A Book of the Riviera

by S. Baring-Gould

Two years later civil war broke out again between the Sabreurs, the Fronde party, and the Canifets, the favourers of Royal prerogative; each was headed by a young peasantess armed with a scythe. Frightful violence ensued. The mayor and many officers of the town were killed. Men, women, and children were massacred indiscriminately as this or that faction got the upper hand.

The king sent troops to Draguignan, and ordered the demolition of the castle, which was the bone of contention between the parties, and most of the Sabreurs fled into Piedmont. The story goes that a cavalry regiment called La Cornette blanche was quartered in the town, and having behaved with great insolence, the people rose in the night and massacred every man in the regiment, But in the municipal records there is nothing to be found to confirm the tradition.

Les Tourettes by Fayence, easily accessible from Draguignan, is a most extraordinary pile, like no other castle known. In the time of the religious wars it was held by the Carcists, and they, being short of provisions, at night raided the neighbourhood. The people of Fayence complained to the Governor of Provence, and he authorised them to take what measures they liked to free themselves of the inconvenience. Accordingly they sent for a cannon from Antibes and proceeded to batter the castle down; and by keeping up an incessant fire they made the castle too hot for the Carcists, who fled, and then the good folk of Fayence proceeded to gut and unroof the castle, so as to save themselves from further annoyance from that quarter.

Draguignan was supplied with water by a canal cut, so it is asserted, by Queen Jeanne I. of Sicily, and she is also credited with having built the church at Salernes at the confluence of the Bresgne and the Brague, and to have resided at Draguignan.

It is remarkable that only two names of their former rulers have any hold on the imagination and hearts of the Provençals of to-day, and these the names of two totally different characters—la reino Jeanno and good King Réné. It was through Queen Joanna or Jeanne of Sicily that King Réné acquired his empty royal titles. At Grasse a flight of stone steps built into a vaulted passage is all that remains of her palace. Houses said to have been occupied by her are pointed out in many places, but in some instances, as in that of the pretty Renaissance palace of Queen Jeanne at Les Baux, there is confusion made between her and Jeanne de Laval, the wife of King Réné.

It may be asked, How in the name of Wonder did Joanna obtain the title of Queen of Jerusalem, so as to transmit the Crown of the Holy City to Réné through her grandniece, Joanna II.?

The bitter and implacable hostility borne by the Popes to the German Imperial House of Hohenstauffen led Urban IV. to invite S. Louis, King of France, to assume the title of King of Sicily and Naples. But the delicate conscience of Louis revolted from such an usurpation. If the Crown were hereditary, it belonged to Conradin, grandson of Frederick II., the Great Redbeard, Emperor, King of Germany and of Sicily. But Charles of Anjou, the brother of S. Louis, was less scrupulous. He accepted the invitation. On the death of Urban, Clement IV. pursued the same policy. Manfred, the uncle of Conradin, then wore the Crown of the Sicilies. He was defeated by Charles and fell in battle, 1266, before the army of the Pope and of Charles of Anjou, marching as crusaders. Manfred left an only child, Constance, married to Peter III., King of Aragon. Conradin, at the head of an army, advanced to claim the Crown that was now his by right, regardless of the excommunication and curses hurled at him by the Pope. He was defeated and taken prisoner. Clement, fearful lest Charles should deal leniently towards the last of the Hohenstaufens, wrote to urge him to smother all feelings of pity.

“The life of Conradin,” he wrote, “is the death of Charles; the death of Conradin is the life of Charles”; and the Anjou prince had the last male of this noble race executed publicly. As Conradin stood on the scaffold, he flung his glove among the people, crying out that he constituted the King of Aragon his heir.

Charles was now King of the Two Sicilies. But he was ambitious of a more splendid title, and he bought that of Jerusalem from Mary of Antioch, daughter of Bohimund V., who inherited the title of King of Jerusalem from his mother, Melusina, daughter of Amaury de Lusignan, twelfth sovereign of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem itself had fallen into the hands of the Saracens in 1244.

To return now to Jeanne de Naples.