supplies was particularly obnoxious to the Neapolitans. He reduced it to a regular system, based upon the French fiscal forms. The people preferred the occasional swoop of a party of Saracens to the tax-gatherer’s systematic spoliation. The irritation became general. Murmurs and complaints were heard on all sides, mingled with regrets for Mainfroy. The Pope, unwilling to share Charles’s unpopularity, dissatisfied at the nonpayment of his advances, and but slightly appeased by the present of a golden throne and candelabra sent him from the sack of Benevento, wrote harsh letters to his ally, and sent him long lectures and instructions as to how he should govern, bidding him, above all things, to be _amiable_. This was not much in Charles’s way; neither did his political views at all agree with those of his Holiness Clement IV. He was certainly by no means amiable, and, moreover, he committed a grievous blunder, common enough with his countrymen, and which alienated the affections of his subjects. He tried to Frenchify his new dominions. Obstinately bent on moving the mountain, he would not even meet it half-way. He scorned to take a lesson from the Norman founders of the kingdom, who “governed Sicily not as conquerors but as old hereditary sovereigns,” and were cautious of the too sudden introduction of foreign innovations. His object, according to M. de St Priest’s own showing, was at least as much the increase of the power and importance of France, as the happiness of the people he had come to reign over. His historian admires him for this, and for his wish “to make half Europe, not a vassal, but a dependency of France.” He introduced the forms of French administration, abolished the offices and etiquette that had existed since the days of King Roger, and replaced them by those of the court of Vincennes, changes which excited great hatred and dislike to their author. He abandoned the Castel Capuano, the residence of Frederick II., and built the Castel Nuovo, on the model of the Paris Bastile. The copy has survived the original. But we must pass over, for the present, the merits and errors of Charles, and his ambitious designs upon Italy and the East, to bring upon the scene the last heir of the house of Stauffen.