Melisende of Tripoli

Preparations were made for the marriage, and the nobility of the Latin East considered Melisende the future Byzantine empress.

Neither Melisende nor her brother, the new count, were old enough to assume rule, and thus their cousin King Baldwin III appointed their mother.

The countess and the queen spent a year preparing Melisende's dowry, draining the royal treasury.

Historians Kevin J. Lewis and Jean Richard believe that the family came to discuss Melisende's imminent marriage with Baldwin.

Her family scandalized and humiliated, and Raymond refitted the ships that had been intended to escort Melisende and used them to raid Byzantine coasts and islands.

[10] The chronicler John Kinnamos wrote that the imperial envoys had found Melisende to be beautiful, but that her health was visibly failing because of violent seizures.

Lewis notes that the Byzantine emperors had long desired to extend their rule over the Principality of Antioch, and that Manuel had no use for an alliance with Tripoli.

[11] Lewis surmises that Raymond never forgave the insult on his and Melisende's honor, and that he may have undermined the future cooperation between the Byzantine Empire and the crusader states because of it.

An example of this is the 1895 operetta La Princesse lointaine by Edmond Rostand, which incorporates Emperor Manuel's rejection of Melisende into the original story.