Joan I of Naples

“ For this she was promptly excommunicated, being at the same time declared deposed from the throne, whilst her subjects were formally relieved of their allegiance to her. The Crown of Naples was bestowed by the Holy Father upon Charles of Durazzo, whom Joan had already proclaimed her successor, and who now showed his gratitude in the following remarkable manner. Hastily borrowing an army from his great-uncle, old King Louis of Hungary, who was still alive, Charles set out for Naples, where his wife and their two children were even then living as honoured guests and relatives under Joan’s roof. ”

“ The elder of the two daughters born to Charles, Duke of Calabria and Marie of Valois—both of whom had predeceased their father and father-in-law, Robert, King of Naples—Joan was married as a child of fourteen to her cousin Andrew, the grandson of King Charles of Hungary, the brother of King Robert; and, on the death of the latter in the month of January, 1343, succeeded him as his granddaughter on the throne of Naples. At that time Joan, although not yet fifteen years old, was beautiful with the beauty and grace of a grown woman ”

“ It was a great day when Joan of Naples pleaded her own cause before the pope, in the presence of all the cardinals then at Avignon, all the ambassadors of foreign powers, and all the eminent persons come from every quarter of Europe to be present at this trial, unique in the annals of history. We must imagine a vast enclosure, in whose midst upon a raised throne, as president of the august tribunal, sat God’s vicar on earth, absolute and supreme judge, emblem of temporal and spiritual power, of authority human and divine. ”

“ Thus the court was split into two factions: the Hungarians with Friar Robert at their head and supported by Charles of Durazzo; on the other side all the nobility of Naples, led by the Princes of Tarentum. Joan, influenced by the grand seneschal’s widow and her two daughters, the Countesses of Terlizzi and Morcone, and also by Dona Cancha and the Empress of Constantinople, took the side of the Neapolitan party against the pretensions of her husband. The partisans of the queen made it their first care to have her name inscribed upon all public acts without adding Andre’s ”

“ On returning, laden with her ill-gotten spoils, to Naples, her triumph was dashed to the ground to learn that, during her absence, Charles of Durazzo, her ancient enemy and that of her house, had once more sent word to Joan, demanding that she should instantly create him Duke of Calabria, and so acknowledge him to be the rightful heir to the throne as the husband of her sister Maria. ”

“ Joan turned a tearful look upon her lover.
“God, my God!” she cried, clasping her hands in desperation, “am I to hear for ever this awful cry of death! You too, Bertrand, you too say the word, like Robert of Cabane, like Charles of Duras? Wretched man, why would you raise this bloody spectre between us, to check with icy hand our adulterous kisses? Enough of such crimes; if his wretched ambition makes him long to reign, let him be king: what matters his power to me, if he leaves me with your love?” ”

“ So far as the eye could reach there stretched an immense crowd, illuminated by streams of light, and thousands of heads were turned upward towards Castel Nuovo to gather any news that might be announced. Charles respectfully drawing back and indicating his fair cousin with his hand, cried out—
"People of Naples, the King is dead: long live the Queen!"
"Long live Joan, Queen of Naples!" replied the people, with a single mighty cry that resounded through every quarter of the town. ”

“ Joan, scarcely fifteen, is far ahead of her age. Gifted with a brilliant and mobile mind, a noble and lofty character, a lively and glowing fancy, now free and frolicsome as a child, now grave and proud as a queen, trustful and simple as a young girl, passionate and sensitive as a woman, she presents the most striking contrast to Andre, who, after a stay of ten years at our court, is wilder, more gloomy, more intractable than ever. ”

“ Poor Joan,—neglected by her husband and betrayed by Robert of Cabane— gave way beneath the burden of duties beyond her strength to bear, and fled for refuge to the arms of Bertrand of Artois, whose love she did not even attempt to resist; for every feeling for religion and virtue had been destroyed in her own set purpose, and her young inclinations had been early bent towards vice, just as the bodies of wretched children are bent and their bones broken by jugglers when they train them. Bertrand himself felt an adoration for her surpassing ordinary human passion. ”

“ Come, madam, away with care: you have wept long enough; we have long respected your grief. It is now time to show yourself to these good Neapolitans who bless Heaven continually for granting them a queen so beautiful and good; it is time that your favours fall upon the heads of your faithful subjects, and my son, who surpasses all in his fidelity, comes first to ask a favour of you, in order that he may serve you yet more zealously.”
Joan cast on Robert a withering look, and, speaking to the Catanese, said with a scornful air—
“You know, madam, I can refuse your son nothing.” ”

“ Games and fetes were improvised to soften the hardship of exile for the proscribed princess; but amid the outbursts of joy from every town, castle, and city, Joan, always sad, lived ever in her silent grief and glowing memories.
At the gates of Aix she found the clergy, the nobility, and the chief magistrates, who received her respectfully but with no signs of enthusiasm. As the queen advanced, her astonishment increased as she saw the coldness of the people and the solemn, constrained air of the great men who escorted her. ”

“ Joan Detained at Aix—Greeted as a Queen—Joan Pronounced Innocent—Plans to Regain Naples—Sale of a City—Return to Naples—Indecisive War—Proposal for Personal Conflict—Flight of the Royal Family—Maria’s Narrow Escape—Hungarians Repulsed—Pope Clement as Intermediary—Departure of the King of Hungary—Festivity in Naples—Death of Louis and Joan’s Further Marital Adventures—Joan in Trouble—Her Untimely End. ”

“ Joan at her window was breathing in the perfumes of spring, and her eyes misty with tears rested on a bed of flowery verdure; a light breeze, keen and balmy, blew upon her burning brow and offered a grateful coolness to her damp and fevered cheeks. Distant melodious voices, refrains of well-known songs, were all that disturbed the silence of the poor little room, the solitary nest where a life was passing away in tears and repentance, a life the most brilliant and eventful of a century of splendour and unrest. ”

“ The king remained motionless, his arms raised, his eyes fixed on heaven, his cheeks extraordinarily bright, while the princes, barons, and officers of the court proffered to Joan and her husband the oath of fidelity and allegiance. When it was the turn of the Princes of Duras to advance, Charles disdainfully stalked past Andre, and bending his knee before the princess, said in a loud voice, as he kissed her hand—
“To you, my queen, I pay my homage.”
All looks were turned fearfully towards the dying man, but the good king no longer heard. ”

“ Bertrand would listen to nothing but his love for Joan and his implacable hatred for all the queen’s enemies. Many a time, at the close of day, as the breeze from Posilippo or Sorrento coming from far away was playing in his hair, might Bertrand be seen leaning from one of the casements of Castel Nuovo, pale and motionless, gazing fixedly from his side of the square to where the Duke of Calabria and the Duke of Durazzo came galloping home from their evening ride side by side in a cloud of dust. ”

“ Only grant me one year of widowhood before you pass on to your bridal with the Lord, one year in which you will watch over Joan and her husband, to keep from them all the dangers that threaten. Already the woman who was the seneschal’s wife and her son have too much influence over our grand-daughter; be specially careful, and amid the many interests, intrigues, and temptations that will surround the young queen, distrust particularly the affection of Bertrand d’Artois, the beauty of Louis of Tarentum; and the ambition of Charles of Durazzo. ”

“ But a league’s distance from Avignon a magnificent triumphal reception awaited her. Louis of Tarentum and all the cardinals present at the court had come out to meet her. Pages in dazzling dress carried above Joan’s head a canopy of scarlet velvet, ornamented with fleur-de-lys in gold and plumes. Handsome youths and lovely girls, their heads crowned with flowers, went before her singing her praise. The streets were bordered with a living hedge of people ”

“ One man I know, who weeps both night and day without hope or consolation, consumed by a slow and painful malady, when one word might yet avail to save him, did it come from the lips of my noble mistress.”
“I will not hear another word,” cried Joan, suddenly rising; “there shall be no new cause for remorse in my life. Trouble has come upon me through my loves, both lawful and criminal; alas! no longer will I try to control my awful fate, I will bow my head without a murmur. I am the queen, and I must yield myself up for the good of my subjects.” ”

“ Joan bowed her head in silence, and Robert of Tarentum was installed at the castle.
Charles of Durazzo, who by the death of Andre had practically become the head of the family, and, would, by the terms of his grandfather’s will, inherit the kingdom by right of his wife Marie in the case of Joan’s dying without lawful issue, sent to the queen two commands: first, that she should not dream of contracting a new marriage without first consulting him in the choice of a husband; secondly, that she should invest him at once with the title of Duke of Calabria. ”

“ An event outside all human foresight occurred to upset the calculations of the two cousins. One day while they were out together on horseback, as they often were since their pretended reconciliation, Louis of Tarentum, Robert’s youngest brother, who had always felt for Joan a chivalrous, innocent love,—a love which a young man of twenty is apt to lock up in his heart as a secret treasure,—Louis, we say, who had held aloof from the infamous family conspiracy and had not soiled his hands with Andre’s blood, drawn on by an irrepressible passion, all at once appeared at the gates of Castel Nuovo ”

“ And later they sent others of their [230] company once and twice on the same business; but Joan either would not or could not speak with them, until at last the townspeople of Aversa gathered about the monastery gates began to howl and to murmur amongst themselves, calling the Queen a murderess, and saying that she was afraid to look upon the face of her dead husband. Nor did she show herself at all to them; but, later in the day, was borne out of Aversa and so back to Naples in a closed litter guarded by horsemen. ”

“ Pope Clement’s first proposal, though, that Joan should make the King of Hungary the heir to her crown, and so put her sister Maria out of the succession, Joan refused even to contemplate; and then the Pope suggested that she should pay a lump sum in cash to the King of Hungary as ransom for all the fortresses that he still held in his hands in the Kingdom of Naples ”

“ To this proposal they perforce consented; and the Empress, leading half her son’s army, marched boldly out from Naples by the Porta Capuana, along the road towards Benevento, and so came by way of the Caudine Forks to the castle of Saint Agatha of the Goths, where Queen Joan’s former lover, Bertrand of Artois, and his father, old Count Charles, were still skulking from the law. ”

“ But before we conduct into the queen’s room these two persons, whom our readers may remember in Joan’s train about the bed of King Robert, we must relate the circumstances which had caused the family of the Catanese to rise with incredible rapidity from the lowest class of the people to the highest rank at court. When Dona Violante of Aragon, first wife of Robert of Anjou, became the mother of Charles, who was later on the Duke of Calabria, a nurse was sought for the infant among the most handsome women of the people. ”

“ But his resolution had never for a moment been weakened by the arrival of Andre in the kingdom, or by the profound indifference wherewith Joan, preoccupied with other passion, had always received the advances of her cousin Charles of Durazzo. Neither the love of a woman nor the life of a man was of any account to him when a crown was weighed in the other scale of the balance. ”

“ Joan reassured the archbishop and the deputation from her good town of Aix with a melancholy smile, and promised that she would always cherish the memory of their affection. For this time she could not be deceived as to the real sentiments of the nobles and people; and a fidelity so uncommon, revealed with sincere tears, touched her heart and made her reflect bitterly upon her past. ”

“ When this incredible news was brought to the queen, her first feeling was joy at the recovery of her sister; and when Bertrand of Artois was eager to head a band of barons and cavaliers and bent on falling upon the cortege to punish the traitor, Joan put up her hand to stop him with a very mournful look.
“Alas!” she said sadly, “it is too late. They are legally married, for the head of the Church—who is moreover by my grandfather’s will the head of our family—has granted his permission. I only pity my poor sister ”