234. Of the character of their enemy, Charles of Anjou, there will remain on your minds, after careful examination of his conduct, only the doubt whether I am justified in speaking of him as Christian against Infidel. But you will cease to doubt this when you have entirely entered into the conditions of this nascent Christianity of the thirteenth century. You will find that while men who desire to be virtuous receive it as the mother of virtues, men who desire to be criminal receive it as the forgiver of crimes; and that therefore, between Ghibelline or Infidel cruelty, and Guelph or Christian cruelty, there is always this difference,—that the Infidel cruelty is done in hot blood, and the Christian's in cold. I hope (in future lectures on the architecture of Pisa) to illustrate to you the opposition between the Ghibelline Conti, counts, and the Guelphic Visconti, viscounts or "against counts," which issues, for one thing, in that, by all men blamed as too deliberate, death of the Count Ugolino della Gherardesca. The Count Ugolino was a traitor, who entirely deserved death; but another Count of Pisa, entirely faithful to the Ghibelline cause, was put to death by Charles of Anjou, not only in cold blood, but with resolute infliction of Ugolino's utmost grief;—not in the dungeon, but in the full light of day—his son being first put to death before his eyes. And among the pieces of heraldry most significant in the middle ages, the asp on the shield of the Guelphic viscounts is to be much remembered by you as a sign of this merciless cruelty of mistaken religion; mistaken, but not in the least hypocritical. It has perfect confidence in itself, and can answer with serenity for all its deeds. The serenity of heart never appears in the guilty Infidels; they die in despair or gloom, greatly satisfactory to adverse religious minds.
235. The French Pope, then, Urban of Troyes, had sent for Charles of Anjou; who would not have answered his call, even with all the strength of Anjou and Provence, had not Scylla of the Tyrrhene Sea been on his side. Pisa, with eighty galleys (the Sicilian fleet added to her own), watched and defended the coasts of Rome. An irresistible storm drove her fleet to shelter; and Charles, in a single ship, reached the mouth of the Tiber, and found lodgings at Rome in the convent of St. Paul. His wife meanwhile spent her dowry in increasing his land army, and led it across the Alps. How he had got his wife, and her dowry, we must hear in Villani's words, as nearly as I can give their force in English, only, instead of the English word pilgrim, I shall use the Italian 'romeo' for the sake both of all English Juliets, and that you may better understand the close of the sixth canto of the Paradise.
236. "Now the Count Raymond Berenger had for his inheritance all Provence on this side Rhone; and he was a wise and courteous signor, and of noble state, and virtuous; and in his time they did honourable things; and to his court came by custom all the gentlemen of Provence, and France, and Catalonia, for his courtesy and noble state; and there they made many cobbled verses, and Provençal songs of great sentences."
237. I must stop to tell you that 'cobbled' or 'coupled' verses mean rhymes, as opposed to the dull method of Latin verse; for we have now got an ear for jingle, and know that dove rhymes to love. Also, "songs of great sentences" mean didactic songs, containing much in little, (like the new didactic Christian painting,) of which an example (though of a later time) will give you a better idea than any description.
"Vraye foy de necessité,
Non tant seulement d'equité,
Nous fait de Dieu sept choses croire:
C'est sa doulce nativité,
Son baptesme d'humilité,
Et sa mort, digne de mémoire:
Son descens en la chartre noire,
Et sa resurrection, voire;
S'ascencion d'auctorité,
La venue judicatoire,
Ou ly bons seront mis en gloire,
Et ly mals en adversité."
238. "And while they were making these cobbled verses and harmonious creeds, there came a romeo to court, returning from the shrine of St. James." I must stop again just to say that he ought to have been called a pellegrino, not a romeo, for the three kinds of wanderers are,—Palmer, one who goes to the Holy Land; Pilgrim, one who goes to Spain; and Romeo, one who goes to Rome. Probably this romeo had been to both. "He stopped at Count Raymond's court, and was so wise and worthy (valoroso), and so won the Count's grace, that he made him his master and guide in all things. Who also, maintaining himself in honest and religious customs of life, in a little time, by his industry and good sense, doubled the Count's revenues three times over, maintaining always a great and honoured court. Now the Count had four daughters, and no son; and by the sense and provision of the good romeo—(I can do no better than translate 'procaccio' provision, but it is only a makeshift for the word derived from procax, meaning the general talent of prudent impudence, in getting forward; 'forwardness,' has a good deal of the true sense, only diluted;)—well, by the sense and—progressive faculty, shall we say?—of the good pilgrim, he first married the eldest daughter, by means of money, to the good King Louis of France, saying to the Count, 'Let me alone,—Lascia-mi-fare—and never mind the expense, for if you marry the first one well, I'll marry you all the others cheaper, for her relationship."
239. "And so it fell out, sure enough; for incontinently the King of England (Henry III.) because he was the King of France's relation, took the next daughter, Eleanor, for very little money indeed; next, his natural brother, elect King of the Romans, took the third; and, the youngest still remaining unmarried,—says the good romeo, 'Now for this one, I will you to have a strong man for son-in-law, who shall be thy heir;'—and so he brought it to pass. For finding Charles, Count of Anjou, brother of the King Louis, he said to Raymond, "'Give her now to him, for his fate is to be the best man in the world,'—prophesying of him. And so it was done. And after all this it came to pass, by envy which ruins all good, that the barons of Provence became jealous of the good romeo, and accused him to the Count of having ill-guided his goods, and made Raymond demand account of them. Then the good romeo said, 'Count, I have served thee long, and have put thee from little state into mighty, and for this, by false counsel of thy people, thou art little grateful. I came into thy court a poor romeo; I have lived honestly on thy means; now, make to be given to me my little mule and my staff and my wallet, as I came, and I will make thee quit of all my service.' The Count would not he should go; but for nothing would he stay; and so he came, and so he departed, that no one ever knew whence he had come, nor whither he went. It was the thought of many that he was indeed a sacred spirit."
240. This pilgrim, you are to notice, is put by Dante in the orb of justice, as a just servant; the Emperor Justinian being the image of a just ruler. Justinian's law-making turned out well for England; but the good romeo's match-making ended ill for it; and for Borne, and Naples also. For Beatrice of Provence resolved to be a queen like her three sisters, and was the prompting spirit of Charles's expedition to Italy. She was crowned with him, Queen of Apulia and Sicily, on the day of the Epiphany, 1265; she and her husband bringing gifts that day of magical power enough; and Charles, as soon as the feast of coronation was over, set out to give battle to Manfred and his Saracens. "And this Charles," says Villani, "was wise, and of sane counsel; and of prowess in arms, and fierce, and much feared and redoubted by all the kings in the world;—magnanimous and of high purposes; fearless in the carrying forth of every great enterprise; firm in every adversity; a verifier of his every word; speaking little,—doing much; and scarcely ever laughed, and then but a little; sincere, and without flaw, as a religious and catholic person; stern in justice, and fierce in look; tall and nervous in person, olive coloured, and with a large nose, and well he appeared a royal majesty more than other men. Much he watched, and little he slept; and used to say that so much time as one slept, one lost; generous to his men-at-arms, but covetous to acquire land, signory, and coin, come how it would, to furnish his enterprises and wars: in courtiers, servants of pleasure, or jocular persons, he delighted never."
241. To this newly crowned and resolute king, riding south from Rome, Manfred, from his vale of Nocera under Mount St. Augelo, sends to offer conditions of peace. Jehu the son of Nimshi is not swifter of answer to Ahaziah's messenger than the fiery Christian king, in his 'What hast thou to do with peace?' Charles answers the messengers with his own lips: "Tell the Sultan of Nocera, this day I will put him in hell, or he shall put me in paradise."
242. Do not think it the speech of a hypocrite. Charles was as fully prepared for death that day as ever Scotch Covenanter fighting for his Holy League; and as sure that death would find him, if it found, only to glorify and bless. Balfour of Burley against Claverhouse is not more convinced in heart that he draws the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. But all the knightly pride of Claverhouse himself is knit together, in Charles, with fearless faith, and religious wrath. "This Saracen scum, led by a bastard German,—traitor to his creed, usurper among his race,—dares it look me, a Christian knight, a prince of the house of France, in the eyes? Tell the Sultan of Nocera, to-day I put him in hell, or he puts me in paradise."