Ostensibly these Christian
warriors had come to rescue the inhabitants of Tunis from the oppression of
Barbarossa, but while that chieftain was in full flight across the
mountains to Bona, those by whom he had been defeated entered the town,
which they had come to save, and perpetrated a massacre so awful that it is
said that no less than thirty thousand people perished. It is a terrible
blot on the escutcheon of the Emperor; as, although he and his generals
deprecated the massacre--and indeed to do them justice tried to prevent
it--this is no excuse for allowing their men to get out of hand, when they
must have been aware of the inevitable result: as the Moslem corsairs at
their worst were equalled in their iniquities by the European soldiery,
once the strong hand of discipline had relaxed its grip.
It may have been that the Emperor was displeased with this excess of zeal
on the part of his army; but, if it were so, the chroniclers are silent
concerning the matter, being far too busy singing the praises of the Caesar
to think of such a trifle as the massacre of most of the persons whom he
had come to deliver. The wretched inhabitants of Tunis must have found it
somewhat difficult to distinguish between the corsair, who killed three
thousand of their fellow townsmen, and the Christian Emperor, who had
massacred ten times that number. Charles, however, reaped great glory from
an expedition which had but one good result, which was, that he succeeded
in rescuing twenty thousand captives; these men, very naturally, on their
return to their homes in every corner of Europe, magnified the wonderful
deeds of that prince who had been instrumental in securing their release,
and the massacre of the Tunisians was conveniently ignored.
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