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206 in cold blood; the last of them searched for in their hiding-places, when the streets were empty, dragged to the sea-shore, then beheaded, and their bodies thrown into the sea. Throughout Calabria the Christian judges of Charles thus forgave his enemies. And the Mohammedan power and heresy ended in Italy, and she became secure in her Catholic creed.

246. Not altogether secure under French dominion. After fourteen years of misery, Sicily sang her angry vespers, and a Calabrian admiral burnt the fleet of Charles before his eyes, where Scylla rules her barking Salamis. But the French king died in prayerful peace, receiving the sacrament with these words of perfectly honest faith, as he reviewed his past life: "Lord God, as I truly believe that you are my Saviour, so I pray you to have mercy on my soul; and as I truly made the conquest of Sicily more to serve the Holy Church than for my own covetousness, so I pray you to pardon my sins."

247. You are to note the two clauses of this prayer. He prays absolute mercy, on account of his faith in Christ; but remission of purgatory, in proportion to the quantity of good work he has done, or meant to do, as against evil.