CHAPTER VII

GIOVANNA II. DA NAPOLI--“SI COMME A REGINA GIOVANNA!”

I.

“Like Queen Giovanna” was, alas! a common saying in the Two Sicilies what time Giovanna II. was Queen of Naples. A term of immeasurable reprobation, it implied the stripping of the woman of every shred of moral character, the baring of the Queen of every claim to honour. If Isabeau of Bavaria was the worst Queen-consort, then Giovanna II. was the worst Queen-regnant, perhaps, the world has ever seen. Her story needs telling truthfully with care.

Giovanna II., Queen of Naples, was the only surviving daughter of Charles III., “_Carlo della Pace_,” King of Naples and Count of Provence. Her mother was Margaret, daughter of her great-uncle Charles, Duke of Durazzo; hence her parents were cousins, and were both in the direct line of succession from Charles I., Count of Anjou, the fourth son of King Louis IX.,--St. Louis of France,--who had married Beatrix, Countess of Provence in her own right. Giovanna had seven brothers and sisters, all of whom died in infancy except Ladislaus, born in 1376; she was his senior by five years, having first seen the light of day on April 27, 1371.

The Queen’s father’s predecessor as occupant of the throne of Naples had been his second cousin, Giovanna I., the eldest surviving grandchild of King Robert, “_Roberto il Buono e Saggio_.” She died childless in 1382, although twice married, first to Andrew, King of Hungary, and secondly to Lodovico, Prince of Taranto. By her will she purposely passed over the Princes of the Durazzo family, and named as her successor Louis II. d’Anjou, King of Sicily and Jerusalem and Count of Provence. The Queen’s first marriage was celebrated September 24, 1333, when she was only seven years old, her boy-husband being fifteen. The Pope created Prince Andrew King of Naples six years later, upon his succession to the throne of Hungary. Without the slightest compunction, Charles, son of Lodovico, Count of Gravina, seized his cousin’s empty throne, and maintained himself thereupon for five years, his little daughter Giovanna being just ten years of age. The death of Queen Giovanna I. was due to the instigation of Charles. He entered Naples at the head of a strong force of cavalry, seized the palace, and took the Queen prisoner. She was conducted to the Castle of Muro, overlooking the road from Naples to Melfi, and there, with her lover, Otto of Brunswick, suffocated under a feather bed by two Hungarian soldiers. This outrage was committed in revenge for the death of King Andrew, which was ordered by Giovanna I., his consort.

Charles III., King of Naples, died in 1386, leaving to his son Ladislaus the royal succession, with his widow, Queen Margaret, as Regent. They with the Princess Giovanna, sixteen years of age, were fugitives from castle to castle, pursued by the troops of Louis d’Anjou. Nevertheless, Margaret was an astute mother, for when Ladislaus was eighteen years old she espoused him to Constance, daughter of the Count of Clermont in Sicily, a very wealthy heiress. What matrimonial projects were hatched or addled on behalf of Princess Giovanna during her father’s lifetime we know not, but almost the first matter taken in hand by King Ladislaus was an advantageous marriage for his sister. This was a very complicated business. First of all, neither he nor she cared very much for matrimony; he was a libertine, and she shared his freedom and his depravity. Next, each suitor for the hand of Giovanna retired disgusted by the loose morals of the Neapolitan Court and by the avarice of the King and his sister. However, at length a match was arranged between the Princess and Prince William, son of Leopold III., Duke of Austria. The actual nuptials, however, were postponed for one reason or another until 1403, when Giovanna had reached the considerable age of thirty-two. The princely couple went off to Austria, where they remained more or less unhappy until 1406, when the Prince died suddenly and suspiciously, many said by the hand or direction of his ill-conditioned wife.

The widow returned at once to Naples to fill the place of honour vacated by her brother’s wife, his second consort, Maria di Lusignan. Queen Constance he had divorced in 1391, and married the daughter of the King of Cyprus the same year. The ostensible reason for rejecting Constance was the failure of her father to pay her dowry. She was a lovely girl and virtuous,--a rare quality at that time,--and became the idol of the Court. Queen Maria had scarcely been seated on the throne, when she also fell from her high station. Ladislaus said she was delicate and in consumption, and no wife for him. One day, when she and the King were assisting at Mass in the cathedral, she heard with the utmost astonishment and dismay the Archbishop read a Bull of Pope Boniface IX. annulling her marriage with Ladislaus. At the conclusion of the citation the prelate advanced to the Queen’s throne and demanded her wedding-ring. Too stupefied to resist, the pledge of her married state was torn from her finger, and she was carried away to a remote convent under the care of two aged nuns. Three years after this outrage the King relented of his cruelty, and married her to one Andrea di Capua, one of his favourites. He took a third wife in 1406, Marie d’Enghien, the widow of Raimondo d’Orsini, some six months after the return of his sister from Austria. She is said to have survived Ladislaus. Some letters of hers are preserved at Conversano, near Bari, in the Benedictine convent.

The advance of Louis d’Anjou upon the capital roused Ladislaus to action, and he hastily gathered together an undisciplined army, and set forth to withstand his rival to the throne. A decisive battle was fought at Rocca Secca, May 19, 1411, wherein Ladislaus’s troops were routed, but Louis failed to follow up his advantage, and Ladislaus retained his throne and continued his debauches.

Early in 1412 Queen Margaret, mother of the King and of Giovanna, died somewhat suddenly. She and her entourage had taken refuge from a visitation of plague, which spared neither prince nor peasant, at her villa at Acquamela, six miles from Salerno. She was buried privately in the Cathedral of Salerno, in the crypt over against the marble sarcophagus which contained the ashes of St. Matthew. Whatever influence she may have exerted during the youth of her son and daughter for their good was speedily dissipated, and as soon as Ladislaus had obtained the crown he took steps to circumscribe the liberty of his mother. She appealed to her daughter Giovanna for sympathy, but found none, and the poor old Queen, who had survived her consort, Charles, for six-and-twenty years, was consigned to the Convent of the Annunciation, “so as to be out of the way of mischief,” as her daughter phrased it. The natural rôle of mother was entirely out of place in a palace or at a Court ruled by a libertine and a prostitute.

Ladislaus died sadly and alone. His unnatural sister refused to be with him, and all his butterfly courtesans gave to themselves wing when sickness and death entered the royal palace. He died August 6, 1414, leaving no lawful offspring by his three wives, but a numerous family of natural children. No Salic Law governed the succession to the throne in the kingdom of Naples, consequently Giovanna became Queen.

The widowed Queen Giovanna had not married again, although she counted lovers by the score; but within a few months of her accession she took steps to ally herself with a Prince who should be the handsomest and wittiest of the time. This determination of Giovanna was noised abroad all over the capitals and Courts of Europe, and forthwith a troop of eligible suitors passed through the ports of Marseilles and Genoa, each bent on taking the ribald Queen at her word. The romance reads like a fairy tale, for each princeling and prince was put through his paces to show his qualifications in person and in purse; for, desperately wicked as she was, the Queen had a commercial sense, and her exchequer stood sorely in need of replenishment. Taken for all in all, Juan d’Arragona, son of King Ferdinand, was the champion of physical beauty, knightly courtesy, and financial competence; but he was no more than a precocious lad of seventeen, whilst the Queen was forty-five. A matrimonial union was ruled to be impossible, and the pride of Aragon would not suffer a scion of her royal house to become the plaything of a lewd Queen.

Giovanna very unwillingly transferred her affections to an older suitor,--the champion, if we may so write, of the heavy weights,--Jacques de Bourbon, Comte de la Marche, of the Royal House of France, and their nuptials were celebrated in the Cathedral of Naples on August 10, 1415. He very soon discovered that, strong man as he was, he had a wily woman to contend with. He began to assert his marital rights, and required Giovanna to accord him equal honours with herself; at the same time he utterly failed in the reformation of the conduct of his wife. She served herself upon him as she willed, but she mostly willed to serve him not at all, and to transfer her favours, as before their marriage, indiscriminately to whilom paramours. Like a lion wounded in his den, Roy Jacques,--for so he called himself,--struck out at his supplanters, and, with his past-master knowledge of the rapier and its uses, he pricked to death not one but many lovers of the Queen. The Neapolitans were man for man with Giovanna, and indignant with her consort. Strange to say, perhaps, for us who read the story of the time, evil royal communications had wholly corrupted the morals and the manners of all classes in the realm.

Incited by toadies and sycophants, Giovanna at last took the upper hand against her spouse, and on September 13, 1416,--little more than a year after their marriage,--she ordered his imprisonment in the Castella dell’ Ovo, a fortress of such strength that Froissart said: “None but the devil can take it!” Thence, however, he escaped, but with a price upon his head,--fixed by his inconstant mistress,--and took up his residence at Besançon, with the white cord of St. Francis d’Assisi round his loins. There he died, having renounced the world, the flesh, and the devil, a wiser and a disillusioned man, in 1436.

Giovanna, released from the bonds of matrimony, greatly to her relief, gave herself unreservedly into the arms of every man dare-devil enough to risk the consequences. Of these, perhaps the first whose name and maldoings chroniclers have preserved was Pandolfo Alopo, a base-born athlete, a very handsome fellow, and a seductive guitarist to boot. He responded to his royal mistress’s amours, and she appointed him Seneschal of the kingdom, with authority to use her signet-ring. Very soon, mentally and morally undisciplined as he was, he exceeded the length of Giovanna’s tether, by exciting her jealousy with respect to her Maids of Honour. Short was his shrift. Seized, bound, and tortured with nameless indignity and cruelty, his mutilated body was cast into the sea off the fair island of Nisida, where the vicious vixen held orgies equal in atrocity and bestiality to those of Tiberius in Capri.

Sforza da Colignola stepped gaily in the bloody footmarks of Alopo. He was the chief of the Queen’s pages, and had been reared under her eye and at her will; he had, moreover, a fell influence over his mistress, as witness time out of mind, ever since his teens, of her enormities. He, indeed, gained the upper hand of Giovanna, and, being an adept in martial exercises, held his own against all comers. For a time he left the intimate service of the Queen, and became a soldier of fortune, winning laurels and prizes all along his way. Secretly he sympathized with the claims of the House of Anjou, judging shrewdly enough that under the white lilies of Louis he would have a better hold upon his position at the Court of Naples than he would under the red bars of Alfonso of Aragon.

Giovanna felt the thraldom of Sforza’s strength of character and his knowledge of her past, and because no one seemed willing to take her at her word, and rid her of his presence, she turned herself about and fixed her confidence on Sergianni Caracciolo. Upon him she showered riches and honours, but in return he made himself her master.

The Queen’s choice of favourites was not, however, confined to men of merit or of high degree. Every good-looking youth or well-favoured man upon whom her eyes chanced to rest was enrolled in her household. She frequented athletic meetings incognita to view the personal qualifications of vigorous youths, and spent her evenings in surreptitious visits to her stables and her kennels. The men of her choice were offered no alternative, but when the guilty intercourse was consummated the lucky-luckless companion of her couch was expected to commit suicide or for ever leave his home on pain of imprisonment and torture if he tarried four-and-twenty hours.

Perhaps no figure of a man fascinated Queen Giovanna more completely than did the handsome person of Bartolommeo Colleone of Bergamo. His family had become impoverished by the bitter feuds of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, so at eighteen the young lad bid his parents farewell and started off to win his way in military adventures. He travelled south to Naples, and at twenty was as lusty and as strong as any man he met. Of a strict habit of body, he performed feats none others dared. Giovanna sent for the good-looking stranger, and pitted him against the ablest youths of Naples. In leaping, running, and casting of heavy weights, no one could surpass him. Instantly the Queen fell in love with him, and appointed him her esquire, with ready access to her boudoir, where she denied him nothing. His final reward was the cloister of St. Francis d’Assisi, which became his prison, and his mouth was sealed. How he escaped torture no one has recorded.

It would be long, and certainly distasteful, to give a full list of all those who shared the vampire caresses of the peccant Queen; but brief is her story of how Giovanna destroyed the fair fame of her house and the honour of her country. Of her it was written: “_Ultima Durazza fiet destructio regnum_” (“The last Durazzo shall destroy the kingdom”).

II.

Whilst Giovanna was thus prostituting herself and her kingdom, and Alfonso of Aragon was biding his time, a movement was on foot in Anjou and Provence, under the strong hand of Queen Yolande, to win back the rights her husband had abandoned to the succession of the Neapolitan crown. Her eldest son,--a boy not yet out of school,--should place that crown once more upon the head of an Angevine Sovereign or perish in the attempt. Men and arms and allies were all requisitioned, and elaborate preparations were made at Marseilles and Genoa for the embarkation of the “army of Naples.”

The expedition of Louis III. to Naples was hurried forward in consequence of the breach between Queen Giovanna and the nobles of Naples. Her disregard of their allegiance, and her appointment to all the more important posts under the Crown of men of obscure origin who had commended themselves to her by their physical charms and coarse obscenities, caused a disruption in the political economy of the kingdom. The Queen was deaf to the expostulations of her Barons, and ordered them severally to their estates, where, fuming with indignation, they armed their retainers and stood ready for any emergency. The arrogance of King Alfonso drove many would-be adherents into the camp of his Angevine rival, and an influential deputation of aggrieved dignitaries made its way to Marseilles to tender to Yolande, the Queen of Sicily and the mother of Anjou, their homage, and to assure her of their cordial support for the youthful King if only she would permit him to show himself at the head of an overawing force before the capital.

There is a romantic story concerning King Louis’s journey to Naples told by Jehan Charantais, esquire to the King, in a letter to Queen Yolande. The fleet of Genoese and Provençal galleons was driven by adverse winds, it is related, and sought refuge under the high cliffs of Sicily. Whilst weather-bound, the young Prince landed with a company of knights in search of adventures. As they came ashore a number of girls greeted them with showers of roses, and tossed them handfuls of kisses. One, more daring than the rest, ran up to the youthful Sovereign, wholly ignorant of his identity, and gave him a nosegay of crimson blooms tied with a lovers’ knot of blue ribbon. Accepting the good-omened offering, Louis loosened his surcoat to insert the fragrant spray, when his kingly medallion fell out at the foot of the damsel. She at once picked it up and ran away, laughing provokingly. The Prince followed her, caught her, recovered his badge of sovereignty, and gave his captive in exchange a sounding kiss. But Leonora,--such was her name,--had discovered who he was.

That same day a missive was brought aboard the flagship by a Sicilian fisherman. It was in Leonora’s handwriting, and bore her signature. She told him she was about to be sent to Naples by her parents as a Maid of Honour to the Queen. She had very much disliked the idea, and had refused to go, because Giovanna was the daughter of a usurper, as was reported, and because she bore so evil a character. “Now,” she added, “that I have seen and spoken to _my_ King, and have received his embraces, I am ready to go at all hazards and do my utmost in his cause.”

Louis dillydallied with his Sicilian mermaid, and their loves continued for wellnigh a fortnight before his fleet was ready to put to sea again. Fair Leonora, too, took her departure, saying, as she bid adieu to her lover: “We shall meet, dear Prince, again in the Queen’s boudoir.”

Louis III., a well-grown lad of seventeen, and as manly as he was fit mentally, arrived off the city of Naples on August 15, 1420, to maintain his right to the throne more bravely and more successfully than either his father or his grandfather had done. He had just fallen in with the fleet of the King of Aragon, but in defeating his hereditary enemy his own flotilla was so greatly worsted that he was unable to take the city by storm. He landed, however, and betook himself to Aversa to present his homage to Queen Giovanna. Shocked by her lustful overtures, he departed precipitately to Rome, and there bided his time. The Queen’s failure to seduce the young Sovereign threw her once more into the arms of King Alfonso, whom she formally proclaimed her heir on September 24 the same year. Three years passed whilst the adherents of the House of Anjou suffered forfeiture of goods, liberty of person, and many cruel punishments and tortures.

Alfonso, a natural son of King Ferdinand the Just, King of Aragon and Sicily, was forty years of age, remarkably handsome, talented and capable, ambitious, but generous and devoted to the fair sex. He was, however, entirely unresponsive to the amorous approaches of the Queen. His rejection, his scorn, and his independence of action, roused in Giovanna keen feelings of resentment. She had named him heir to Naples; she could just as easily disinherit and discard him. On June 24, 1423,--good St. John the Baptist’s Day, a festival of major obligation in the Church,--the Queen caused proclamation to be made at Mass and in the markets that, “owing to the incompetence and pretensions of the King of Aragon, he is thereby disinherited, and is no longer to be recognized as successor to the throne of Naples.” A plot, indeed, or more correctly plots, were revealed to Giovanna whereby Alfonso was implicated in a conspiracy to seize the Queen’s person, imprison her, and ultimately to poison her. On May 22 of the same year he had taken the bold step of arresting Gianni Caracciolo, the Queen’s chief favourite. This roused Giovanna to action. She ordered Caracciolo’s immediate release, and bade Alfonso quit Naples at once, or remain at his peril. Greatly to her surprise and relief, he took his departure, and left the field open to his youthful rival.

The Queen’s next step was to send to Rome, and invite her “beloved cousin,” as she called Louis, to return to her assistance in driving the Aragonese out of Naples, and to accept the succession to her throne. She bade him to have no fear of misunderstandings of the past, but to regard herself as nothing more than a well-intentioned relative.

Louis, now grown to manhood, with ripened experience of warlike tactics and political strife, and, be it said, of women and their ways, entered Naples in state on April 10, 1424. His arrival in Southern Italy cheered the desponding spirits of the Angevine party and roused their zeal. Adherents flocked to the banner he set up, and men and arms were ready at his beck and call. A very important personage allied himself with the young King-adventurer--none other than Sforza, the famous _condottiere_. He gathered around him a considerable number of distinguished malcontents and disappointed favourites of the Queen, who in no way concealed their intention of revenging the insults she had heaped upon them, as soon as they gained a promising opportunity. News of this determination very soon reached Giovanna’s ears, and she shut herself up in her palace with her maidens and her toadies, and declined to receive King Louis or his envoys. At the same time she summoned to her presence Braccio Fortebraccio di Mantova, another of her renowned _condottieri_, and Constable of Sicily, the avowed rival and enemy of Sforza, and suffering under a decree of excommunication of Pope Martin V.

Leonora, immediately in attendance on the Queen, managed very skilfully to convey intelligence of all that passed in Giovanna’s secret councils to her royal lover. She told him that, in spite of her recent proclamation, the Queen had sent her favourite Court Seneschal, Gianni Caracciolo, to the King of Aragon to implore him to come and rescue her, and put the coalition to flight. She asked Alfonso to accept the title and estates of Duke of Calabria, as appertaining to the heir-presumptive to the Neapolitan throne. This daring courtier pressed his attentions upon the Queen, demanding not only a share of her bed, but a share of her throne. Leonora told Louis all the ins and outs of this intrigue, and warned him to be on the alert; for should Caracciolo’s presumption become known in Naples, there would be a general revolution. Sforza, on his side, was not prepared to allow his rival Hercules an unquestioned victory at Court. He demanded admission to the palace, and an interview with the Queen, before whom he challenged Caracciolo to mortal combat.

Giovanna was delighted that such redoubtable champions should worst each other on her account. Her vanity was flattered--and that is a happy condition for a scheming woman. Undoubtedly she most favoured Caracciolo, but Sforza’s fine physique appealed to her irresistibly, and she fanned his passion. If Caracciolo was for the moment master of her heart, Sforza was master of her future, and she was happy. One day she invited the rivals to join her in the chase, and she rode between them. She cared little for hunting save as an incentive to amorous relations. Tiring soon of the exercise, she expressed a wish to dismount and saunter in the forest glades, but her mood lead to an extraordinary contest. Caracciolo threw himself at once off his mount, and gave the Queen his hand to rid her of her pommel. Sforza, seeing his advantage, pressed his horse against the Queen’s and seized her other hand. Each hero pulled his hardest, until Giovanna was compelled to cry aloud for pain! Then, slipping quietly down, she ordered Sforza to release her. This token of non-preference excited the _condottiere’s_ passion. “If Caracciolo,” he hissed out, “had not been so clumsy, your Majesty would not have been so greatly disarranged!”

“It is not you,” replied the Queen, “that should dare to regulate my conduct, or, for the matter of that, your rival’s. Hold your tongue and leave me; your presence is not grateful just now!”

“As you will, madam,” said Sforza fiercely. “Yes, I will leave you with the favourite of your heart, but you ought to know that you cannot treat thus a man like me!” Then he turned to Caracciolo, and exclaimed in a tone of scornful disdain: “As for you, I advise you to use all your wits and all your resources, for you will stand in need of them!”

Giovanna was on that day absolutely overcome by her physical passions. She cared for nothing, and the last sight the enraged Sforza had of her was locked in her lover’s arms and reclining on a mossy bed, lost to the world around. The erring Queen speedily came to her senses with respect to the position Sforza had taken up; and when she learnt that he had thrown in his lot for better or for worse with Louis III., under a pretext, she despatched Caracciolo to Rome to claim the Papal reversal of his excommunication, and to assure the Pope of her filial devotion to the Holy See. Before he departed, Giovanna required him to deliver up his sword as Seneschal of the kingdom, which she promptly offered as a bribe to Sforza.

Meanwhile Leonora had not been idle. She had spoken to the Queen often and passionately about the comeliness and the gallantry of her hero, contrasting his buoyant physical excellences with the blazé proportions of Alfonso,--not knowing that he had rejected Giovanna’s lustful overtures,--until she expressed herself desirous of confirming his appointment as her heir. Leonora wrote thus to King Louis: “Come not yet to the palace; but arm your fleet, and recruit what troops you can. Sforza is loyal, but Caracciolo is your enemy, and he is powerful. Besides him you have to reckon with Braccio and with King Alfonso. You have need of prudence and daring.”

The position of affairs, so far as the Queen was personally concerned, was perilous in the extreme. On one hand, the King of Aragon did not hide his intention of capturing her, and consigning her and her maidens and men to a castle in Catalonia, and then he would be absolute master of the kingdom of Naples. On the other hand, Louis, aided by Sforza, whom she had so grievously outraged, was determined to win back his ancestral inheritance, Queen or no Queen, but he in no way threatened her life or liberty. The Queen fled with her Court to the Castle of Capua, and there established herself. Sforza followed her, and, whilst avowedly protecting his Queen, made her his prisoner, and then, with the assistance of the fleet of King Louis, caused Alfonso, who with Braccio was investing the city of Naples, to seek refuge in Castel Nuovo, whence he set sail to Aragon for reinforcements and supplies.

Leonora,--still with the Queen and still devoted to the cause of King Louis,--wrote to him again, bidding him adventure himself to Aversa, whither Giovanna retired after the departure of King Alfonso. There Louis found her, and, in spite of advancing years and the disordered life she had led, noted her good looks, her grace of manner and of speech, and her general attractiveness. “Her eyes,” wrote Leonora, “flashed wonderfully, and her cheeks reddened passionately directly she beheld again her good-looking young cousin.” Giovanna greeted him at the top of the grand staircase of the palace, and addressed him in gushing terms: “The brave deeds you have accomplished, gallant Prince,” she said, “have added greatly to your renown. Enter, victorious King, my peaceful abode, take a well-merited repose, and receive from me, your devoted admirer, the homage of a thankful Princess, who is greatly charmed at beholding you in full possession of your lawful estate.” Extending her hand, she led the young King to the apartments which had been prepared for him.

Louis, bowing profoundly, deprecated the services which had gained such honours as the Queen had bestowed upon him. “I have achieved success in your name, Madam, and for your pleasure,” he replied. They supped together, and then, bidding all the company and the servants to withdraw, she conversed with her visitor upon every subject that came uppermost in her mind, but eventually laid herself open to receive the supreme pleasure she had in contemplation. Louis was inflexible, and all her tenderness and affection found no response. At last she said: “I do not know what more I can do. You, Sire, accept gladly the rights your arms have won, but what is more precious still you refuse--these arms of mine which are ready to do your will and pleasure.”

Giovanna then lowered her gaze and sat mute, awaiting Louis’s reply with palpitating breast. She might very well have hummed the kissing song of Ronsard:

“On soit d’un baiser sec, ou d’un baiser humide, D’un baiser court, ou d’un baiser qui guide L’âme dessuz la bouche, et laisse tréspasser Le baiseur.”

“Maybe the kiss is cold, maybe it’s warm; A kiss and off, or a kiss that clings, And guides the ardent lover ’neath the lips Till he finds no way to escape.”

“No, madam,” at last spoke the young Prince, greatly embarrassed by the Queen’s words and looks, “it shall never be said that I seek the means for impairing your royal prerogative; you shall retain that, I pray, in its entirety so long as Providence sees good to preserve you to your people.” Then he politely withdrew from the chamber and sought his own lodging. Again on the morrow the King and Queen dined together privately. Giovanna was dressed superbly in royal robes and wore priceless jewels, but her manner was strangely marked by languor and vexation. Their conversation was forced and restrained in turn. After the repast they adjourned together to the lovely gardens of the palace, which were brilliantly illuminated and filled with a numerous and festive company. The best musicians, of the capital and the most excellent jongleurs of foreign and native fame forgathered to do honour to the royal guest. Dances and flirtations were the order of the evening, and among the Queen’s maidens was the lovely girl from Sicily, Leonora. Louis saw her immediately, and it was not very long before they were _tête-à-tête_ in a grotto hidden from public gaze.

The royal romance reached a climax when Louis avowed himself the devoted admirer and lover of the girl. He even proposed a clandestine marriage, but Leonora begged him with tears not to press his suit. She revealed to him the real character of her mistress, and warned him that if Giovanna became conversant with the liaison, then she herself would be done to death, and he, Louis, would probably be assassinated. “You may,” she said, “refuse to marry the Queen, but she will never pardon you if you marry anybody else.”

Again, the third day of Louis’s visit to Aversa, the Queen arranged meals and meetings alone with the Prince, whose morals and whose manhood she was striving so consumedly to seduce. The Queen’s eyes had in them not alone the lure of lust, but the flash of passion and the flame of resentment. Louis again excused himself her presence, and, making his way to his tryst with Leonora, heard as he approached the grotto the high-toned voice of Giovanna beating down the frightened protests of his _innamorata_--they were together in the grotto! The Prince revealed himself, only to meet the scornful invectives of the jealous Queen. She demanded to know the nature of Louis’s relations with her serving-maid, and when she had heard the story she turned upon Leonora like a tiger. Louis stepped before the terrified girl, and bade Giovanna abate her fury and not lay hands upon a woman whom he loved. “Leonora has done more than you, madam,” he exclaimed, “to mount me on the throne of Naples, and you shall not cause me to descend therefrom!”

The Queen, at last realizing the manner of man with whom she had to deal, was intimidated by his boldness, and presently she left the grotto. Leonora still refused Louis’s proposition, and before the day dawned she had taken her flight from Aversa, and was well on her way to Rome, to claim sanctuary. She wrote a farewell letter to her royal lover, which a faithful dependent of her father safely conveyed to Naples. King Louis offered the old man every possible inducement to reveal the hiding-place of his young mistress, but he never broke the seal of secrecy which Leonora placed upon him, and Louis and Leonora never met again.

Louis managed to evade the embraces and the advances of the Queen. He had been espoused to the Princess Margaret of Savoy, and although he used the liberty of a vigorous and a level-headed young manhood under the silver-feathered ægis of Prince Cupid, he was not forgetful of his troth. Having broken the back of the opposition of Alfonso of Aragon, and being confident of the support of Genoa and Milan, he lived in comparative comfort and peace; but he withdrew into Calabria, where he was for a time, at all events, safe from the intrigues of Giovanna. During this interval the young King made repeated visits both to Angers and Chambéry, to greet his devoted mother, revive the sweet memories of his boyhood, and to cultivate the love of his fiancée Margaret, now growing rapidly to womanhood.

The whole of France was once again in a ferment. The English, driving all before them, captured almost all the possessions of the Crown. Charles VII. was a fugitive, and his consort Marie, Louis’s beloved sister, broken-hearted. René, his younger brother, was fighting for his own in Bar and Lorraine. With the chivalry and self-sacrifice which distinguished all the children of Louis II. and Yolande, he placed his sword at the disposal of his brother-in-law, and fell into line with the defenders of his native soil. None of the French King’s allies held themselves more stoutly, nor were anything like so dependable, as was the young King of Sicily and Naples. His royal person and his coroneted helmet were ever foremost in the battle; his bravery was inspiring. When matters seemed to be hopeless and the flame of France’s honour appeared to be extinguished, the miraculous mission of the Maid of Domremy cheered the hearts of all true patriots. She chose René as her _preux chevalier_, and her place was at the head of the troops under his orders. Louis III. had another post of danger to fill; he and his command were told off to keep watchful eyes upon the movements of the Duke of Burgundy. By his excellent strategy he kept the English apart from their allies, and rendered the co-operation of the Burgundians impossible.

The relief of Orléans was followed by the amalgamation of the two French armies, led so brilliantly by the Angevine royal brothers, and the victorious hosts of France swept Charles and his Court along with them triumphantly to his _Sacré_ at Reims. Released from his duties as coadjutor to the King of France, Louis returned south again, and at Geneva he and Margherita di Savoia were united in the bonds of matrimony. The royal couple left immediately for Marseilles, and sailed away to Naples, accompanied by a strong squadron of war-galleys of Venice and Genoa; for the Venetians, recognizing the courage and the ability of the young King, and desirous of gaining some of the commercial profits of Neapolitan trade, joined their forces to the banner of the Angevine King of Naples.

Once more in his capital he discovered Queen Giovanna wholly under the influence of Gianni Caracciolo, who had assumed regal attributes, and was personally carrying on an intrigue to supplant his authority. Louis immediately sent for the usurper, asked him about his pretensions, and warned him that if the Queen, as he said, had named him her Lieutenant-General, he (Louis) was his undoubted Sovereign. Caracciolo took the King’s assumption of his kingly rights quite nonchalantly, and replied insolently that as long as Giovanna lived he was the mouthpiece of her Government.

The favourite of the Queen was not a _persona grata_ at her Court. His arrogance and presumption raised up enemies on every side; in particular, the old nobility looked askance upon a courtier of his low origin. Sergianni was by name a Caracciolo, by birth the son of a common woman--so it was said. The Queen’s Mistress of the Robes was Covella Ruffo, Duchess of Sessa,--her husband was a pretender to the crown,--and she voiced the palace discontent. She boldly demanded of Giovanna the immediate disgrace of her Seneschal, and proclaimed the Court preference for King Louis and his fascinating consort Margherita. The Queen indignantly stood by Caracciolo, and forbade the Duchess to name the matter again. Within ten days,--it was August 25, 1432,--the body of the favourite was picked up by brethren of the Misericordia and given decent burial. In the dead man’s heart, plunged up to the hilt, was the jewelled poniard of the Duchess of Sessa! The incident passed, for the Queen deemed it inexpedient to ask for explanations; besides, she had become wearied by the obsequiousness of her Minister, and she had other fish to fry! With rare commercial acumen, she seized all Caracciolo’s belongings,--most of them he had received from herself,--and actually, with feminine inconsequence, shared them with the Duchess!

III.

Whilst Louis was strengthening his position at Naples, Duke René of Bar and Lorraine was languishing in the Tour de Bar at Bracon, vanquished at Bulgneville and crushed by the Duke of Burgundy. Louis added his protest against his brother’s retention in captivity to that of all the Sovereigns and peers of France, and his appeal was carried by Queen Margherita to her father, the Duke of Savoy, whose influence was great with the Court of Burgundy. René’s release on parole for a year was largely due to the intercession of his brother. Giovanna expressed a wish to see “my other cousin of Anjou,” as she put it, and Louis pressed his brother to bend his steps to Naples and recruit his health and spirits in the sunny, merry South. The Duke’s first step, however, was to hurry off to Nancy to fold his heroic wife Isabelle and darling children to his breast; here, too, to regulate many affairs of State awaiting his decision. To Angers next he boated, to pay his filial homage to his courageous, resourceful mother, Queen Yolande, and to relieve her of some of the worry of government. René, too, had much business to do at the Court of King Charles of France, and his loyal, devoted subjects in Provence demanded his presence. So passed nearly the whole of his twelvemonth’s grace.

Giovanna’s reception of her “cousin” was affectionate in the extreme, and she was warm in her admiration of “another handsome Prince of Anjou.”

Nothing, however, would suit her until René became her guest, and as such he went through all the weird experience of his elder brother. It mattered not to the Queen that he was a married man with a loving wife and dear children; what mattered to her was that he was good-looking, brave, and gallant. To be sure, René’s serious manner disconcerted her, and his artistic tastes bored her, but under his studious courtesy she tried to believe that he was hiding a lively response to her amorous advances. In the presence of “_il galantuomo Re_,”--by which term she always saluted Louis,--Giovanna named René second heir to her kingdom, and successor to the title and estates of the duchy of Calabria. She carefully refrained from inquiries about Duchess Isabelle; indeed, she ignored her existence altogether, and in this line of conduct she was quite consistent, for she had declined to receive the young Queen Margherita when Louis entered Naples with her in state.

René, however, was instrumental, whilst under the fascination of Queen Giovanna, in effecting two matters of importance for the kingdom of Naples and its people. She had instructed Giovanni Capistrani, a perfervid son of Rome, and at the same time an admirer of the Queen, whom she had appointed Court Chamberlain, to persecute the Jews and drive them away from Naples; all such as refused exile he was ordered to put to death. René interposed in the interpretation of these decrees, and gained the Queen’s consent to allow the persecuted race to remain on two conditions: (1) That they should not exact unjust usury; and (2) that they should be marked by a yellow cross to differentiate them from the Christian subjects of the Crown. René further suggested to Giovanna that the Church needed her patronage, that she herself would go the way of all flesh, and that some accommodation with Heaven was very desirable. The Queen laughed his counsel to scorn, and badgered him for a crusader and a churchling, but his words went home even to her hardened, sensuous heart. Capistrani’s unexpected action, moreover, greatly moved her; he resigned his Court offices and emoluments, and meekly entered a monastery of St. Francis d’Assisi.

Duke René returned to his prison at Dijon, and King Louis took his bride off to Cosenza, the capital of Calabria, where a second marriage was celebrated on August 15, 1433, to allay the scruples of prejudiced adherents of the Neapolitan throne. A rumour had been spread,--originating, it was said, with the Queen herself,--which affirmed that Margherita was not the wife, but the mistress, of the royal Duke! Eighteen short months of marital bliss were enjoyed by Louis and Margherita, broken, alas! by a fresh attack by Alfonso in force on Naples. A naval battle off Gaeta, 1434, ended disastrously for the fleet of Aragon. Arrayed against it were the allied forces of Genoa, Venice, Florence, and Milan. Alfonso and his brother Juan were taken prisoners, and carried off to Milan by Duke Filippo Maria. Then a blow fell on the young Queen and upon the whole kingdom of Naples, which made itself felt even in the morbid heart of Queen Giovanna. King Louis caught fever besieging the city of Taranto, and was borne swiftly off to Cosenza, where he died, in his own fond Queen’s arms, on November 15, 1434. Few Princes have made themselves so universally loved as Louis III. of Sicily and Naples, and never were there so many sad hearts and tearful eyes in the kingdom of Naples as when his beloved body was laid out for burial in the Cathedral of Cosenza.

Giovanna never again recovered her spirits; to be sure, she did not renounce her evil ways, but she set about in a hurry to put into execution Duke René’s suggestions. Among belated pious deeds, she rebuilt and refounded the Church of Santa Maria dell’ Annunziata by way of penance for her bad life, and there she was buried in front of the high-altar. A simple slab of marble points out, in the absence of a grandiose monument, the place of her sepulture. She died February 2, 1435, and no woman wept for her, and no man felt grieved. If it is true that “the evil which men do dies with them,” then we must not rake up the tainting memories of an evil past. Giovanna II., Queen of Naples, has passed to her last account, and before Heaven’s tribunal will she stand, alongside with the victims of her vampire-love. Faraglia, in his “_Storia della Regina Giovanna II. d’Angio_,” makes a brave attempt to whitewash the character of the Queen, and he records many interesting details in her daily life. “Every morning,” he says, “she rose with the sun, spent one hour at Mass and private devotions; then she applied herself to the study of music and literature; at noon she breakfasted, generally alone, the afternoon she gave to exercise, and before dinner she bathed in a bath supplied with the milk of one hundred asses.” Apparently the Queen gave no time to affairs of State, and she had not much leisure for company. Undoubtedly Queen Giovanna was the friend of art and craft, but only so far as their exponents helped to enhance her own attractions and luxuries. Antonio Solario--“Il Zingaro”--was her favourite painter, and, by the oddest of irrational conventions, he has represented her in an altar-piece as the Virgin Mary with the Infant Christ, and surrounded by a court of saints!

With what feelings the news of the death of Louis III. at Cosenza was received by René in his prison chamber at Tour de Bar we may well imagine. The hold of his house upon the kingdom of Naples was, of course, of the weakest; and if the late King upon the spot, free to move what troops and stores he had at will, was unable to retain command of Naples, how could a captive Prince away in Burgundy hope to enforce successfully his claim as his brother’s heir?

In Provence and Anjou and beyond the borders of his dominions, with Bar and Lorraine, and with the sympathy and assistance of friendly Sovereigns and Princes at home and abroad, he had, of course, numberless loyal subjects, friends, and allies, but among them all not one could enthuse his cause as he could himself in person. Three devoted Princesses,--Yolande, Isabelle, and Marguerite,--were doing all they could to free him from his captivity. Their efforts were in the schools of sympathy and politics, but they could not lead troops or command a victorious army. No doubt René was depressed and in despair at the apparent paralysis of all effective assistance. Then came the crushing intelligence that Giovanna, the Queen of Naples, was dead, and that he (René) was _de facto_ King. This must have made him desperate. He had no resources, and there appeared no possibility of his obtaining possession of his rights. How he chafed and fumed as he paced his spacious chamber, and how defiantly he must have gazed through its barred windows and at its closed door! Duke René’s brain must have reeled.

Relief, however, came in quite an unexpected sort of way. One morning the bolts of his door were noisily shot back, and upon the threshold he beheld two foreign gentlemen unknown to him. They knelt and kissed his hand; then they offered him a permit from the Duke of Burgundy, a sealed letter from Duchess (now Queen) Isabelle, and a great official despatch from the lately deceased Queen Giovanna. The two emissaries were devoted adherents to the House of Anjou-Provence--Baron Charles de Montelar and Signore Vidal di Cabarus. They came, as their credentials ordered, directly from the deathbed of the Queen, to tell him from her that, “for the sake of the love I had for King Louis,--now, alas! departed,--I chose his noble brother René as my heir and successor. Long live King René!” Into his hand the two gentlemen delivered the Sovereign’s medallion and its royal chain of gold, and again they did obeisance to their new Sovereign.

René accepted their homage chivalrously, if sorrowfully, but his eye wandered to the smaller packet held by di Cabarus, for he saw it was addressed to him in his dear wife’s handwriting. Tearing open the cover, he read with tears in his eyes the startling news that--

“Even whilst thou, my fond spouse, readest these presents, I, thy loyal wife and royal consort, am setting off at once, well mounted and numerously attended, to Marseilles to take shipping for Naples, there to receive in thy name the homage of the Estates and to assume the government. I am taking with me our second boy, Louis, with Yolande and Marguerite, to show them to thy Neapolitan subjects, but Jean I shall send to thee to comfort thee, by the grace of the Duke of Burgundy. My sweet mother will accompany him to cheer thee and to tell thee of my good estate. Fare thee well, beloved.

“Your ISABELLE.

“AT NANCY, 1434.”

Isabelle had learned promptness and wisdom from her good mother-in-law, Queen Yolande, as well as decision and courage from her father, Duke Charles, and all these royal virtues she exhibited magnificently at this extraordinary juncture. The two Neapolitan envoys had, it appeared, gone direct to Nancy to learn their new Queen’s pleasure, and had thus become the bearers of her exhilarating mandate. René received the intelligence of the masterful action of his spouse with mixed feelings. He knelt at his prie-dieu, and thanked God and the saints for the noble self-sacrifice of his wife; then, rising proudly from his knees, he embraced his two visitors, bestowed upon each a ring from his own fingers, and gave them instructions to carry his duty to the Duke of Burgundy, praying for his instant release, and then to proceed to Marseilles to convey to Queen Isabelle his blessing and his approval of her splendid enterprise. No sooner was he left to himself once more than he collapsed, weeping like a child and chiding his Maker and his captor in language lurid and forcible. The irony of his position nearly drove him mad.

Queen Isabelle landed at Naples in due course, and became the object of an extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm. Hailed as Queen, and with King René’s name ever reverberating from loyal lip to loyal lip, she made no mistake, she had no illusions, for she faced the fact at once that there were other claimants for the vacant throne and the uneasy crown. The King of Aragon she knew as a traditional rival, and with him she had to deal most seriously and methodically. He, indeed, directly news of the Queen’s death reached him, had seized the Castle of Gaeta, and thence had issued a proclamation claiming the vacant throne. The Duke of Sessa, the husband of Queen Giovanna’s favourite confidante, Duchess Sancia, claimed the throne as representing,--in descent from Robert, Count of Avellino, her second husband,--Maria of Calabria-Durazzo, sister of Queen Giovanna I. The Prince of Taranto, grand-nephew of Giovanna I.’s third husband and of her sister Maria’s third spouse, the Emperor of Constantinople, entered his claims to the whole kingdom. He pretended also that King Louis III., René’s brother, had before his death at Cosenza made him his heir of all Calabria. From a distant kingdom came still another claimant. The King of Hungary, Andrew, first consort of Giovanna I., had by her a son, it was affirmed, but who it was alleged had died in infancy. This child, it was maintained, was living, now grown to man’s estate. The child who died, and was buried as the Queen’s son, was the son of a servant in the royal suite, whilst the young Prince was removed from his mother’s care and carried off to Hungary, and thus reared.

Isabelle brushed all these claims aside,--save that of Alfonso, who alone of the pretenders to the crown was prepared to take up, as he had done for years, the rights of Aragon in Naples, by force of arms. Everywhere throughout the kingdom the Anjou dynasty was popular; the country people swore by Louis III., and acclaimed the proclamation of René. The army alone was disaffected, and was corrupted by Spanish gold. The royal treasury at Naples was empty, the pay of the loyal troops was in arrears; corruption and fraud filled every department of State. The country gentry and peasantry were ruined; they had been taxed and supertaxed by the minions of Queen Giovanna II. From Provence and Anjou not much monetary help could be expected, and Lorraine and Bar were impoverished. All France was suffering from the wreck of the Hundred Years’ War. René’s ransom required almost every penny Yolande, Isabelle, and Marguerite, could raise by love and threat. What could be done?

The new Queen had come to Naples to claim and hold the kingdom for her husband, and she made up her mind that she would try every expedient to that end, cost what it might. To steal and to borrow were not lines of conduct that appealed to her, but she could beg, and beg she did. Upon this circumstance historians have fastened, and have written more or less eloquently in praise of a dauntless Queen. After making up her mind to this course of action, Isabelle at once put it into operation, and an immense sensation was created in the city when their beautiful and virtuous Queen, clothed simply in native Neapolitan garb, without jewels or marks of royalty, took her place morning by morning outside the palace, in the open square, a macaroni basket in her fair, white, ringless hands, and there pleaded eloquently, in her sweet and musical voice, for contributions for the honour of the King and for the defence of the city. By her side, clad in Neapolitan costumes, were her three little children--innocent, fresh, and comely. “It was,” wrote a chronicler, “a spectacle to move the heart and soul of a marble statue--if such it hath. A Queen of high degree and impeccability humbling herself for her new country’s good. Looking upon her and her children, one conjured up the base contrast offered to our outraged nature by the late Queen, of infamous memory.”

Money flowed in fast and full, and the wicker cash-box daily carried almost more weight of copper and silver, and of articles of jewellery, than the fine strength of the virago Queen could support. Isabelle set about a thorough overhauling of the resources of the national exchequer. She personally rallied troops, and inspected militarily her recruits; arrears of pay were forthcoming, and the better-disposed men of affairs she intuitively selected, and thus purged the seats of government. The King of Aragon, amazed at Isabelle’s courage and ability, refrained from attacking Naples. “I’ll fight with men,” he said, “not with a woman!” he exclaimed. “Let us see what she will do.”

The state of Naples in general, and of the Court in particular, was worse than that of any Augean stable. Indeed, of Court, strictly speaking, there was none, for the less disreputable nobles had long ago gone away to their country estates, taking the seeds of corruption with them to sow among their tenantry. The coteries which gathered around the abandoned Queen like eagles round a carcass were split up into murderous, lustful parties, and divided among evil-conditioned brothels. Every man was every woman’s prey, and every woman at the mercy of a libertine. The whole city was a colossal orgie, and its inhabitants sunk in the slough of unmitigated filth. The turpitude of Pompeii found a parallel in the unrighteousness of Naples. To pull aside the veil which merciful Time has placed over those years of banality and crime would be a sacrilege.

“Down among the dead men let them lie!”

Queen Isabelle, aghast, pulled her veil more closely over her fair features, fixed her teeth, and clenched her hands. Giovanna and all her doings were taboo to her, and by the example and precept of a good woman she gradually accomplished what appeared to be a Herculean task--she brought the Neapolitans to their senses. Mind, in those rapidly pulsating Southern natures, quickly controls action, and the human animal is not all bad even when so predestined by Providence. Isabelle’s administration of the kingdom of Naples during the three years of her sole government was by way of being a moral renascence of humanity, and, when René joined his noble consort, the roses which decorated his triumphal entry were richly perfumed by his wife’s sweet culture.

The prisoner of Bracon was set unconditionally free in 1437, and he hurried away to Marseilles, passing through his beloved country of Provence, hailed everywhere and by everyone with ecstatic devotion. At his port of departure for Naples he was met by Queen Yolande. Never was there a more affecting scene: the mother,--still bearing traces of her early beauty and grace,--bowed down with grief and aged prematurely; the son grown older than his age under the rigours, mental and physical, of his long imprisonment, but still devoted, grateful, and chivalrous. Yolande had fain pressed René to remain in France and comfort her declining years, for, were they parted, she felt that she never more should fold him to her heart--a heart pierced deeply by the premature death of Louis. Yet she played the Spartan mother, not spectacularly but sincerely, and, hushing the sobs of parting, she bravely waved the King of Naples her last farewell. His father and his brother had both traversed the way René was taking; their experience would doubtless be his.

René had a great reception at Naples, and his joy was unclouded when he embraced his noble wife and his four young children, with tears coursing down his cheeks. His recognition as Sovereign was celebrated in the cathedral. There he and Isabelle knelt hand in hand in thankful confidence. Not long did the new King remain in the bosom of his family. Alfonso broke his parole, and prepared a fresh expedition to attack Naples. René went off at once to Rome, Florence, Venice, Genoa, and Milan, to rally help in his emergency. During his captivity the King of Aragon had played the cards so adroitly that he had succeeded in detaching the Duke, his captor, from the triple alliance. Moreover, he gained over to his side Pope Eugenius IV. by promising to make Sicily a fief of the Church. The Aragonese attack failed, though the forces at King René’s command suffered terribly.

At this juncture Queen Isabelle and her children, except the heir to the throne, returned to France, much against her will, but obedient to her royal consort’s wishes. Jean, Duke of Calabria, now a promising lad of nearly thirteen, remained with his father at the post of danger. Alfonso was by no means discouraged; he intended to be master of Naples cost him what it might. In 1440 and 1441 he made fresh assaults on Naples and other seaports of the Calabrian peninsula. All of these René resisted triumphantly, but at Troia, on October 21 in the latter year, Alfonso in person defeated René’s army under the command of Sforza and Sanseverino, and made good his footing in the kingdom of Naples. He further pressed home his attack upon the capital by seizing the island of Ischia, where he compelled the women, whether married or not, to wed his victorious soldiers. René wearied of the contest; he had been warring for twenty years, and he yearned for repose. The Neapolitans quickly took his measure, and his indecision and slackness of energy disheartened his principal supporters. His troops fell away from him, and when, in May, 1442, the King of Aragon once more summoned the capital to surrender, René meekly handed over the keys to his enemy, and made his escape to Marseilles. Alfonso on June 2 entered Naples in triumph, and put an end to the rule of the Angevine Kings.

Alfonso has been styled “the Magnanimous”; perhaps “the Philosopher” would fit his character better. He was a student of metaphysics and a classicist to boot, and, moreover, he had a ready wit. He hated dancing and frivolity, and once remarked that “a man who danced only differed from a fool because his folly was shorter!” An ideal domestic menage appeared to him to be “a blind wife and a deaf husband.” His treasurer was one day giving out scrip for 20,000 ducats, when an officer standing by exclaimed: “Alack, if I only had that amount I should be a happy man!” “Take it,” replied the King!

Nevertheless, Alfonso was hated by his new subjects quite as thoroughly as René had been beloved. The war dragged on; in Calabria the Prince of Taranto raised once more the banner of Anjou, and Giovanni Toreglia, a cousin of Lucrezia d’Alagni, Alfonso’s last mistress, seized Ischia for Jean, Duke of Calabria, René’s eldest son. René himself made two more attempts to regain Giovanna’s inheritance: in 1458 and 1461; but Charles VII. and Louis XI. each failed him in turn with reinforcements. Last of all, Jean, Duke of Calabria, was decisively defeated at Troia in 1462 by Ferdinand I., Alfonso’s bastard son, who succeeded to the throne of Naples after his father’s death in 1458, a man treacherous and vindictive, and a libertine. “_Sic transit gloria mundi_” may be written as a footnote to the story of Naples in the fifteenth century.