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!
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.”