"Stay,"said the princess,extending her hand with a solemn gesture:"as God sends no other aid to my children,it is His will that the sacrifice be accomplished."She fell on her knees before the priest,bending her head like a victim who offers her neck to the executioner.Robert des Baux took his place beside her,and the priest pronounced the formula that united them for ever,consecrating the infamous deed by a sacrilegious blessing.
"All is over!"murmured Marie of Durazzo,looking tearfully on her little daughters.
"No,all is not yet over,"said the admiral harshly,pushing her towards another room;"before we leave,the marriage must be consummated.""O just God!"cried the princess,in a voice torn with anguish,and she fell swooning to the floor.
Renaud des Baux directed his ships towards Marseilles,where he hoped to get his son crowned Count of Provence,thanks to his strange marriage with Marie of Durazzo.But this cowardly act of treason was not to go unpunished.The wind rose with fury,and drove him towards Gaeta,where the queen and her husband had just arrived.Renaud bade his sailors keep in the open,threatening to throw any man into the sea who dared to disobey him.The crew at first murmured;soon cries of mutiny rose on every side.The admiral,seeing he was lost,passed from threats to prayers.But the princess,who had recovered her senses at the first thunder-clap,dragged herself up to the bridge and screamed for help,"Come to me,Louis!Come,my barons!Death to the cowardly wretches who have outraged my honour!"Louis of Tarentum jumped into a boat,followed by some ten of his bravest men,and,rowing rapidly,reached the ship.Then Marie told him her story in a word,and he turned upon the admiral a lightning glance,as though defying him to make any defence.
"Wretch!"cried the king,transfixing the traitor with his sword.
Then he had the son loaded with chains,and also the unworthy priest who had served as accomplice to the admiral,who now expiated his odious crime by death.He took the princess and her children in his boat,and re-entered the harbour.
The Hungarians,however,forcing one of the gates of Naples,marched triumphant to Castel Nuovo.But as they were crossing the Piazza delle Correggie,the Neapolitans perceived that the horses were so weak and the men so reduced by all they had undergone during the siege of Aversa that a mere puff of wind would dispense this phantom-like army.Changing from a state of panic to real daring,the people rushed upon their conquerors,and drove them outside the walls by which they had just entered.The sudden violent reaction broke the pride of the King of Hungary,and made him more tractable when Clement VI decided that he ought at last to interfere.A truce was concluded first from the month of February 1350to the beginning of April 1351,and the next year this was converted into a real peace,Joan paying to the King of Hungary the sum of 300,000florins for the expenses of the war.
After the Hungarians had gone,the pope sent a legate to crown Joan and Louis of Tarentum,and the 25th of May,the day of Pentecost,was chosen for the ceremony.All contemporary historians speak enthusiastically of this magnificent fete.Its details have been immortalised by Giotto in the frescoes of the church which from this day bore the name of L'Incoronata.A general amnesty was declared for all who had taken part in the late wars on either side,and the king and queen were greeted with shouts of joy as they solemnly paraded beneath the canopy,with all the barons of the kingdom in their train.
But the day's joy was impaired by an accident which to a superstitious people seemed of evil augury.Louis of Tarentum,riding a richly caparisoned horse,had just passed the Porta Petruccia,when some ladies looking out from a high window threw such a quantity of flowers at the king that his frightened steed reared and broke his rein.Louis could not hold him,so jumped lightly to the ground;but the crown fell at his feet and was broken into three pieces.On that very day the only daughter of Joan and Louis died.
But the king not wishing to sadden the brilliant ceremony with show of mourning,kept up the jousts and tournaments for three days,and in memory of his coronation instituted the order of 'Chevaliers du Noeud'.But from that day begun with an omen so sad,his life was nothing but a series of disillusions.After sustaining wars in Sicily and Apulia,and quelling the insurrection of Louis of Durazzo,who ended his days in the castle of Ovo,Louis of Tarentum,worn out by a life of pleasure,his health undermined by slow disease,overwhelmed with domestic trouble,succumbed to an acute fever on the 5th of June 1362,at the age of forty-two.His body had not been laid in its royal tomb at Saint Domenico before several aspirants appeared to the hand of the queen.
