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.”
KING RENÉ RECEIVING THE HOMAGE OF A VASSAL, 1469
From a Miniature, MS. Fifteenth Century. National Library, Paris
To face page 226
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.
KING LADISLAUS AND QUEEN GIOVANNA II.
From a Monument by A. Ciccione. Church of San Giovanni a Carbonara, Naples
To face page 236
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!