Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/497

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 475 chivalry of France on this holy expedition.'*^ The disaffection of his Christian subjects compelled Mainfroy to enlist a colony of Saracens, whom his father had planted in Apulia ; and this odious succour will explain the defiance of the Catholic hero, who rejected all terms of accommodation : "Bear this message," said Charles, " to the sultan of Nocera, that God and the sword are umpire between us ; and that he shall either send me to paradise, or I will send him to the pit of hell ". The armies met, and, though I am ignorant of Mainfroy 's doom in the other world, in this he lost his friends, his kingdom, and his life, in the bloody battle of Benevento. Naples and Sicily were im- mediately peopled with a warlike race of French nobles ; and their aspiring leader embraced the future conquest of Africa, Greece, and Palestine. The most specious reasons might point his first arms against the Byzantine empire ; and Palaeologus, diffident of his own strength, repeatedly appealed from the am- bition of Charles to the humanity of St. Ivouis, who still pre- served a just ascendant over the mind of his ferocious brother. For a while the attention of that brother was confined at home by the invasion of Conradin, the last heir of the Imperial house of Swabia ; but the hapless boy sunk in the unequal conflict ; and his execution on a public scaffold taught the rivals of Charles to tremble for their heads as well as their dominions. A second respite was obtained by the last crusade of St. Louis to the African coast ; and the double motive of interest and duty urged the king of Naples to assist, with his powers and his presence, the holy enterprise. The death of St. Louis released him from the importunity of a virtuous censor ; the king of Tunis confessed himself the tributary and vassal of the crown Threatens the of Sicily; and the boldest of the French knights were fi*ee to a^d* i2^7™,''ac!' enlist under his banner against the Greek empire. A treaty and a marriage united his interest with the house of Courtenay ; his daughter, Beatrice, was promised to Philip, son and heir of the emperor Baldwin ; a pension of six hundred ounces of gold w^as allowed for his maintenance ; and his generous father dis- conquest of Naples by Charles of Anjou, may be found in the Florentine Chronicles of Ricordano Malespina [/<?/. Malespini] (c. 175-193) and Giovanni Villani (1. vii. c. i-io, 25-50), which are published by Muratori in the viiith and xiiith volumes of the historians of Italy. In his Annals (torn. xi. p. 56-72), he has abridged these great events, which are likewise described in the Istoria Civile of Giannone (torn, ii. 1. xi.. ; torn. iii. 1. xx.). [The chronicle attributed to Malespini has been proved not to be original but to depend on Villani. See Scheffer-Boichorst, in Sybels Historische Zcitschrift, 24, p. '2-jsqq. (1870).]
 * ^ The best accounts, the nearest the time, the most full and entertaining, of the