shirk the burden of public
duty is more than once the subject of his satire. "Many refuse the
common burden, but thy people, my Florence, eagerly replies without
being called on, and cries, 'I load myself'" ('Purgatory,' vi. 133-135).
His counsel against providing the Pope with troops was in conformity
with his fixed political conviction that the function of the Papacy was
to be confined to the spiritual government of mankind; and nothing could
be more striking, as a chance incident, than that the last occasion on
which he, whose heart was set on justice, took part in the counsels of
his city, should have been for the discussion of the means for "the
conservation of the ordinances of justice and the statutes of the
people."

In the course of events in 1300 and 1301 the Bianchi proved the stronger
of the two factions by which the city was divided, they resisted with
success the efforts of the Pope in support of their rivals, and they
were charged by their enemies with intent to restore the rule of the
city to the Ghibellines. While affairs were in this state, Charles of
Valois, brother to the King of France, Philip the Fair, was passing
through Italy with a troop of horsemen to join Charles II. of Naples,[3]
in the attempt to regain Sicily from the hands of Frederic of Aragon.
The Pope favored the expedition, and held out flattering promises to
Charles. The latter reached Anagni, where Boniface was residing, in
September 1301. Here it was arranged that before proceeding to Sicily,
Charles should undertake to reduce to obedience the refractory opponents
of the Pope in Tuscany. The title of the Pacifier of Tuscany was
bestowed on him, and he moved toward Florence with his own troop and a
considerable additional force of men-at-arms. He was met on his way by
deputies from Florence, to whom he made fair promises; and trusting to
his good faith, the Florentines opened their gates to him and he entered
the city on All Saints' Day (November 1st), 1301.

Charles had hardly established himself in his quarters before he cast
his pledges to the wind. The exiled Neri, with his connivance, broke
into the city, and for six days worked their will upon their enemies,
slaying many of them, pillaging and burning their houses, while Charles
looked on with apparent unconcern at the wide-spread ruin and
devastation. New priors, all of them from the party of the Neri, entered
upon office in mid-November, and a new Podesta, Cante dei Gabriell