The Athenian duchy, “the pleasaunce of the Latins,” as Villani[88] quaintly calls it, now lay at the mercy of the Grand Company; for the Greeks made no resistance to their new masters, and in fact looked upon the annihilation of the Franks as a welcome relief. We would fain believe the story of the Aragonese _Chronicle of the Morea_, that the heroic widow of the fallen duke, a worthy daughter of a Constable of France, defended the Akropolis, where she had taken refuge with her little son Walter, till she saw that there was no hope of succour. But the Byzantine historian, Nikephoros Gregoras, expressly says that Athens fell without a struggle, as Thebes had already fallen. Argos and Nauplia alone held aloft the banner of the Frankish dukes. Thus the Catalans were able, without opposition, to parcel out among themselves the towns and castles of the duchy; the widows of the slain became the wives of the slayers; each soldier received a consort according to his services; and many a rough warrior thus found himself the husband of some noble dame in whose veins flowed the bluest blood of France, and “whose washhand-basin,” in the phrase of Muntaner, “he was not worthy to bear.” After nine years’ wandering these vagabonds settled down in the promised land, which the most extraordinary fate had bestowed upon them. But they lacked a leader of sufficient social position to preside over their changed destinies. Finding no such man in their own ranks, they offered the post to one of their four noble prisoners, Boniface of Verona, whom Muntaner, his guest at Negroponte, has described as “the wisest and most courteous nobleman that was ever born.” Both of these qualities made him disinclined to accept an offer which would have rendered him an object of suspicion to Venice, his neighbour in Eubœa, and of loathing to the whole Frankish world. On his refusal the Catalans turned to Roger Deslaur, whom neither ties of blood nor scruples of conscience prevented from becoming their leader. As his reward he received the castle of Salona together with the widow of its fallen lord. But the victors of the Kephissos soon recognised that they needed some more powerful head than a simple knight of Roussillon, if they were to hold the duchy against the jealous enemies whom their meteoric success had alarmed and excited. Their choice naturally fell upon King Frederick II of Sicily, the master whom they had served in that island ten years earlier, and who had already shown that he was not unwilling to profit by their achievements. Accordingly, in 1312, they invited him to send them one of his children. He gave them as their duke his second son Manfred, in whose name—as the Duke was still too young to come himself—he sent, as governor of Athens, Beranger Estañol, a knight of Ampurias. On his arrival Deslaur laid down his office, and we hear of him no more.