SICILIAN VESPERS, the name given to the massacre of the French in Sicily, on the day after Easter (March 30), 1282, the signal for the commencement of which was to be the first stroke of the vesper-bell. In the articles NAPLES, KONRADIN, MANFRED, etc., it is related how Charles of Anjou, the brother of Louis- IX". of France, had deprived the Hohenstaufen dynasty of Naples and Sicily, and parceled out these kingdoms into domains for his French followers; but his cruelty toward the adherents of thedispos sessed race, his tyraany, oppressive taxation, and the brutality of his followers, excited among the vindictive Sicilians the deadliest animosity. The aged Giovanni daProcida, a steady partisan of the Hohenstaufen family, took the lead in directing and systemat izing a conspiracy against Charles and his followers; and after a visit to Pedro of Aragon (the husband of Constauce the cousin of Konradin, and the next heir to Naples and Sicily), whom he to undertake the conquest of Sicily, he returned to his self-imposed duty in the island. On the evening of Easter-Monday the inhabitants of ,Palermo, enraged (::ecording; to the common story) at a gross outrage which was perpe trated by a French soldier on a young Sicilian bride, percipitated the accomplishment of the scheme by suddenly rising upon their oppressors, to the sword every man, woman, and child of them, not sparing even those Italians and Sicilians who had mar ried Frenchmen. This example was followed, after a brief interval, by Messina and
the other towns, mid the massacre soon became general over the island: the French were hunted like wild beasts, and dragged even from the churches, where they vainly thought themselves secure. More than 8,000 of them were slain by the Palermitans alone. Only one instance of mercy shown to a Frenchman is on record, the fortunate subject being a Provencal gentleman, Guillaume desTorcellets, who was much esteemed far his probity and virtue. • The governor of Messina also succeeded in passing the strait with his garrison before it was too late.—See Amari, La Gverra dal Vespro Sicilinno (Palermo, 1841; 6th ed. Flor. 1859), and Possien and Chantrel's Lea Vepres Sicilienncs (Paris, 1843).