The regent deplored the calamities, of which he was the author and victim: and his own experience might dictate a just and lively remark on the different nature of foreign and civil war.

"The former," said he, "is the external warmth of summer, always tolerable, and often beneficial; the latter is the deadly heat of a fever, which consumes without a remedy the vitals of the constitution." [29] [Footnote 271: Cantacuzene asserts, that in all the cities, the populace were on the side of the emperor, the aristocracy on his.

The populace took the opportunity of rising and plundering the wealthy as Cantacuzenites, vol.iii.c.

29 Ages of common oppression and ruin had not extinguished these republican factions .-- M.] [Footnote 28: The princes of Servia (Ducange, Famil.

Dalmaticae, &c., c.