Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/499

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 477 to despise life is the first qualification of a rebel. Procida was endowed with the art of negotiation, to enforce his reasons and disguise his motives ; and, in his various transactions with na- tions and men, he could persuade each party that he laboured solely for their interest. The new kingdoms of Charles were afflicted by every species of fiscal and military oppression ; ^'-^ and the lives and fortunes of his Italian subjects were sacrificed to the greatness of their master and the licentiousness of his fol- lowers. The hatred of Naples was repressed by his presence ; but the looser government of his vicegerents excited the con- tempt, as well as the aversion, of the Sicilians ; the island was roused to a sense of freedom by the eloquence of Procida ; and he displayed to every baron his private interest in the common cause. In the confidence of foreign aid, he successively visited the courts of the Greek emperor and of Peter, king of Arra- [Peter nr.] goh,^2 who possessed the maritime countries of Valentia and Catalonia. To the ambitious Peter a crown was presented, which he might justly claim by his marriage with the sister ofiieg. Mainfroy, and by the dying voice of Conradin, who from the *°^ scaffold had cast a ring to his heir and avenger. Palaeologus was easily persuaded to divert his enemy from a foreign war by a rebellion at home ; and a Greek subsidy of twenty-five thou- sand ounces of gold was most profitably applied to arm a Cata- lan fleet, which sailed under an holy banner to the specious attack of the Saracens of Africa. In the disguise of a monk or beggar, the indefatigable missionary of revolt flew from Con- stantinople to Rome, and from Sicily to Saragossa ; the treaty was sealed with the signet of pope Nicholas himself, the enemy of Charles ; and his deed of gift transferred the fiefs of St. Peter from the house of Anjou to that of Arragon. So widely diffused and so freely circulated, the secret was preserved above two years with impenetrable discretion ; and each of the con- spirators imbibed the maxim of Peter, who declared that he would cut off" his left hand, if it were conscious of the intentions of his right. The mine was prepared with deep and dangerous '2 According to Sabas Malaspina (Hist. Sicula, 1. iii. c. i6, in Muratori, torn, viii. p. 832), a zealous Guelph, the subjects of Charles, who had reviled Mainfroy as a wolf, began to regret him as a lamb ; and he justifies their discontent by the oppressions of the French government (1. vi. c. 2, 7). See the Sicilian manifesto in Nicholas Specialis (1. i. c. 11, in Muratori, torn. x. p. 930). 1. xiv. c. 6, tom. ii. p. 133). The reader forgives the Jesuit's defects, in favour always of his style, and often of his sense.
 * •* See the character and counsels of Peter of Arragon, in Mariana (Hist. Hispan.