ew hours elapsed, and the sound of a trumpet echoed through the
plague-stricken and half-deserted camp. It was the note of Charles of
Naples, whose fleet had just arrived off the coast. Meeting with no
response, he rode rapidly toward the tent of the king, and on entering
saw his body lying still warm upon the ashes. The rites of burial were
not performed with the usual formalities, his remains being distributed
among his relatives. The flesh was kept by Charles, who buried it, on
his return to Sicily, in the great Abbey of Monreale, at Palermo. The
bones and other parts were conveyed back to France. Those who have
visited Paris will not forget the exquisite Gothic structure known as
the "Sainte Chapelle," which is attached to the Palais de Justice,
containing the courts of law. It was erected by Louis as a receptacle
for certain supposed relics of Christ. The windows of the chapel are
entirely composed of stained glass, and as the sunbeams strike upon
them, their tints of crimson, blue, and orange blend into a rainbow-like
harmony of glowing and lustrous color, which recalls the heart of Louis
IX., enshrined within those walls, as its fitting human antitype. He was
canonized about thirty years afterward, under the title of St. Louis.

MARCO POLO[7]

[Footnote 7: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By NOAH BROOKS

(1256-1324)

[Illustration: Marco Polo.]

In the month of November, in the year 1295, there appeared in the
beautiful city of Venice three strangers, who were clothed in an
outlandish and shabby garb of a Tartar cut. They claimed to be of
Venice, but, according to one of their biographers, one Ramusio,
"through the many worries and anxieties they had undergone, they were
quite changed in aspect, and had got a certain indescribable smack of
the Tartar both in air and accent, having, indeed, all but forgotten
their Venetian tongue." They went to the house of the Polo family,
demanding entrance and claiming to be Nicolo Polo, Maffeo, his brother,
and Marco, son of the elder of the two brothers, Nicolo. They were
laughed to scorn as pretenders and impostors; for the three missing
members of the Polo family had been gone away from Venice some
twenty-odd years; it was in 1271 that the Polos were last heard from,
then at Acre, journeying into the Far East.

But the three somehow gained access to their own house, then in the
possession of one of their relations. And the news of their home-comin