ABSTRACT
W h e n King Charles had taken leave of the King of France he went on his journeys to Marseilles, with the sixty French knights whom he had selected. And when he was at Marseilles, he sent for En G. Cornut, who was of the honourable men of Marseilles, and of an ancient family and told him to set up a recruiting table at once and man twenty-five galleys with men of good birth, all of Marseilles and of the coast of Provence, and not to put in a man of any other nation, but only true Proven cals, and to provide them with boatswains and steersmen, and the prows should have double armament. And that he should see to it that every man was as brave as a lion, and that he himself would be Commander and Chief Lord. And that he should go at once towards Sicily and visit the castle of Malta and there refresh his men and, when they were refreshed, that he should seek En Roger de Luria, who had not more than eighteen galleys, for the King of Aragon had not ordered more than twenty-two to be fitted out, and of these he had taken four to Catalonia, and so there did not remain more than eighteen. “ And if we can take these, all the sea is ours, for all the people expert in seamanship whom the King of Aragon has, are in those eighteen galleys. And so do not, on any account, let them escape you, and do not appear before Us until you have killed or taken them.” And, upon this, En G. Cornut rose and went to kiss King Charles’s feet and said : “ Lord, I give you grateful thanks for the honour you bestow upon me, and I promise that I will not return to Marseilles, nor to your presence, until I can bring you En Roger de Luria dead or a prisoner
CHAPTER LX X X I.
