The terrible part that Charles of Durazzo was to play began as soon as
this crime was accomplished. The duke left the corpse two whole days
exposed to the wind and the rain, unburied and dishonoured, the corpse
of a man whom the pope had made King of Sicily and Jerusalem, so that
the indignation of the mob might be increased by the dreadful sight. On
the third he ordered it to be conveyed with the utmost pomp to the
cathedral of Naples, and assembling all the Hungarians around the
catafalque, he thus addressed them, in a voice of thunder:--
"Nobles and commoners, behold our king hanged like a dog by infamous
traitors. God will soon make known to us the names of all the guilty:
let those who desire that justice may be done hold up their hands and
swear against murderers bloody persecution, implacable hatred,
everlasting vengeance."
It was this one man's cry that brought death and desolation to the
murderers' hearts, and the people dispersed about the town, shrieking,
"Vengeance, vengeance!"
Divine justice, which knows naught of privilege and respects no crown,
struck Joan first of all in her love. When the two lovers first met,
both were seized alike with terror and disgust; they recoiled trembling,
the queen seeing in Bertrand her husband's executioner, and he in her
the cause of his crime, possibly of his speedy punishment. Bertrand's
looks were disordered, his cheeks hollow, his eyes encircled with black
rings, his mouth horribly distorted; his arm and forefinger extended
towards his accomplice, he seemed to behold a frightful vision rising
before him. The same cord he had used when he strangled Andre, he now
saw round the queen's neck, so tight that it made its way into her
flesh: an invisible force, a Satanic impulse, urged him to strangle with
his own hands the woman he had loved so dearly, had at one time adored
on his knees. The count rushed out of the room with gestures of
desperation, muttering incoherent words; and as he shewed plain signs of
mental aberration, his father, Charles of Artois, took him away, and
they went that same evening to their palace of St. Agatha, and there
prepared a defence in case they should be attacked.
But Joan's punishment, which was destined to be slow as well as
dreadful, to last thirty-seven years and end in a ghastly death, was now
only beginning. All the wretched beings who were stained with Andre's
death came in turn to her to demand the price of blood. The Catanese and
her son, who held in their hands not only the queen's honour but her
life, now became doubly greedy and exacting. Dona Cancha no longer put
any bridle on her licentiousness, and the Empress of Constantinople
ordered her niece to marry her eldest son, Robert, Prince of Tarentum.
Joan, consumed by remorse, full of indignation and shame at the arrogant
conduct of her subjects, dared scarcely lift her head, and stooped to
entreaties, only stipulating for a few days' delay before giving her
answer: the empress consented, on condition that her son should come to
reside at Castel Nuovo, with permission to see the queen once a day.
Joan bowed her head in silence, and Robert of Tarentum was installed at
the castle.
Charles of Durazzo, who by the death of Andre had practically become the
head of the family, and, would, by the terms of his grandfather's will,
inherit the kingdom by right of his wife Marie in the case of Joan's
dying without lawful issue, sent to the queen two commands: first, that
she should not dream of contracting a new marriage without first
consulting him in the choice of a husband; secondly, that she should
invest him at once with the title of Duke of Calabria. To compel his
cousin to make these two concessions, he added that if she should be so
ill advised as to refuse either of them, he should hand over to justice
the proofs of the crime and the names of the murderers. Joan, bending
beneath the weight of this new difficulty, could think of no way to
avoid it; but Catherine, who alone was stout enough to fight this nephew
of hers, insisted that they must strike at the Duke of Durazzo in his
ambition and hopes, and tell him, to begin with--what was the fact--that
the queen was pregnant. If, in spite of this news, he persisted in his
plans, she would find some means or other, she said, of causing trouble
and discord in her nephew's family, and wounding him in his most
intimate affections or closest interests, by publicly dishonouring him
through his wife or his mother.
Charles smiled coldly when his aunt came to tell him from the queen that
she was about to bring into the world an infant, Andre's posthumous
child. What importance could a babe yet unborn possibly have--as a fact,
it lived only a few months--in the eyes of a man who with such admirable
coolness got rid of people who stood in his wary, and that moreover by
the hand of his own enemies? He told the empress that the happy news she
had condescended to bring him in person, far from diminishing his
kindness towards his cousin, inspired him rather with more interest and
goodwill; that consequently he reiterated his suggestion, and renewed
his promise not to seek vengeance for his dear Andre, since in a certain
sense the crime was not complete should a child be destined to survive;
but in case of a refusal he declared himself inexorable. He cleverly
gave Catherine to understand that, as she had some interest herself in
the prince's death, she ought for her own sake to persuade the queen to
stop legal proceedings.
The empress seemed to be deeply impressed by her nephew's threatening
attitude, and promised to do her best to persuade the queen to grant all
he asked, on condition, however, that Charles should allow the necessary
time for carrying through so delicate a business. But Catherine profited
by this delay to think out her own plan of revenge, and ensure the means
of certain success. After starting several projects eagerly and then
regretfully abandoning them, she fixed upon an infernal and unheard-of
scheme, which the mind would refuse to believe but for the unanimous
testimony of historians. Poor Agnes of Duras, Charles's mother, had for
some few days been suffering with an inexplicable weariness, a slow
painful malady with which her son's restlessness and violence may have
had not a little to do. The empress resolved that the first effect of
her hatred was to fall upon this unhappy mother. She summoned the Count
of Terlizzi and Dona Cancha, his mistress, who by the queen's orders had
been attending Agnes since her illness began. Catherine suggested to the
young chamberwoman, who was at that time with child, that she should
deceive the doctor by representing that certain signs of her own
condition really belonged to the sick woman, so that he, deceived by the
false indications, should be compelled to admit to Charles of Durazzo
that his mother was guilty and dishonoured. The Count of Terlizzi, who
ever since he had taken part in the regicide trembled in fear of
discovery, had nothing to oppose to the empress's desire, and Dona
Cancha, whose head was as light as her heart was corrupt, seized with a
foolish gaiety on any chance of taking her revenge on the prudery of the
only princess of the blood who led a pure life at a court that was
renowned for its depravity. Once assured that her accomplices would be
prudent and obedient, Catherine began to spread abroad certain vague and
dubious but terribly serious rumours, only needing proof, and soon after
the cruel accusation was started it was repeated again and again in
confidence, until it reached the ears of Charles.
At this amazing revelation the duke was seized with a fit of trembling.
He sent instantly for the doctor, and asked imperiously what was the
cause of his mother's malady. The doctor turned pale and stammered; but
when Charles grew threatening he admitted that he had certain grounds
for suspecting that the duchess was enceinte, but as he might easily
have been deceived the first time, he would make a second investigation
before pronouncing his opinion in so serious a matter. The next day, as
the doctor came out of the bedroom, the duke met him, and interrogating
him with an agonised gesture, could only judge by the silence that his
fears were too well confirmed. But the doctor, with excess of caution,
declared that he would make a third trial. Condemned criminals can
suffer no worse than Charles in the long hours that passed before that
fatal moment when he learned that his mother was indeed guilty. On the
third day the doctor stated on his soul and conscience that Agnes of
Durazzo was pregnant.
"Very good," said Charles, dismissing the doctor with no sign of
emotion.
That evening the duchess took a medicine ordered by the doctor; and
when, half an hour later, she was assailed with violent pains, the duke
was warned that perhaps other physicians ought to be consulted, as the
prescription of the ordinary doctor, instead of bringing about an
improvement in her state, had only made her worse.
Charles slowly went up to the duchess's room, and sending away all the
people who were standing round her bed, on the pretext that they were
clumsy and made his mother worse, he shut the door, and they were alone.
Then poor Agnes, forgetting her internal agony when she saw her son,
pressed his hand tenderly and smiled through her tears.
Charles, pale beneath his bronzed complexion, his forehead moist with a
cold sweat, and his eyes horribly dilated, bent over the sick woman and
asked her gloomily--
"Are you a little better, mother?"
"Ah, I am in pain, in frightful pain, my poor Charles. I feel as though
I have molten lead in my veins. O my son, call your brothers, so that I
may give you all my blessing for the last time, for I cannot hold out
long against this pain. I am burning. Mercy! Call a doctor: I know I
have been poisoned."
Charles did not stir from the bedside.
"Water!" cried the dying woman in a broken voice,--"water! A doctor, a
confessor! My children--I want my children!"
And as the duke paid no heed, but stood moodily silent, the poor mother,
prostrated by pain, fancied that grief had robbed her son of all power
of speech or movement, and so, by a desperate effort, sat up, and
seizing him by the arm, cried with all the strength she could muster--
"Charles, my son, what is it? My poor boy, courage; it is nothing, I
hope. But quick, call for help, call a doctor. Ah, you have no idea of
what I suffer."
"Your doctor," said Charles slowly and coldly, each word piercing his
mother's heart like a dagger,--"your doctor cannot come."
"Oh why?" asked Agnes, stupefied.
"Because no one ought to live who knows the secret of our shame."
"Unhappy man!" she cried, overwhelmed with, pain and terror, "you have
murdered him! Perhaps you have poisoned your mother too! Charles,
Charles, have mercy on your own soul!"
"It is your doing," said Charles, without show of emotion: "you have
driven me into crime and despair; you have caused my dishonour in this
world and my damnation in the next."
"What are you saying? My own Charles, have mercy! Do not let me die in
this horrible uncertainty; what fatal delusion is blinding you? Speak,
my son, speak: I am not feeling the poison now. What have I done? Of
what have I been accused?"
She looked with haggard eyes at her son: her maternal love still
struggled against the awful thought of matricide; at last, seeing that
Charles remained speechless in spite of her entreaties, she repeated,
with a piercing cry--
"Speak, in God's name, speak before I die!"
"Mother, you are with child."
"What!" cried Agnes, with a loud cry, which broke her very heart. "O
God, forgive him! Charles, your mother forgives and blesses you in
death."
Charles fell upon her neck, desperately crying for help: he would now
have gladly saved her at the cost of his life, but it was too late. He
uttered one cry that came from his heart, and was found stretched out
upon his mother's corpse.
Strange comments were made at the court on the death of the Duchess of
Durazzo and her doctor's disappearance; but there was no doubt at all
that grief and gloom were furrowing wrinkles on Charles's brow, which
was already sad enough. Catherine alone knew the terrible cause of her
nephew's depression, for to her it was very plain that the duke at one
blow had killed his mother and her physician. But she had never expected
a reaction so sudden and violent in a man who shrank before no crime.
She had thought Charles capable of everything except remorse. His
gloomy, self absorbed silence seemed a bad augury for her plans. She had
desired to cause trouble for him in his own family, so that he might
have no time to oppose the marriage of her son with the queen; but she
had shot beyond her mark, and Charles, started thus on the terrible path
of crime, had now broken through the bonds of his holiest affections,
and gave himself up to his bad passions with feverish ardour and a
savage desire for revenge. Then Catherine had recourse to gentleness and
submission. She gave her son to understand that there was only one way
of obtaining the queen's hand, and that was by flattering the ambition
of Charles and in some sort submitting himself to his patronage. Robert
of Tarentum understood this, and ceased making court to Joan, who
received his devotion with cool kindness, and attached himself closely
to Charles, paying him much the same sort of respect and deference that
he himself had affected for Andre, when the thought was first in his
mind of causing his ruin. But the Duke of Durazzo was by no means
deceived as to the devoted friendship shown towards him by the heir of
the house of Tarentum, and pretending to be deeply touched by the
unexpected change of feeling, he all the time kept a strict guard on
Robert's actions.
An event outside all human foresight occurred to upset the calculations
of the two cousins. One day while they were out together on horseback,
as they often were since their pretended reconciliation, Louis of
Tarentum, Robert's youngest brother, who had always felt for Joan a
chivalrous, innocent love,--a love which a young man of twenty is apt to
lock up in his heart as a secret treasure,--Louis, we say, who had held
aloof from the infamous family conspiracy and had not soiled his hands
with Andre's blood, drawn on by an irrepressible passion, all at once
appeared at the gates of Castel Nuovo; and while his brother was wasting
precious hours in asking for a promise of marriage, had the bridge
raised and gave the soldiers strict orders to admit no one. Then, never
troubling himself about Charles's anger or Robert's jealousy, he hurried
to the queen's room, and there, says Domenico Gravina, without any
preamble, the union was consummated.
On returning from his ride, Robert, astonished that the bridge was not
at once lowered for him, at first loudly called upon the soldiers on
guard at the fortress, threatening severe punishment for their
unpardonable negligence; but as the gates did not open and the soldiers
made no sign of fear or regret, he fell into a violent fit of rage, and
swore he would hang the wretches like dogs for hindering his return
home. But the Empress of Constantinople, terrified at the bloody quarrel
beginning between the two brothers, went alone and on foot to her son,
and making use of her maternal authority to beg him to master his
feelings, there in the presence of the crowd that had come up hastily to
witness the strange scene, she related in a low voice all that had
passed in his absence.
A roar as of a wounded tiger escaped from Robert's breast: all but blind
with rage, he nearly trampled his mother under the feet of his horse,
which seemed to feel his master's anger, and plunging violently,
breathed blood from his nostrils. When the prince had poured every
possible execration on his brother's head, he turned and galloped away
from the accursed castle, flying to the Duke of Durazzo, whom he had
only just left, to tell him of this outrage and stir him to revenge.
Charles was talking carelessly with his young wife, who was but little
used to such tranquil conversation and expansiveness, when the Prince of
Tarentum, exhausted, out of breath, bathed in perspiration, came up with
his incredible tale. Charles made him say it twice over, so impossible
did Louis's audacious enterprise appear to him. Then quickly changing
from doubt to fury, he struck his brow with his iron glove, saying that
as the queen defied him he would make her tremble even in her castle and
in her lover's arms. He threw one withering look on Marie, who
interceded tearfully for her sister, and pressing Robert's hand with
warmth, vowed that so long as he lived Louis should never be Joan's
husband.
That same evening he shut himself up in his study, and wrote letters
whose effect soon appeared. A bull, dated June 2, 1346, was addressed to
Bertram de Baux, chief-justice of the kingdom of Sicily and Count of
Monte Scaglioso, with orders to make the most strict inquiries
concerning Andre's murderers, whom the pope likewise laid under his
anathema, and to punish them with the utmost rigour of the law. But a
secret note was appended to the bull which was quite at variance with
the designs of Charles: the sovereign pontiff expressly bade the
chief-justice not to implicate the queen in the proceedings or the
princes of the blood, so as to avoid worse disturbances, reserving, as
supreme head of the Church and lord of the kingdom, the right of judging
them later on, as his wisdom might dictate.
For this imposing trial Bertram de Baux made great preparations. A
platform was erected in the great hall of tribunal, and all the officers
of the crown and great state dignitaries, and all the chief barons, had
a place behind the enclosure where the magistrates sat. Three days after
Clement VI's bull had been published in the capital, the chief-justice
was ready for a public examination of two accused persons. The two
culprits who had first fallen into the hands of justice were, as one may
easily suppose, those whose condition was least exalted, whose lives
were least valuable, Tommaso Pace and Nicholas of Melazzo. They were led
before the tribunal to be first of all tortured, as the custom was. As
they approached the judges, the notary passing by Charles in the street
had time to say in a low voice--
"My lord, the time has come to give my life for you: I will do my duty;
I commend my wife and children to you."
Encouraged by a nod from his patron, he walked on firmly and
deliberately. The chief-justice, after establishing the identity of the
accused, gave them over to the executioner and his men to be tortured in
the public square, so that their sufferings might serve as a show and an
example to the crowd. But no sooner was Tommaso Pace tied to the rope,
when to the great disappointment of all he declared that he would
confess everything, and asked accordingly to be taken back before his
judges. At these words, the Count of Terlizzi, who was following every
movement of the two men with mortal anxiety, thought it was all over now
with him and his accomplices; and so, when Tommaso Pace was turning his
steps towards the great hall, led by two guards, his hands tied behind
his back, and followed by the notary, he contrived to take him into a
secluded house, and squeezing his throat with great force, made him thus
put his tongue out, whereupon he cut it off with a sharp razor.
The yells of the poor wretch so cruelly mutilated fell on the ears of
the Duke of Durazzo: he found his way into the room where the barbarous
act had been committed just as the Count of Terlizzi was coming out, and
approached the notary, who had been present at the dreadful spectacle
and had not given the least sign of fear or emotion. Master Nicholas,
thinking the same fate was in store for him, turned calmly to the duke,
saying with a sad smile--
"My lord, the precaution is useless; there is no need for you to cut out
my tongue, as the noble count has done to my poor companion. The last
scrap of my flesh may be torn off without one word being dragged from my
mouth. I have promised, my lord, and you have the life of my wife and
the future of my children as guarantee for my word."
"I do not ask for silence," said the duke solemnly; "you can free me
from all my enemies at once, and I order you to denounce them at the
tribunal."
The notary bowed his head with mournful resignation; then raising it in
affright, made one step up to the duke and murmured in a choking voice--
"And the queen?"
"No one would believe you if you ventured to denounce her; but when the
Catanese and her son, the Count of Terlizzi and his wife and her most
intimate friends, have been accused by you, when they fail to endure the
torture, and when they denounce her unanimously--"
"I see, my lord. You do not only want my life; you would have my soul
too. Very well; once more I commend to you my children."
With a deep sigh he walked up to the tribunal. The chief-justice asked
Tommaso Pace the usual questions, and a shudder of horror passed through
the assembly when they saw the poor wretch in desperation opening his
mouth, which streamed with blood. But surprise and terror reached their
height when Nicholas of Melazzo slowly and firmly gave a list of Andre's
murderers, all except the queen and the princes of the blood, and went
on to give all details of the assassination.
Proceedings were at once taken for the arrest of the grand seneschal,
Robert of Cabane, and the Counts of Terlizzi and Morcone, who were
present and had not ventured to make any movement in self-defence. An
hour later, Philippa, her two daughters, and Dona Cancha joined them in
prison, after vainly imploring the queen's protection. Charles and
Bertrand of Artois, shut up in their fortress of Saint Agatha, bade
defiance to justice, and several others, among them the Counts of Meleto
and Catanzaro, escaped by flight.
As soon as Master Nicholas said he had nothing further to confess, and
that he had spoken the whole truth and nothing but the truth, the
chief-justice pronounced sentence amid a profound silence; and without
delay Tommaso Pace and the notary were tied to the tails of two horses,
dragged through the chief streets of the town, and hanged in the market
place.
The other prisoners were thrown into a subterranean vault, to be
questioned and put to the torture on the following day. In the evening,
finding themselves in the same dungeon, they reproached one another,
each pretending he had been dragged into the crime by someone else. Then
Dona Cancha, whose strange character knew no inconsistencies, even face
to face with death and torture, drowned with a great burst of laughter
the lamentations of her companions, and joyously exclaimed--
"Look here, friends, why these bitter recriminations--this ill-mannered
raving? We have no excuses to make, and we are all equally guilty. I am
the youngest of all, and not the ugliest, by your leave, ladies, but if
I am condemned, at least I will die cheerfully. For I have never denied
myself any pleasure I could get in this world, and I can boast that much
will be forgiven me, for I have loved much: of that you, gentlemen, know
something. You, bad old man," she continued to the Count of Terlizzi,
"do you not remember lying by my side in the queen's ante-chamber? Come,
no blushes before your noble family; confess, my lord, that I am with
child by your Excellency; and you know how we managed to make up the
story of poor Agnes of Durazzo and her pregnancy--God rest her soul! For
my part, I never supposed the joke would take such a serious turn all at
once. You know all this and much more; spare your lamentations, for, by
my word, they are getting very tiresome: let us prepare to die joyously,
as we have lived."
With these words she yawned slightly, and, lying down on the straw, fell
into a deep sleep, and dreamed as happy dreams as she had ever dreamed
in her life.
On the morrow from break of day there was an immense crowd on the sea
front. During the night an enormous palisade had been put up to keep the
people away far enough for them to see the accused without hearing
anything. Charles of Durazzo, at the head of a brilliant cortege of
knights and pages, mounted on a magnificent horse, all in black, as a
sign of mourning, waited near the enclosure. Ferocious joy shone in his
eyes as the accused made their way through the crowd, two by two, their
wrists tied with ropes; for the duke every minute expected to hear the
queen's name spoken. But the chief-justice, a man of experience, had
prevented indiscretion of any kind by fixing a hook in the tongue of
each one. The poor creatures were tortured on a ship, so that nobody
should hear the terrible confessions their sufferings dragged from them.
But Joan, in spite of the wrongs that most of the conspirators had done
her, felt a renewal of pity for the woman she had once respected as a
mother, for her childish companions and her friends, and possibly also
some remains of love for Robert of Cabane, and sent two messengers to
beg Bertram de Baux to show mercy to the culprits. But the chief-justice
seized these men and had them tortured; and on their confession that
they also were implicated in Andre's murder, he condemned them to the
same punishment as the others. Dona Cancha alone, by reason of her
situation, escaped the torture, and her sentence was deferred till the
day of her confinement.
As this beautiful girl was returning to prison, with many a smile for
all the handsomest cavaliers she could see in the crowd, she gave a sign
to Charles of Durazzo as she neared him to come forward, and since her
tongue had not been pierced (for the same reason) with an iron
instrument, she said some words to him a while in a low voice.
Charles turned fearfully pale, and putting his hand to his sword,
cried--
"Wretched woman!"
"You forget, my lord, I am under the protection of the law."
"My mother!--oh, my poor mother!" murmured Charles in a choked voice,
and he fell backward.
The next morning the people were beforehand with the executioner, loudly
demanding their prey. All the national troops and mercenaries that the
judicial authorities could command were echelonned in the streets,
opposing a sort of dam to the torrent of the raging crowd. The sudden
insatiable cruelty that too often degrades human nature had awaked in
the populace: all heads were turned with hatred and frenzy; all
imaginations inflamed with the passion for revenge; groups of men and
women, roaring like wild beasts, threatened to knock down the walls of
the prison, if the condemned were not handed over to them to take to the
place of punishment: a great murmur arose, continuous, ever the same,
like the growling of thunder: the queen's heart was petrified with
terror.
But, in spite of the desire of Bertram de Baux to satisfy the popular
wish, the preparations for the solemn execution were not completed till
midday, when the sun's rays fell scorchingly upon the town. There went
up a mighty cry from ten thousand palpitating breasts when a report
first ran through the crowd that the prisoners were about to appear.
There was a moment of silence, and the prison doors rolled slowly back
on their hinges with a rusty, grating noise. A triple row of horsemen,
with lowered visor and lance in rest, started the procession, and amid
yells and curses the condemned prisoners came out one by one, each tied
upon a cart, gagged and naked to the waist, in charge of two
executioners, whose orders were to torture them the whole length of
their way. On the first cart was the former laundress of Catana,
afterwards wife of the grand seneschal and governess to the queen,
Philippa of Cabane: the two executioners at right and left of her
scourged her with such fury that the blood spurting up from the wounds
left a long track in all the streets passed by the cortege.
Immediately following their mother on separate carts came the Countesses
of Terlizzi and Morcone, the elder no more than eighteen years of age.
The two sisters were so marvellously beautiful that in the crowd a
murmur of surprise was heard, and greedy eyes were fixed upon their
naked trembling shoulders. But the men charged to torture them gazed
with ferocious smiles upon their forms of seductive beauty, and, armed
with sharp knives, cut off pieces of their flesh with a deliberate
enjoyment and threw them out to the crowd, who eagerly struggled to get
them, signing to the executioners to show which part of the victims'
bodies they preferred.
Robert of Cabane, the grand seneschal, the Counts of Terlizzi and
Morcone, Raymond Pace, brother of the old valet who had been executed
the day before, and many more, were dragged on similar carts, and both
scourged with ropes and slashed with knives; their flesh was torn out
with red-hot pincers, and flung upon brazen chafing-dishes. No cry of
pain was heard from the grand seneschal, he never stirred once in his
frightful agony; yet the torturers put such fury into their work that
the poor wretch was dead before the goal was reached.
In the centre of the square of Saint Eligius an immense stake was set
up: there the prisoners were taken, and what was left of their mutilated
bodies was thrown into the flames. The Count of Terlizzi and the grand
seneschal's widow were still alive, and two tears of blood ran down the
cheeks of the miserable mother as she saw her son's corpse and the
palpitating remains of her two daughters cast upon the fire--they by
their stifled cries showed that they had not ceased to suffer. But
suddenly a fearful noise overpowered the groans of the victims; the
enclosure was broken and overturned by the mob. Like madmen, they rushed
at the burning pile,--armed with sabres, axes, and knives, and snatching
the bodies dead or alive from the flames, tore them to pieces, carrying
off the bones to make whistles or handles for their daggers as a
souvenir of this horrible day.