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.