sovereignty of Lombardy and Tuscany. A tribute of eight thousand ounces of gold, and a white palfrey, was, by this investiture, assigned to St. Peter. The French army, headed by Beatrice, did not pass through Italy till towards the end of the summer of 1265; and in the month of February of the following year, Charles entered, at its head, the kingdom of Naples. He met Manfred, who awaited him in the plain of Grandella, near Benevento, on the 26th of February. The battle was bloody. The Germans and Saracens were true to their ancient valour; but the Apulians fled like cowards, and the brave son of Frederick II, abandoned by them on the field of battle, perished. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies was the price of this victory. Resistance ceased, but not massacre. Charles gave up the pillage of Benevento to his soldiers; and they cruelly put to death all the inhabitants. The Italians, who believed they had experienced from the Germans and Saracens of Frederick and Manfred all that could be feared from the most barbarous enemies, now found that there was a degree of ferocity still greater than that to which they had been accustomed from the house of Hohenstaufen. The French seemed always ready to give as to receive death. The two strong colonies of Saracens at Luceria and Nocera were soon exterminated, and in a few years there remained not in the Two Sicilies a single individual of that nation or religion, nor one German who had been in the pay of Manfred. Charles willingly consented to acknowledge the Apulians and Sicilians his subjects; but he oppressed them, as their conqueror, with intolerable burdens. While he distributed amongst his followers all the great fiefs of the kingdom, he so secured with a hand of iron his detested dominion that two years afterwards, when Conradin, the son of Conrad and the nephew of Manfred, arrived from Germany to dispute the crown, few malcontents in the Two Sicilies had the courage to declare for him. [Sidenote: [1266-1268 A.D.]]