Note 95 — Chapter IV · Notre Dame of Paris and Other Churches of the Capital[71]

Often did Louis IX sigh over his youngest brother. “Charles d’Anjou! Charles d’Anjou!” he would say, sadly. As king of the Two Sicilies, Charles won the title of the Merciless, and his harshness was punished by the Sicilian Vespers, 1282. Dante abominated the house of Anjou in Italy. Of Charles he wrote in the Paradiso (viii: 73-75), “His evil rule, which ever cuts into the heart of subject people, caused Palermo to shriek out: ‘Die! Die!’” St. Louis loved especially his brother Robert d’Artois, whose overhardy courage caused the defeat of the crusaders at Mansourah. When word was brought to the king of his brother’s death in that battle, tears warm and full fell from his eyes, though he said, “God must be thanked for all he sends.” The other brother of Louis IX was Alphonse of Poitiers, who married the heiress of Toulouse and took guidance of the king in his administration of the Midi.