CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

IN EIGHT VOLUMES

JOAN OF NAPLES--1343-1382

CHAPTER I

In the night of the 15th of January 1343, while the inhabitants of
Naples lay wrapped in peaceful slumber, they were suddenly awakened by
the bells of the three hundred churches that this thrice blessed capital
contains. In the midst of the disturbance caused by so rude a call the
first thought 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
to 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 wh