absence of his predecessor. But the imperial drama had reached its
last act. The danger which had long brooded over the doomed house of
the Palæologi was ready to burst in resistless fury upon the city of
the Cæsars. Mohammed II. had vowed to become master of
Constantinople, and vast were the preparations and the implements of
war which he had provided for its capture or its destruction. The
story of the siege need not here be told; nowhere has it been
recorded with more picturesque and energetic brevity than in the
glowing pages of Gibbon. Operations were carried on with
unprecedented vigour and effect, rendered more terrible by the
lavish use of gunpowder and artillery, then almost new elements in
the art of war. Constantine did all that a Christian prince and a
brave general could do. By his example he animated the courage of
his soldiers, and revived the hearts of the citizens, sinking in
despair. The scene on the day before the assault is thus described
by an eye-witness:--'The emperor and some faithful companions
entered the dome of St Sophia, which in a few hours was to be
converted into a mosque, and devoutly received with tears and
prayers the sacrament of the holy communion. He reposed some moments
in the palace, which resounded with cries and lamentations;
solicited the pardon of all he might have injured; and mounted on
horseback to visit the guards and explore the motions of the enemy.'
But the dreaded 29th of May had come; the last hour of the city and
the empire had struck. After a siege of fifty-three days,
Constantinople, to use the words of Gibbon, 'which had defied the
power of Chosroes, the chazan, and the caliphs, was irretrievably
subdued by the arms of Mohammed II. Her empire only had been
subverted by the Latins; her religion was trampled in the dust by
the Moslem conquerors.'