Charles of Anjou, however, now assembled his troops, and marched out to meet his rival.  The two armies met in the plain of St. Valentine, near Aquila; the army of Conradin was cut to pieces, and the young Prince fell into the power of the conqueror.  Posterity cannot pardon Charles for having abused his victory here so far as to condemn and decapitate his disarmed and vanquished enemy.  After this execution, Sicily and the country of Naples were given up to all the furies of a jealous, suspicious tyranny, for violence produces violence, and great political crimes never come alone.  It was thus that Charles got ready for the crusade; but, on the other hand, Providence was preparing terrible catastrophes for him.  “So true it is,” says a historian, “that God as often gives kingdoms to punish those he elevates as to chastise those whom he brings low.”

While these bloody scenes were passing in Italy, Louis IX was following up the establishment of public peace and his darling object, the crusade, at the same time.  The holy monarch did not forget that the surest manner of softening the evils of war, as well as of his absence, was to make good laws; he therefore issued several ordinances, and each of these ordinances was a monument of his justice.  The most celebrated of all is the Pragmatic Sanction, which Bossuet called the firmest support of Gallican liberties.  He also employed himself in elevating that monument of legislation which illustrated his reign and which became a light for following ages.

The Count of Poictiers, who was to accompany his brother, was in the mean time engaged in pacifying his provinces, and established many regulations for maintaining public order.  He, above everything, endeavored to abolish slavery; having for a maxim “that men are born free, and it is always wise to bring back things to their origin.”  This good prince drew upon himself the benedictions of his people; and the love of his vassals assured the duration of the laws he made.

We have said that Prince Edward, son of Henry III, had taken the oath to combat the infidels.  He had recently displayed a brilliant valor in the civil war that had so long desolated England; and the deliverance of his father and the pacification of the kingdom had been the reward of his exploits.  It was his esteem for the character of Louis IX, more than the spirit of devotion, that induced him to set out for the East.  The King of France, who himself exhorted him to take the cross, lent him seventy livres tournois for the preparations for his voyage.  Edward was to follow Louis as his vassal, and to conduct under his banners the English crusaders, united with those of Guienne.  Gaston de Bearn, to whom the French monarch advanced the sum of twenty-five thousand livres, prepared to follow Prince Edward to the Holy Land.