If all the White party had possessed Dante’s energy, Florence might have been saved. Vieri de’ Cerchi had, indeed, as we have seen, spirit enough to tell the Pope in effect to mind his own business, and he was not devoid of shrewdness; but he seems to have been incapable of any sustained vigour in action. The party as a whole were probably as corrupt as their rivals, and less astute--“an evil and foolish company,” as Dante afterwards called them by the mouth of Cacciaguida. Corso Donati, on the other hand, was a bold and reckless intriguer. He followed up the conspiracy of the Santa Trinità by hastening to the Papal Court, and inducing Boniface to send at once for Charles of Valois, brother of the French king, Philip the Fair. Charles obeyed the summons readily, in the hope, says Villani, of the Imperial crown. After a visit to the Pope at Anagni, he entered Florence on All Saints’ Day, 1301. All opposition on the part of the Whites was disarmed by the assurance that he came only as “peacemaker;” and a meeting, “at which I, the writer, was present,” was held in the Church of Santa Maria Novella. Charles, “with his own mouth, undertook and swore, and promised as a King’s son to maintain the city in peace and good estate; and incontinently by him and by his people the contrary was done.” Armed men were introduced; Corso Donati, though under sentence of banishment, entered with them, Vieri de’ Cerchi, in foolish confidence, forbidding his arrest. The populace, promptly seeing who were the masters, raised a shout of “Long live Lord Charles and the Baron” (the name given to Corso); and the city was given up for a week to burning and pillage. A second visit from the Cardinal of Acquasparta produced no result, save a momentary truce and another interdict. Throughout the early months of 1302, killings and slayings went on, Corso’s only son, among others, being mortally wounded in the act of murdering one of the Cerchi. Finally, one of the French knights, acting in the capacity which to this day is regarded as peculiarly suited to the French genius, that of _agent provocateur_, induced some of the White party, by offers of help, to form some kind of conspiracy against Charles’s person. This plot being duly reported, the conspirators fled on April 4th, some to Pisa, some to Arezzo, some to Pistoia, and joined the already exiled Ghibelines. They were condemned as rebels, and their houses destroyed. From this time the Whites and Ghibelines form one party.