Cardinal Otho was in the fleet, returning to Rome with English plunder. He had been collecting enormous sums by exactions on the clergy and freewill offerings for the replenishing of the Papal treasury, and the prosecution of the holy war against Frederick. All this now fell into the hands of the Imperialists. Romeo was not taken prisoner; he fought with determined courage, and even captured one of the hostile vessels, and brought it back to Marseilles. Raymond Berenger died in 1245; by his will he had confided the regency to Romeo, along with the guardianship of his daughters. Romeo assembled the Provençal nobles and the representatives of the chief towns, and made them swear allegiance to Beatrix, the daughter of his old master, who had been constituted heiress of Provence. Romeo succeeded in getting her married to Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX. This was done with wise purpose, but events proved—events over which Romeo had no control—that it was a disastrous mistake. In his determination to root out the Hohenstauffen from Italy, Pope Clement IV. offered the crown of Naples and Sicily to this Charles. This was, as Mr. Addington Symons well says, “the most pernicious of all the evils inflicted by the papal power on Italy and on Provence.” Then followed the French tyranny, under which Boniface VIII. expired at Anagni; Benedict XI. was poisoned at the instigation of Philip le Bel, and the Papal see was transferred to Avignon. Provence was henceforth involved in the bloody wars of Italy; its wealth, its manhood, were drained away, its Count passed to Naples to keep there his Court as a King, to the neglect of good government at home. Romeo underwent the fate of all honest and strong men. He had made himself enemies, who accused him to the prince of having enriched himself at the expense of the province. Romeo produced his accounts before the prince, showing that he had not betrayed his trust to the value of a denier; and then, resuming his pilgrim’s habit, resumed also his wanderings. Finally he retired to the castle of Vence, where he died. His will was dated December 18th, 1250. Dante places him in Paradise:— “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).