iful. The Queen recalls the fact that she was married at nine to
Andrea, then only a child too; and she has never known love. The poorest
of the shepherdesses on the mountains of Calabria may quench her thirst
at the spring, but she, the Queen of the Sun, if to pass away the time,
or to have the appearance of happiness, she loves to listen to the echo
of song, to behold the joy and brilliancy of a noble fete, her very
smile becomes criminal. And the Prince reminds her that she is the
Provencal queen, and that in the great times of that people, if the
consort were king, love was a god, and he recalls the names of all the
ladies made famous by the Troubadours. Thereupon the Queen in an
outburst of enthusiasm truly Felibrean invokes the God of Love, the God
that slew Dido, and speaks in the spirit of the days of courtly love, "O
thou God of Love, hearken unto me. If my fatal beauty is destined sooner
or later to bring about my death, let this flame within me be, at least,
the pyre that shall kindle the song of the poet! Let my beauty be the
luminous star exalting men's hearts to lofty visions!"

The chivalrous Prince is dismissed, and Joanna is alone with, her
thoughts. The little page Dragonet sings outside a plaintive song with
the refrain:--

"Que regret!
Jamai digues toun secret."

What regret!
Never tell thy secret.

La Catanaise endeavors to excite the fears of the Queen, insinuating
that the Pope may give the crown to Andrea. Joanna has no fear.

"We shall have but to appear before the country with this splendor of
irresistible grace, and like the smoke borne away by the breeze,
suddenly my enemies shall disappear."

We may ask whether such self-praise comes gracefully from the Queen
herself, whether she might not be less conscious of her own charm. La
Catanaise is again alone on the scene, threatening. "The bow is drawn,
the hen setting." This last comparison, the reader will remark, would be
simply impossible as the termination of an act in a serious English
play. This last scene, too, is wofully weak and purposeless.

The conversation of three courtiers at the beginning of Act III apprises
us of the fact that the Pope has succeeded in bringing about a
reconciliation between the royal pair, and that they are both to be
crowned, and as a matter of precaution, the nurse Philippine, and the
monk Fra Rupert are to be sent upon their several ways. The scene is
next filled by the conspirator