The French monarch hastened to manifest his joy by renewed acts of cruelty. It is said that one of the towers of Corneto was garlanded with the corpses of some of the most distinguished and valiant Ghibellines. In all the Neapolitan cities he excited the populace to the fiercest excesses against the nobles of Conradin's party. And his ministers in Sicily outrivalled one another in ferocity, for it is said that, among other barbarities, so many unhappy Sicilians were put to death in one day at Augusta, that the executioner became exhausted with fatigue, and wine was poured down his throat to give him strength to continue the slaughter. But the king's ferocious mind was chiefly devoted to considering what should be Conradin's fate. To murder thousands of fellow Christians, and let them die amid the worst torments, was a matter of very slight consequence to him; but where a victim of royal and Imperial blood was in question, he felt obliged to hesitate a little. In fact, it is said that he sought counsel from the Pope; but then, without waiting the reply, he sought to give an honest colour to his revenge by investing it with a false air of legality. He presumed to treat the rival whose throne he had usurped as one who had rebelled against a legitimate sovereign, and to treat a prisoner of war as a criminal guilty of high treason, and justly responsible for all the excesses of the German soldiery during the campaign. Yet, although the tribunal consisted of foes of the Hohenstauffen selected by the king, some of its members spoke nobly in Conradin's defence. It was affirmed that Guido du Suzzara, a juris-consult of Emilia, renowned in his day, pleaded the youthfulness of the accused, his belief in his own right to the Neapolitan crown, the motives of the campaign. It was also reported that many of the judges remained silent, and that one alone openly declared against the prisoner. But all was in vain. Charles, who had already put some of the barons to death, and forced one of them, Count Galvano Lancia, to witness the strangling of his own son before being executed, never intended the trial to be more than a sham, so, choosing to interpret the judges' silence as a sign of consent to the prince's death, gave sentence accordingly. The verdict was communicated to Conradin in prison while he was playing chess with his cousin Frederic of Austria. On October 29, 1268, both were led to the scaffold on the Market Place at Naples. The protonotary Roberto di Bari, counsel for the prosecution, read the sentence aloud, in the presence of the exultant King Charles. It is asserted that even many of the French were stirred to rage and humiliation by this cruel scene. An immense throng filled the Piazza, and many fell on their knees touched with pity. Conradin removed his cloak, glanced at the silent people, threw his glove to them, as an augury of vengeance in time to come, and then submitted his neck to the axe. Thus died the Emperor Frederic's