natural consequences. The re-enforcements promised to Louis, by his
brother Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, had not arrived; provisions
were falling short; and the heats of an African summer were working havoc
amongst the army with such rapidity that before long there was no time to
bury the dead, but they were cast pell-mell into the ditch which
surrounded the camp, and the air was tainted thereby. On the 3d of
August Louis was attacked by the epidemic fever, and obliged to keep his
bed in his tent. He asked news of his son John Tristan, Count of Nevers,
who had fallen ill before him, and whose recent death, aboard the vessel
to which he had been removed in hopes that the sea air might be
beneficial, had been carefully concealed from him. The count, as well as
the Princess Isabel, married to Theobald the Young, King of Navarre, was
a favorite child of Louis, who, on hearing of his loss, folded his hands
and sought in silence and prayer some assuagement of his grief. His
malady grew worse; and having sent for his successor, Prince Philip
(Philip the Bold), he took from his hour-book some instructions which he
had written out for him, with his own hand and in French, and delivered
them to him, bidding him to observe them scrupulously. He gave likewise
to his daughter Isabel, who was weeping at the foot of his bed, and to
his son-in-law the King of Navarre, some writings which had been intended
for them, and he further charged Isabel to deliver another to her
youngest sister, Agnes, affianced to the Duke of Burgundy. "Dearest
daughter," said he, "think well hereon: full many folk have fallen asleep
with wild thoughts of sin, and in the morning their place hath not known
them." Just after he had finished satisfying his paternal solicitude, it
was announced to him, on the 24th of August, that envoys from the Emperor
Michael Palaeologus had landed at Cape Carthage, with orders to demand
his intervention with his brother Charles, King of Sicily, to deter him
from making war on the but lately re-established Greek empire. Louis
summoned all his strength to receive them in his tent, in the presence of