Whilst thus looking abroad and meditating distant conquest, Charles treated too lightly the projects of a prince, less celebrated, but younger and more crafty than himself, who silently watched the progress of events, and skilfully devised how best he might derive advantage from them. Pedro of Arragon, who had married Mainfroy's daughter, Constance, cherished pretensions to the crown of the Sicilies; and, ever since the year 1279, he had been intriguing with the chiefs of the Ghibellines, with a view to an invasion of Charles's dominions. He spoke publicly of Sicily as the inheritance of his children, and did not dissimulate his animosity to its actual ruler. Whilst Charles prepared a fleet for his Eastern expedition, Don Pedro assembled another in the harbour of Portofangos, and kept it in constant readiness to sail, but none knew whither. Its destination was suspected, however, by some; and the Pope, who entertained no doubt concerning it, demanded to know Pedro's intentions, whilst Philip III. of France, at the request of his uncle, Charles of Anjou, sent ambassadors to the Arragonese monarch to make a similar inquiry. The answer given is variously stated by the archives and chronicles of the time, as evasive, prevaricatory, and even as a direct falsehood. It left no doubt upon Charles's mind that mischief was meant him by the Spaniard. "I told you," he wrote to Philip, "that the Arragonese was a contemptible wretch." Unfortunately, he carried his contempt of his wily foe rather too far; he would not believe that so small a potentate, "un si petit prince," would dare attack him in Italy, but took for a strategem the avowal of his intentions that appears to have escaped Pedro, and thought his views were directed in reality to Provence, whither he accordingly despatched his eldest son. Meanwhile, Don Pedro lingered in port, in hopes of an insurrection in Sicily, which John of Procida and others of his Sicilian adherents were fomenting by every means in their power, until his position became positively untenable, so pressed was he with questions by different European powers, and even by his own great vassals. One of these, a rico hombre, by name the Count of Pallars, having publicly asked him, in the name of the Arragonese nobility, the object of his voyage, and whither it would lead, Don Pedro replied: "Count, learn that if my left hand knew what my right was about to do, I would instantly cut it off." And still he clung to the Catalan coast, always on the eve of departure, but never lifting an anchor, until the tidings, so long and ardently desired, at last reached his car. They were unaccompanied, however, by the popular summons and proffered sceptre he had sanguinely and confidently anticipated. But we are outstripping events, and must revert to the eloquent opening of M. de St Priest's fourth volume.
"The name of Sicily is illustrious in history. If the reputation of a people had for sole foundation and measure the number of inhabitants, the extent of its territory, the duration of its influence, the Sicilians, impoverished by continual revolutions, decimated by sucessive tyrannies, more isolated from the general progress by their internal organisation, than from the mainland by their geographical position, would hold, perhaps, in the annals of the world, no more room than their island occupies on the map of Europe. But they need not fear oblivion: they have known glory,—and what glory touches, though but transitorily, for ever retains the mark. For individuals as for nations, it suffices that their lot be cast in those rare and splendid epochs whose contact ennobles every thing, which illuminate all things by their brilliancy, and stamp themselves indelibly upon the memory of the remotest generations. Happy who then lives, for he shall never die! Vast kingdoms, boundless regions, peopled by numerous races, powerful by material force, but intellectually vulgar, then yield in dignity and grandeur to the least nook of land, to some petty peninsula or remote island. Such was Greece, such also was Sicily, her rival, her competitor, and the asylum of her illustrious exiles.
"In the middle ages there was no vestige of the ancient Trinacria—of that land of art and learning, the home of every branch of human knowledge—of that politic and warlike power which yielded to Rome and Carthage only when she had made them dearly pay a long-disputed victory—of that Sicily, in short, which Plato taught and Timoleon governed—which Archimedes defended and Theocritus sang. Formerly the whole island was covered with cities. In the thirteenth century, most of these had disappeared. Agrigentum could boast but the ruins of its colossus and temples. Syracuse still retained some shadow of past greatness: she was not yet reduced, as now, to the quarries whence she sprung; she had not yet become less than a ruin; but her splendour was extinct. Catania, overthrown by earthquakes, found it difficult again to rise. Nevertheless other Sicilian towns preserved their importance, and Christendom could not boast cities handsomer and more populous—more abounding in wealth and embellished by monuments—than commercial Messina and kingly Palermo."
These two cities were at the time referred to the abode of luxury and pleasure. Messina, at once the market and the arsenal of the island, "portus et porta Siciliæ," as Charles of Anjou called it, was the principal posting-house upon the road from Europe to Asia, and was enriched by the constant passage of pilgrims and crusaders. Sumptuary laws were deemed necessary to repress the extravagance of a population whose women wore raiment of silk, then more precious than silver and gold, with tiaras upon their heads, encrusted with pearls and diamonds and other precious stones. Asia and Europe were there united; Catholics and Mussulmans lived side by side in peace and amity. In the streets, the Arab's burnous and the turban of the Moor moved side by side with priestly robe and cowl of monk. The pleasures there in vogue were no longer the simple and innocent ones vaunted by Virgil and Theocritus. It was a hotbed of debauchery, frequented by pirates, gamblers, and courtesans—a mart of commerce, whither traders of all nations repaired. Palermo, on the other hand, was the residence of kings. The Normans established there the seat of their power, inhabiting it constantly; and although the wandering life of Frederick of Swabia denied him a fixed abode, he loved Palermo the Happy, and dwelt there whenever able. Very different were the predilections of Charles of Anjou. He disliked Sicily as much as he loved Naples. By an effect, perhaps, of that love of contrast often found implanted in the human breast, his stern and sombre gaze took pleasure in the bright and joyous scenery of his continental dominions, which it could not derive from the more sad and serious beauties of the opposite island. Moreover, he held the Sicilians disaffected to his rule, and his hand was heavy upon them. Heavier still, doubtless, were those of his delegates and officers, who presumed upon his known dislike, and upon his preoccupation with schemes of foreign aggrandisement, to exceed the measure of oppression he prescribed and authorised. A very different course should have been adopted with a nation already abundantly prepared to detest their French masters. The antagonism of character was alone sufficient cause for mutual aversion. There was no point of sympathy between conquerors and conquered—nothing that could lead to friendly amalgamation. On the one hand, reserve, dissimulation, silence; on the other, an indiscreet frankness, vivacity, and noise. On both sides, a strong attachment to their native country, and conviction of its superiority over all others—a strong partiality for its language, usages, and customs—a sincere contempt for all differing from them. M. de St Priest, who strives earnestly, but not very successfully, to vindicate the memory of his countrymen of the thirteenth century, is still too veracious a historian not to admit that they treated with shameful insolence and rudeness a people whom the kindest treatment would with difficulty have induced to look kindly upon their conquerors. He is painfully anxious to make out a good case for those he calls his "brothers," (very old brothers by this time,) but succeeds so little to his satisfaction, that he is fain to throw himself on the mercy of his readers, by asking the rather illogical question, whether the crime of a few individuals is to be imputed to a nation, or even to a part of a nation? Then he enumerates some of the grievances which brought on the massacre known as the Vespers. "It is certain," he says, "that Charles of Anjou, not by himself, but by military chiefs, to whom he abandoned himself without reserve, abused of the means necessary to retain in subjection a people hostile to his cause, and whom that very excess of oppression might drive to shake off an iron yoke. He abused of the feudal prerogative which gave him right of controlling the marriages of the vassals of the crown, by compelling rich heiresses to marry his Provençal adherents, or by retaining in forced celibacy noble damsels whose inheritance the royal exchequer coveted." This is pretty well for a beginning, and enough to stir the bile of a more patient race than the Sicilians, even in an age when such acts of feudal tyranny were less startling and odious than they now would seem. But this is merely the first item. Charles also abused of an old law that existed both in Sicily and Spain, and which has been but recently abolished in the latter country. The law of the mesta gave the sheep of the royal domain right of range of all the pastures in the country, no matter who the proprietors. With this vexatious privilege Charles combined exorbitant monopolies. He compelled the rich landholders to take on lease his horses, flocks, cattle, bees, and fruit-trees, and to account to him for them every year at a fixed rate, even when disease decimated the animals, and the sirocco had withered and uprooted the trees and plants. And nothing was less rare, M. de St Priest acknowledges, than the personal ill-treatment of those who delayed to pay the impost, often twice levied upon the same persons, under pretence of chastising their unwillingness. Imprisonment, confiscation, and the bastinado, punished their indigence. The nefarious tricks played with the currency completed the measure of misery poured out upon the unhappy Sicilians. Like Alphonso X. of Castile, and most of the potentates of the period, Charles coined pieces of money with much alloy, which he named, after himself, Carlini d'oro, and exchanged them by force against the augustales, an imperial coinage of the purest gold. The public voice was loud against such tyranny and abuse, but it reached not the arrogant ears of the Beaumonts, the Morhiers, and other haughty Frenchmen who successively governed Sicily. The Bishop of Patti and brother John of Messina, complained to the Pope in presence of Charles himself. The king heard them in silence, but, after the pontifical audience, he had his accusers seized. Brother John was thrown into a dungeon, and the bishop only escaped prison by flight.
Besides the heavy griefs above stated, other grounds of complaint, more or less valid, were alleged against Charles I. Amongst these, he was accused of persecuting highwaymen and banditti with overmuch rigour. The nations of southern Europe have ever had a sneaking tenderness for the knights of the road. He was also reproached with the abolition of certain dues, unjustly exacted in the ports of Patti, Cefalu, and Catania, by the bishops of those towns. M. de St Priest brands the Sicilians as barbarians for thus quarrelling with their own advantage. But it is a fair query how far Charles made the diminution of episcopal exactions a pretext for the increase of royal ones, and whether the draconic system adopted for the repression of evil-doers, may not have been occasionally availed of for the oppression of the innocent. Then the Sicilian nobles, lovers of pomp, show, and external distinctions, grumbled at the absence of a court; and this was in fact so weighty a grievance, that its removal might perhaps have saved Sicily for Charles, or at any rate have retarded the revolt, and given him time to prosecute his designs on the East. Palermo might have been conciliated by sending the Prince of Salerno to live there. A gay court, and the substitution of the heir to the throne for obscure and detested governors, would have made all the difference. Charles did not think of this, and moreover he had no great affection for his eldest son, "a prince of monkish piety, timid and feeble, although brave; a dull and pale copy of his uncle Louis IX., and whose faults and virtues were not altogether of a nature to obtain his father's sympathy. When speaking of the Prince of Salerno, the King of Naples sometimes called him 'That Priest!'" The strongest motive of discontent, however, the most real, and which placed the nobility and higher classes amongst the foremost of the disaffected, was the bestowal of all public offices upon foreigners. At the beginning of his reign Charles had left to Neapolitans and Sicilians all fiscal and judicial posts, lucrative to the holders and productive to him; the strangers who accompanied him, ignorant of the country, would not have known how to squeeze it properly, as did Gezzolino della Marra, Alaimo de Lentini, Francesco Loffredo, and other natives. In these he reposed confidence, and, even after the defeat of Conradin, he still left Sicilians in the places of Maestri razionali, Segreti, Guidizieri, &c. But about 1278, we find Italian names disappearing from the list, and replaced almost entirely by those of Provençals and Frenchmen. At that date there seems to have been a clean sweep made of the aborigines. Such a measure was sure to cause prodigious dissatisfaction and hatred to the government. Those who depended on their places were reduced to beggary, and those who had private fortunes regretted a state of things which swelled these, besides giving them influence and power.
To the latter class belonged Alaimo de Lentini, one of the richest and best born of the Sicilian barons, possessed of great political and military talents. He had served Mainfroy, had quarrelled with and been proscribed by him, and then, espousing the interests of Charles, had shown himself an implacable persecutor of his countrymen. His good qualities were frequently clouded and neutralised by his versatility and evil passions; his life was a mingled yarn of noble actions and frequent treachery. Left to himself, he might have bequeathed a higher reputation to his descendants, but he was led astray by the evil influence of his wife. He was already in the decline of life when he married this woman, who was of plebeian birth and Jewish origin, but the widow of Count Amico, one of the principal nobles of Sicily. Her name was Maccalda Scaletta, and soon she obtained complete empire over Alaimo. Of dissolute morals, ironical wit, and of an insolent and audacious character, that feared nothing and braved every thing, Maccalda's youth had been more adventurous than reputable, and amongst other pranks she had rambled over all Sicily in the disguise of a Franciscan monk. Her love of pleasure was not more insatiable than her vanity, and she eagerly desired to figure in the first rank at a court. So long as Alaimo retained the high office of chief magistrate of Sicily, her gratified pride allowed him to remain a faithful subject: but towards the year 1275, Charles of Anjou suspected and dismissed him, and thenceforward Alaimo, instigated by his wife, was the mortal enemy of the French. He joined the intrigue set on foot by John of Procida in favour of the King of Arragon, and laboured efficiently in the cause of his new patron.
M. de St Priest does not himself narrate the oft-told tale of the Sicilian Vespers, but gives the accounts of Saba Malaspina and Bartolomeo de Neocastro, asserting that of the former writer to be the most correct, as it is certainly the most favourable to the French. He then enters into a long argument on points of no great importance; his logic being principally directed to show that if the French fell an easy prey to the infuriated Sicilians, it was through no lack of courage on their part, but because they were unarmed, surprised, and overmatched. He also takes some useless trouble to upset the story generally accredited of the immediate cause of the massacre, namely, an insult offered to a bride of high birth. The spirit of exaggerated nationality, apparent in this part of his book, stimulates his ingenuity to some curious hypotheses. It is a French failing, from which the best and wisest of that nation are rarely quite exempt, never to admit a defeat with temper and dignity. There must always have been treachery, or vastly superior numbers, or some other circumstance destructive to fair play. Not a Frenchman from Strasburg to Port Vendres, but holds, as an article of faith, that, on equal terms, the "grande nation" is unconquered and invincible. M. de St Priest seems to partake something of this spirit, so prevalent amongst his countrymen, and actually gets bitter and sarcastic about such a very antiquated business as the Sicilian Vespers. "Who does not recognise in this story (that of the insulted lady) an evident desire to exalt the deed of the Sicilians of the thirteenth century by assimilating it to analogous traits, borrowed from Roman history? Who does not here distinguish a Lucretia, or, better still, a Virginia; a Tarquin, or an Appius? The intention is conspicuous in the popular manifestos that succeeded the event. In these, reminiscences of antiquity abound. The heroes of the Vespers sought to make themselves Romans as quickly as possible, lest they should be taken for Africans." And so on in the same strain. "It is clearly seen," says the French historian in another place, "that the first outrage upon that day was perpetrated by the Sicilians, and not by the French; we behold brave and unsuspicious soldiers, inspired by good-humoured gaiety and deceitful security, barbarously stricken, in consequence of demonstrations, very indiscreet certainly, but whose inoffensive character is deposed to by a contemporary, hostile to the French and to their chief." The facts of the case are told in ten words. By a long course of injustice and oppression the French had dug and charged, beneath their own feet, a mine which a spark was sufficient to ignite. It is immaterial what hand applied that spark. Enough that the subsequent explosion involved the aggressors in universal destruction, and freed Sicily from its tyrants. The statement of Saba Malaspina is not, however, altogether so exculpatory of the French, on the unimportant point of ultimate provocation, as might be inferred from some of M. de St Priest's expressions. "When the Signor Aubert (Herbert) d'Orleans governed Sicily," says the chronicler, "several citizens of Palermo, of both sexes, went out of the town to celebrate the festival of Easter. Some young strangers joined them, and perhaps amongst those were many who carried weapons, concealing them on account of the edict forbidding them to be borne under very severe penalties. Suddenly some French varlets, probably servants of the justiciary of the province, associated themselves with the public rejoicings, less, however, to share than to trouble them. Would to heaven they had never been born, or had never entered the kingdom! At sight of all this crowd which danced and sang, they joined the dancers, took the women by the hands and arms, (more, perhaps, than was decent and proper,) ogling the handsomest, and provoking, by significant words, those whose hands or feet they could not press. At these excessive familiarities, which may be said, however, to have been inspired only by gaiety, several young men of Palermo, and certain exiles from Gaéta, lost their senses so far as to assail the foreigners with injurious words, such as the French do not easily suffer. Then said the latter amongst themselves, 'It is impossible but that these pitiful Patarins[6] have arms about them, otherwise they would never venture such insolent language; let us see if some of them have not concealed swords, or, at any rate, poignards or knives.' And they began to search the Palermitans. Then these, very furious, threw themselves upon the French with stones and weapons, for a great number came up who were armed. The varlets fell for the most part stoned and stabbed to death. Thus does play engender war. The entire island revolted, and every where was heard the cry, 'Death to the French!'" The details of the ensuing massacre are as horrible as they are well known; and M. de St Priest passes lightly over them. Men, women, and children, soldiers and priests, all fell before the vengeful steel of the insurgents. The little fortress of Sperlinga alone afforded shelter to the fugitive Frenchmen, giving rise to the proverb still current in Sicily, "Sperlinga negó."[7] Messina, however, at first took no part in the movement, and continued tranquil in the possession of a French garrison. This was cause for great alarm to the Palermitans, already somewhat embarrassed with their rapid victory and sudden emancipation. Messina hostile, or even neuter, nothing was done, and Sicily must again fall into the vindictive hands of Charles of Anjou. As usual, in Sicilian revolutions, Palermo had given the impulse, but a satisfactory result depended on the adhesion of Messina. Flattering overtures were made by the insurgents to the Messinese; but the latter still hesitated, and, far from joining the massacre, sent six galleys to blockade Palermo, and armed two hundred cross-bowmen to reduce the fortress of Taormine. The effort was in vain. Instead of attacking Taormine, the bowmen re-entered Messina, and pulled down the fleurs-de-lis, whilst the inhabitants of Palermo, upon the appearance of the galleys, hoisted the Messinese cross beside their own flag, and fraternised with the fleet that came to block their port. This completed the revolution, and Messina also had its massacre. The viceroy, Herbert of Orleans, finding it impossible to hold out longer in his fortress of Mattagriffone, capitulated, and embarked for Calabria with five hundred Frenchmen, amidst the menacing demonstrations of a furious mob. Sicily was declared a republic, and a deputation was sent to the Pope, to place it under his protection. An attempt made by the Arragonese party to obtain the preference for Don Pedro was premature, and consequently failed.
Charles of Anjou was with the Pope at Montefiascone, when news reached him of the revolt and massacre at Palermo. His first emotion was a sort of religious terror, which expressed itself in the following singular prayer, recorded by Villani and all the historians:—"Lord!" he said, "you who have raised me so high, if it be your will to cast me down, grant at least that my fall be gradual, and that I may descend step by step." Although he as yet knew nothing but the insurrection of a single town, he seems to have beheld the shadow cast before by the evil day at hand. He left Montefiascone, having obtained from Martin IV., whose indignation equalled his own, a bull of conditional interdiction against the Sicilians, should they not return to their allegiance. The Pope also sent Cardinal Gerard of Parma to Sicily, to bring about the submission of the rebels. But at Naples Charles learned the insurrection of Messina, and his fury knew no bounds. Neocastro and other chroniclers represent him as roaring like a lion; his eyes full of blood, and his mouth of foam, whilst he furiously bit the baton he bore in his hand—a favourite practice of his when angry and excited. After writing to his nephew, Philip of France, for a subsidy and five hundred men, he set sail himself with his queen, Margaret of Burgundy, at the head of the formidable armament fitted out for the conquest of the East. There were two hundred vessels bearing an army composed of French and Provençals, of Lombards and Tuscans, including fifty young knights of the noblest families in Florence, and (a strange spectacle in the host of Mainfroy's conqueror) a thousand Lucera Saracens. The total was fifteen thousand cavalry and sixty thousand infantry, and the rendezvous was at Catona, a Calabrian town opposite Messina, where, by the king's orders, forty galleys already awaited him.
Undaunted by the formidable array, the Messinese prepared a vigorous defence, repairing their walls, barricading their port with beams, and even assuming the offensive with their galleys, which chased some of the King's into the port of Scylla. Yet a bold and sudden assault would probably have taken the town, and the reduction of all Sicily must necessarily have followed. This course was urged by Charles's principal officers; but he preferred the advice of the Count of Acerra, who, from cowardly or perfidious motives, urged him to wait the result of the legate's negotiations with the rebels. This was a fatal error. Delay was destruction. At the very moment it would well have availed him, Charles abdicated his usual fiery impetuosity in favour of temporising measures. Encamping four leagues to the south of Messina, he lost precious time in idle skirmishes. Whilst he burned their woods and vines, the Messinese raised fortifications, and named Alaimo de Lentini captain of the people, the chief office in the new republic. Whilst Alaimo took charge of the defence of Messina, his wife Maccalda, with helm on head and cuirass upon breast, armed and valiant like another Pallas, marshalled the garrison of Catania.
Hostilities were about to commence when Cardinal Gerard of Parma reached Messina. Alaimo received him with the greatest respect, and offered him the keys of the town in token of liege homage to the holy see. The Cardinal replied by a vague offer of pardon if they submitted to the King. "At the word submission, Alaimo snatched the keys from the legate's hand, and exclaimed in a voice of thunder, 'Sooner death than a return to the odious French yoke!' After this theatrical burst, probably a piece of mere acting on the part of a man who had served under so many banners, serious negotiations began." It was impossible to agree. The exasperation of the Messinese reached a height that terrified the legate, who made his escape, after placing the city under interdict. The proposals he took to Charles were "the immediate raising of the siege, and return of the army to the Continent; taxes as in the time of William the Good; and, finally, a formal engagement that the island should no longer be garrisoned by French or Provençals, but by Italians or Latins. "If these conditions are refused," said the bold Messinese, "we will resist till death, though we should eat our children!" The Cardinal admonished Charles of the prudence of accepting these terms, hinting that it might be less necessary to observe them, when the island was again in his hands. Charles was too angry and too honourable to listen to the jesuitical insinuation, and war was the word. The legate returned to Rome, in despair at the hot-headed monarch's intractability. Charles's knights and officers were clamorous for an instant assault; but he preferred a blockade, not wishing, he said, to punish the innocent with the guilty. M. de St Priest discredits the motive, and attributes such unusual forbearance on the part of the Lion of Anjou to the fear of losing, by the indiscriminate pillage that would follow a successful assault, the great riches Messina was known to contain.