“Within the pearl, that now encloseth us
Shines Romeo’s light, whose goodly deeds and fair
Met ill receptance. But the Provençals,
That were his foes, have little cause for mirth.
Ill shapes that man his course, who makes his wrong
Of other’s worth. Four daughters were there born
To Raymond Berenger; and every one
Became a queen; and this for him did Romeo,
Though of mean state, and from a foreign land,
Yet envious tongues incited him to ask
A reckoning of that just one, who return’d
Twelve-fold to him for ten. Aged and poor
He parted thence; and if the world did know
The heart he had, begging his life by morsels,
’Twould deem the praise it yields him, scantly dealt.”
(Par. vi. 131-44).
Charles of Anjou was at all points opposite to his brother Louis IX.—the Saint. The latter was true to his word, just, merciful, and devoid of personal ambition. But Charles was rapacious, cruel, and of a vehement character. His young wife, moreover, the sister of three queens, excited him to aspire after a crown; and he saw in the county of Provence only a stepping-stone towards a throne. He hoped to acquire that of Constantinople, and he supposed that he was on his way thereto when he listened to the summons of the Pope to dispossess Manfred of the Sicilies. This disastrous resolve decided the fate of Provence, and was the prime cause of its ruin. If in the Count of Anjou there had been a glimmer of political sense, he would have seen how precarious a matter it was to accept a sovereignty as a feudatory of the Holy See, and to become the sport of circumstances ever shifting. He would have perceived how fatal it would be to his fortunes to oscillate between two centres; to exhaust the sources of his real strength in Provence to maintain himself in Naples. The nobility of Provence shared in his infatuation and eagerly joined in the undertaking. At the accession of Charles under the wise government of Raymond Berenger, and the judicious husbanding of its resources by Romeo de Villeneuve, Provence was at its acme of prosperity. Charles brought it to ruin. After the execution of Conradin, he rode roughshod over the people of Naples and Sicily. To his exactions there was no end. The great fiefs were seized and granted to Provençal or Angevin favourites; the foreign soldiers lived at free quarters, and treated the people with the utmost barbarity. There ensued an iron reign of force without justice, without law, without humanity, without mercy.
Conradin, from the scaffold, had cast his glove among the crowd, and called on Peter of Aragon, husband of Constance, daughter of the noble Manfred, to avenge him, and assume his inheritance. In Sicily, where the exactions, the tyranny of the French were most intolerable, a secret correspondence was kept up with Peter of Aragon, and he was entreated to deliver the island from its French masters. But before he was ready, an outbreak of the populace precipitated matters. On Easter Tuesday the inhabitants of Palermo had gone forth in pilgrimage to a church outside the town to vespers. French soldiers, mingling with the people, began to assault the young women. The Sicilians, the fathers, brothers, lovers, remonstrated, and bade the French keep away from the festival. The French gathered together and laid their hands on their swords. At this juncture a beautiful girl, with her betrothed, approached the church. A Frenchman, named Drouet, in wantonness of insult, went up to her and thrust his hand into her bosom. The girl fainted in her bridegroom’s arms. A cry was raised of “Death to the Frenchmen!” and a youth started forward and stabbed Drouet to the heart.
This was the signal for a general insurrection. The cry spread to the city: every house was searched, and every person whose dress, speech, appearance, proclaimed him a Frenchman was massacred without mercy. Neither old age, nor sex, nor infancy, was spared. And in those Sicilian vespers, over two thousand of the Provençal and Angevin nobles and their wives perished under the knives of the justly incensed Sicilians.
When Charles heard of the massacre he burst into paroxysms of wrath. He is described as next having sat silent, gnawing the top of his sceptre, and then breaking forth into the most horrible vows of revenge.
Nor was the Pope behindhand in threats. It was to the Pope that Naples and Sicily owed the incubus of Charles and his Provençals. Clement IV. indeed was dead; Martin IV. now sat in his chair; but though there was a change in the person of the Chief Pontiff, there was no change of mind and policy.
The Palermitans sent an embassy to the Pope to deprecate his wrath, addressing him: “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us!” But even this adulation could not abate his rage. He proclaimed a crusade against the Sicilians. Heaven was promised to those who should draw the sword against them. Anathema was proclaimed against all who took their side.