Walter was, like his father, a rash general, while his opponents had not forgotten the art of strategy, to which they owed their success. At first the brilliant band of French knights and Tuscan men-at-arms which crossed over with him to Epeiros in 1331 carried all before it. But, when he arrived in the Catalan duchy, he found that the enemy was much too cautious to give his fine cavalry a chance of displaying its prowess on the plains of Bœotia. While the Catalans remained behind the walls of their fortresses, the invaders wasted their energies on the open country. Ere long Walter’s small stock of money ran out, and his chances diminished with it. The Greeks rendered him no assistance. It is true that a correspondent of the historian Nikephoros Gregoras wrote that they were “suffering under extreme slavery,” and had “exchanged their ancient happiness for boorish ways,” while Guillaume Adam said that they were “worse than serfs”; but either their sufferings were insufficient to make them desire a change of masters, or their boorishness was such that it made them indifferent to the advantages of French culture. Early in the following year Walter took ship for Italy, never to return. Summoned by the Florentines to command their forces, he became tyrant of their city, whence he was expelled amidst universal rejoicings eleven years later. His name and arms may still be seen in the Bargello of Florence. Thirteen years afterwards he fell fighting, as Constable of France, against the English at the battle of Poitiers. His sister Isabelle, wife of Walter d’Enghien, succeeded to his estates and his pretensions; some of her descendants continued to bear, till 1381, the empty title of Duke of Athens, while the last fragments of the French duchy—the castles of Nauplia and Argos—remained in the possession of others of her line till, in 1388, they were purchased by Venice.