Joan of Naples | Page 4

caused by so rude a call
the first bought in the mind of all was that the town was on fire, or that
the army of some enemy had mysteriously landed under cover of night
and could put the citizens to the edge of the sword. But the doleful,
intermittent sounds of all these fills, which disturbed the silence at
regular and distant intervals, were an invitation to the faithful pray for a
passing soul, and it was soon evident that no disaster threatened the
town, but that the king alone was in danger.
Indeed, it had been plain for several days past that the greatest
uneasiness prevailed in Castel Nuovo; the officers of the crown were
assembled regularly twice a day, and persons of importance, whose
right it was to make their way into the king's apartments, came out
evidently bowed down with grief. But although the king's death was
regarded as a misfortune that nothing could avert, yet the whole town,
on learning for certain of the approach of his last hour, was affected
with a sincere grief, easily understood when one learns that the man
about to die, after a reign of thirty-three years, eight months, and a few
days, was Robert of Anjou, the most wise, just, and glorious king who
had ever sat on the throne of Sicily. And so he carried with him to the
tomb the eulogies and regrets of all his subjects.

Soldiers would speak with enthusiasm of the long wars he had waged
with Frederic and Peter of Aragon, against Henry VII and Louis of
Bavaria; and felt their hearts beat high, remembering the glories of
campaigns in Lombardy and Tuscany; priests would gratefully extol his
constant defence of the papacy against Ghibelline attacks, and the
founding of convents, hospitals, and churches throughout his kingdom;
in the world of letters he was regarded as the most learned king in
Christendom; Petrarch, indeed, would receive the poet's crown from no
other hand, and had spent three consecutive days answering all the
questions that Robert had deigned to ask him on every topic of human
knowledge. The men of law, astonished by the wisdom of those laws
which now enriched the Neapolitan code, had dubbed him the Solomon
of their day; the nobles applauded him for protecting their ancient
privileges, and the people were eloquent of his clemency, piety, and
mildness. In a word, priests and soldiers, philosophers and poets,
nobles and peasants, trembled when they thought that the government
was to fall into the hands of a foreigner and of a young girl, recalling
those words of Robert, who, as he followed in the funeral train of
Charles, his only son, turned as he reached the threshold of the church
and sobbingly exclaimed to his barons about him, "This day the crown
has fallen from my head: alas for me! alas for you!"
Now that the bells were ringing for the dying moments of the good
king, every mind was full of these prophetic words: women prayed
fervently to God; men from all parts of the town bent their steps
towards the royal palace to get the earliest and most authentic news,
and after waiting some moments, passed in exchanging sad reflections,
were obliged to return as they had come, since nothing that went on in
the privacy of the family found its way outside--the castle was plunged
in complete darkness, the drawbridge was raised as usual, and the
guards were at their post.
Yet if our readers care to be present at the death of the nephew of Saint
Louis and the grandson of Charles of Anjou, we may conduct them into
the chamber of the dying man. An alabaster lamp suspended from the
ceiling serves to light the vast and sombre room, with walls draped in
black velvet sewn with golden fleur-de-lys. Near the wall which faces

the two entrance doors that at this moment are both shut close, there
stands beneath a brocaded canopy an ebony bed, supported on four
twisted columns carved with symbolic figures. The king, after a
struggle with a violent paroxysm, has fallen swooning in the arms of
his confessor and his doctor, who each hold one of his dying hands,
feeling his pulse anxiously and exchanging looks of intelligence. At the
foot of the bed stands a woman about fifty years of age, her hands
clasped, her eyes raised to heaven, in an attitude of resigned grief: this
woman is the queen, No tears dim her eyes: her sunken cheek has that
waxen yellow tinge that one sees on the bodies of saints preserved by
miracle. In her look is that mingling of calm and suffering that points to
a soul at once tried by sorrow and imbued with religion. After the lapse
of an hour,