knight to become the husband of Constance and the King of Jerusalem.
He was now an old man of more than seventy years. His daughter,
Yolande, was married to Frederick II, who had assumed the title of
King of Jerusalem, but old as he was he was still of commanding
stature and martial bearing. His arm had lost none of its strength,
nor his brain any of its vigor. He accepted the crown on the
understanding that the young Baldwin, then eleven years of age, should
join him as emperor on coming of age. Great things were expected from
so stout a soldier. Yet for two years nothing was done. Then the
Emperor was roused into action.

It was understood at Constantinople that Vatatces, the successor of
Theodore Lascaris, was on the point of concluding an alliance,
offensive and defensive, with Agan, King of the Bulgarians and
successor of John. The alliance could have but one meaning, the
destruction of the Latin empire.

It must be remembered that the vast Roman Empire of the East was
shrunken in its dimensions to the city of Constantinople and that
narrow strip of territory commanded by her walls, her scanty armies,
and her diminished fleets. Of territory, indeed, the Latin empire had
none in the sense of land producing revenue. What it held was held
with the drawn sword in the hand ready for use. The kingdom of
Thessalonica was gone; and though the dukedoms, marquisates, and
countships of Achaia, Athens, Sparta, and other independent petty
states were still held by the emperors or their sons, they were like
the outlying provinces of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem--Edessa,
Tripoli, and the rest--a source of weakness rather than of strength.
Little help, if any, could be looked for from them.