laid on the monuments that still survived more or less intact. Even the Imperial Palace beside the Hippodrome was allowed to fall into such neglect and desolation, that when the Turkish conqueror visited its empty halls they echoed to his ear the couplet of the Persian poet: "The spider has become the watchman of the royal abode, and has spread his curtain over its doorway." The decay which had smitten the city impressed every visitor during the half-century preceding the Turkish Conquest. "Although the city is large," says the Spanish envoy already cited, "and has a wide circuit, it is not thickly populated everywhere for it contains many hills and valleys occupied by cultivated fields and gardens, and where one sees houses such as are found in an outlying suburb and all this in the heart of the city.... There are still many very large buildings in the city, houses, churches, monasteries, but most of them are in ruins." The great disproportion between the size of the city and the number of the population made a similar impression on Bondelmontius who came here from Florence in 1422. He speaks of vineyards flouris.h.i.+ng within the city bounds, and adds, "There are innumerable churches and cisterns throughout the city, remarkably large and constructed with much labour, and found in ruin." La Broquiere, to cite one witness more, who was here in 1433, observes that the open s.p.a.ces in the city were more extensive than the territory occupied by buildings. Times had indeed changed since the days of Themistius and Anthemius.

Constantinople was therefore far from being a rich and splendid city when it fell into the hands of its Turkish conquerors in 1453, and the scarcity of the monuments of its former wealth and grandeur must not be ascribed wholly to the action of its new masters. The ravages of time, and the vandalism of the Latin Crusaders, had left little for other rude hands to destroy.

In his dealing with the religious rights of the Christian community the Ottoman lord of Constantinople proved conciliatory. While appropriating S. Sophia and several other churches for Moslem use, he allowed the Greeks to retain a sufficient number of their former places of wors.h.i.+p.

He, moreover, ordered the free election of a new patriarch, who should enjoy, as far as possible under altered circ.u.mstances, the privileges which the chief prelate of the Great Orthodox Church had formerly possessed. Upon the election of Gennadius to the vacant post, the Sultan received him graciously at the palace, and presented him with a valuable pastoral cross, saying "Be patriarch and be at peace. Depend upon my friends.h.i.+p so long as thou desirest it, and thou shalt enjoy all the privileges of thy predecessors." The Church of the Holy Apostles, only second in repute to S. Sophia, was a.s.signed to the patriarch as a cathedral, and he was not only allowed free access to the Seraglio, but was even visited by the Sultan at the patriarchate. The loss of S.

Sophia was, indeed, a terrible humiliation, one from which the Greek Church has never recovered; a humiliation which all Christendom feels to this hour. But the preservation of the fabric is doubtless due to the fact that it pa.s.sed into the hands of the conquerors. It is difficult to see how the Greek community could have maintained that glorious pile, even "shorn of its beams," after 1453. At the time of the fatal siege, the population of the city counted at most one hundred thousand souls.

When the city fell, upwards of fifty thousand of its inhabitants were sold into captivity. Nor did the subsequent efforts of the Sultan to attract Christians to the city meet with great success. Hence extensive portions of the city were abandoned by the Christian population, on account of paucity of numbers, and the dread inspired by Turkish neighbours. Even the Patriarch Gennadius soon begged to be transferred from the Church of the Holy Apostles to the Church of S. Mary Pammacaristos, in a district where Greeks were more numerous. This request was made because the dead body of a Turk had been discovered, one morning, in the court of the Church of the Holy Apostles, and there was reason to fear that the Turkish inhabitants of the quarter would avenge the murder of a Moslem, by reprisals upon the few Christians in the vicinity. Naturally, churches situated in districts abandoned by the Christian population pa.s.sed into Turkish hands, and were disposed of as the new proprietors might find most convenient. It was thus that the Church of the Holy Apostles itself was lost to the Greek communion, and made way for the erection of the mosque named after the Conqueror. Other old churches shared a similar fate, either immediately upon the fall of the city, or later under succeeding Sultans. For, as might be expected, extensive building operations were carried on in the early days of Turkish rule, and every ancient edifice which could not be turned to better account was brought into requisition to provide ready-made material for the new structures. During the reign of the Conqueror not less than sixty mosques rose within the city bounds. The Fortress of the Seven Towers, built in 1457, at the Golden Gate, was largely constructed with materials taken from old buildings, as an examination of its walls will prove. The first palace of the Sultan, on the site now occupied by the War Office, must have played havoc among the Byzantine buildings, secular and sacred, in that neighbourhood. While the palace which was erected later, in the unrivalled situation at the head of the promontory of Stamboul, encroached upon a territory crowded with such churches as S. Demetrius, S. George Mangana, S. Mary Hodegetria, and S. Irene. All were swept away, with the exception of the last, which was converted from a temple of peace into an a.r.s.enal of war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARKET IN THE COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF SULTAN AHMED I.

The courts of the mosques are often used for market-places.]

The Turkish occupation is therefore accountable for the destruction of many ancient churches of the city. Indeed, if we may believe the historian of the Greek Patriarchate from 1453 to 1578, there was a moment when the Christian community was threatened with the loss of every church, old or new, in its possession. The graphic story is too long to be told here in all its details, but it is so characteristic of the parties concerned, and of the prevalent method (not yet quite obsolete), of creating and turning a difficult situation, that a summary account of the affair may be permitted. The scene is laid either in the reign of Selim I. or of his son Suleiman the Magnificent, when the Patriarch Jeremiah occupied the patriarchal throne for the second time.

And the play opens with the determination of a fanatical Turkish party to insist upon the law that the inhabitants of a city captured by force of arms should be denied the right of wors.h.i.+p, and should have their churches either confiscated or levelled to the ground. The Sheik-ul-Islam of the day had issued his fetva to that effect, and in five days the sentence was to be carried into execution. A high Turkish official, who was in the secret, informed a Greek notable of the storm at hand, and the latter reported the matter immediately to his ecclesiastical chief. After much weeping and many prayers, the patriarch mounted his mule and hastened to the residence of the Grand Vizier, with whom, happily, he was on the best of terms. The result of a long interview was that the patriarch was dismissed with an invitation to attend the Council of Ministers, and inform them that, while it was true that Sultan Mehemet attacked the city and destroyed a portion of the fortifications, the Greek Emperor had not carried matters to the bitter end, but went betimes to the Sultan, surrendered the keys of the city, and, after a friendly reception, brought him into Constantinople in a peaceable manner. Whereupon, the patriarch, somewhat relieved, paid a round of visits to the various Ministers of State and to other influential personages, not forgetting to leave in each case a suitable parting gift. An extraordinary Council of Ministers was then summoned to consider the question, and before that a.s.sembly the patriarch duly appeared. Meantime the news of the impending catastrophe had spread, causing great excitement, so that an immense crowd of Greeks, Armenians, and even Jews, collected outside the Council Chamber, to learn as early as possible the result of the deliberations within.

The terrible fetva was solemnly read, accompanied by the announcement that not only would it be applied to the case of Constantinople, but to every town captured by the sword throughout the Empire. "O my lord,"

cried the patriarch in a loud voice, addressing the Grand Vizier, "as to other cities I am not sufficiently informed, but as regards this city I can vouch that when Sultan Mehemet came to fight against it, Constantine, with the consent of his n.o.bles and people, did homage to him and surrendered the place voluntarily." "Have you," inquired the Grand Vizier, "any Moslem witnesses who were in the army of Sultan Mehemet when he took the city, and who can tell us how he took it?" "I have, O my lord," was the prompt reply. "Then come to-morrow to the Council, and meantime we shall take the Sultan's pleasure on the subject," said the Grand Vizier. Followed through the streets by the whole Christian population of Stamboul and Galata, the patriarch stood next day before the Council once more, and was informed that His Majesty would be pleased to accept Moslem testimony to the correctness of the statement that Constantinople had capitulated and was not taken by force. "But O my lord, the witnesses you demand are not here; they are at Adrianople; and to send for them and to bring them will involve a delay of twenty days," pleaded the patriarch. The delay was granted; messengers, provided with a large sum of money and other gifts, were forthwith despatched to Adrianople; the witnesses sought were found; and soon they were welcomed with raptures of joy at the gates of the patriarchate. After resting for two days, they were received in private audience by the Grand Vizier, and were a.s.sured that they could safely affirm whatever the patriarch might desire them to say. Accordingly, at another meeting of the Council, the patriarch was asked to produce his witnesses, failing which the fetva would be carried out. "They are standing outside," he answered. Two aged men were then introduced, their eyes running with rheum and red as raw flesh, their hands and feet trembling beneath the burden of years, their beards white as driven snow. Never before had the a.s.sembly beheld men so venerable with age.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COURT OF THE SULEIMANIYEH