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To-day Montelupo is but a village; yet once it was of importance not only as a fortress, for that she ceased to be almost when the Counts of Capraja were broken, and certainly by 1203, when Villani tells us that the Florentines destroyed the place because it would not obey the commonwealth; but as a city of art, or at any rate of a beautiful handicraft.
This boy was born in 1203, son of the beautiful Inga of Varteig, whom King Haakon had warmly loved though she was not his wife.
Provisions and ships had been prepared, and the Venetians, wishing to use them, with the consent of Doge Enrico Dandolo, proposed to the French an attack on Zara, part of the booty to be used to pay for their passage. The attack took place on November 10, 1202, and the French stayed till April 7, 1203.
His forces numbered about four thousand six hundred, and he seems to have advanced along the banks of the Kerulon, toward the heights of Jedshir, between the Tula and the Kerulon, and therefore toward the modern Urga, where Wang Khan was posted. In the battle which followed, and which was fought in the spring of 1203, the latter was defeated; he fled to the Naimans, and was there murdered.
To palliate the flagrant treachery a promise was exacted from the pretender that, when installed as Emperor, he would help in the conquest of Egypt with men, money, and supplies. On July 17th, 1203, the army entered Constantinople, after a short siege. Alexius III escaped by flight and Alexius IV was installed in his place.
On the other hand, Philip had never made the slightest attempt to obtain Arthur's release; early in 1203, if not before, he was almost openly laying his plans in anticipation of Arthur's permanent effacement from politics. The interests of the French King were in fact no less concerned in Arthur's imprisonment, and more concerned in his death, than were the interests of John himself.
When we pass from the ninth to the thirteenth century, from the oath of Charles the Bald and Louis the Germanic at Strasbourg, in 842, to the account of the conquest of Constantinople in 1203, given by Geoffrey de Villehardouin, seneschal of Champagne, what a space has been traversed, what progress accomplished in the language of France!
Kings had the contrasted examples of Philip Augustus and the heroic Richard to teach them the value of staying at home. We need glance but briefly at these later crusades. The fourth was undertaken in 1203. Venice contracted to transport its warriors to the Holy Land, but instead persuaded them to join her in an attack upon the decrepit Empire of the East.
In 1203 the fortifications consisted only of wooden palisades. Being attacked by the Bretons, they set fire to them: the fire reached the church and abbey, which was completely destroyed. The monastery was restored in 1226, by Abbot Adulph de Villedieu. His successor, Richard Justin, obtained from the Pope the most distinguished privileges. In 1418 the English made a fruitless attack upon it.
Being at Falaise at the end of January, 1203, he caused his nephew to be brought before him, and "addressed him with fair words, promising him great honors if he would forsake the King of France and cleave faithfully to his uncle and rightful lord."
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