After so great a misfortune, the king of Sicily neglected no means of succouring the Crusaders. We may believe in the generous sentiments which he expressed upon the occasion; but there is little doubt that, with his feelings a hope was mixed of deriving something favourable to his projects from this deplorable circumstance. When all the leaders were arrived, several councils were held to ascertain what remained to be done. As every one deplored his own losses, Charles proposed a sure means of repairing them, which was the conquest of Greece. This was the plan he had arranged; in the first place, all the Crusaders should pass the winter in Sicily; in the spring, the count of Poictiers should set out for Palestine with a part of the army, the rest was to follow Charles to Epirus, and from thence to Byzantium. This project had something adventurous and chivalric in it, very likely to seduce the French barons and nobles; but letters to the young king arrived from France, in which the regents represented in strong colours the grief and alarms of his people. Philip declared that he could not stay in Sicily, but should immediately return to his own dominions. This determination destroyed all Charles’s hopes; the French lords would not abandon their young monarch, and the princes and all the leaders of the Christian army laid aside the cross. An Italian chronicle reports that Charles, in his vexation, confiscated to his own profit all the vessels and all the effects which, after the late shipwreck, were thrown upon the coasts of Sicily. He had profited by the misfortunes of the army before Tunis, and he now enriched himself with the spoils of his companions in arms. This act of injustice and violence completed the dislike that most of the Crusaders had conceived for him; this was particularly the case with the Genoese, to whom the fleet belonged in which the Christian army had embarked. It was, however, decided that they should resume the crusade four years later. The two kings, the princes, and the most influential leaders, engaged themselves by oath to embark for Syria with their troops in the month of July of the fourth year;—a vain promise, that not one of them was destined to keep, and which they only made then to excuse in their own eyes the inconsistency of their conduct in this war. Edward, who had announced his resolution of passing the winter in Sicily, and setting out for Palestine in the spring, was the only one that did not break his promises.