Mainfroy of Sicily.” With great difficulty, the royal corpse was found, amidst heaps of slain, and the French chevaliers entreated Charles to allow it honourable burial. “Willingly,” replied Charles, “were he not excommunicated.” The new King of Sicily could not reasonably be expected to grant ecclesiastical interment to the man, whom he had fought and supplanted on the sole ground of his being out of the pale of the church. So a trench was dug at the foot of the bridge over the Calora, the body was laid in it, the army filed by, and each soldier, as he passed, threw a stone upon the unconsecrated grave. As great warriors have had worse monuments. But papal hatred followed Mainfroy even beyond the tomb. Under pretence that the remains of the excommunicated hero infected the pontifical soil, Clement IV.’s nuncio had them unearthed and dragged at night, without torches, to the banks of the Garigliano. There they were abandoned to the pelting storm and prowling beast of prey. “Whilst a savage fanaticism thus insulted the ashes of Sicily’s King, poetry prepared him a glorious revenge. Eight months before the battle of Benevento, a child was born at Florence, in May 1265, whose name was Dante Alighieri. Dante protected the memory of Mainfroy.” For eight days the unfortunate town of Benevento was abandoned to the horrors of the sack. At the end of that time Charles called his greedy soldiers from pillage and excess, rallied them round his standard and marched to Naples. The magnificence of his entrance dazzled and delighted the people, surpassing even the vaunted splendour of the proud Hohenstauffen. In every respect Charles’s victory was complete. The Anjevine banner floated throughout the kingdom of Naples; and after very slight resistance on the part of Gualvano Lancia and of Conrad of Antioch, an illegitimate grandson of the Emperor Frederick, Sicily and Calabria were also reduced and tranquillised. But the triumphant king was still surrounded with difficulties. His pecuniary obligations were numerous and heavy, and his new kingdom offered no resources for their acquittal. The population was greatly reduced, agriculture had disappeared, commerce was at the very lowest ebb, the nobility were ruined, and revenue there was none. On the other hand, Charles’s troops were clamorous for arrears; and the Pope, who had pledged the treasures of the Roman churches to Tuscan bankers for funds to carry on the war, was urgent in his demands of repayment, and went so far as to threaten his debtor with excommunication. Charles the First was in great perplexity. The clergy, who alone had some means, he was forbidden to tax, by the terms of his treaty with the Pope. In this dilemma, the King was compelled to resort to imposts and extortions, which rendered him odious to his subjects. In this respect he was no worse, perhaps, than his immediate predecessors, who seldom scrupled to raise a forced contribution, even by the armed hand; but his manner of procuring his