It would be pleasanter to
think that some mistake had been made in this matter, but unfortunately it
is beyond dispute, as the facts have been placed on record by Sandoval,
whose history, it must be remembered, was published in 1614. In this matter
he is quite precise, as he states that a "Clerigo Francese," one Monsieur
de Floreta, was sent with despatches from Francis to Barbarossa at Tunis,
and that this treacherous envoy from Christendom gave the corsair king all
the available information that he had been able to collect before starting.
This was typical of that "Golden Age of the Renaissance" in which it took
place; when real devotion to all arts, sciences, and amenities of a higher
civilisation went hand in hand with crime of the vilest and treachery of
the basest description. Well might Barbarossa, and such as he, laugh to
scorn the pretension that his Christian enemies were one whit better than
were they, when they could point to the fact that, to serve a private
revenge, a great Christian king could betray his co-religionists to their
Moslem foes. Shamelessly did the Sea-wolves seek their prey wherever it was
to be found; their methods were villanous and seemingly without excuse,
but, after all, there was some colour, some shadow of right in what they
did, for their argument was that they were merely getting back from
Christendom that which had been reft from them in the near past in the
kingdoms of Cordova and Granada.
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