of Tarentum, who had won Joan's heart, and was eagerly trying to get
the necessary dispensation for legalising the marriage, from this time
forward took as a personal insult every act of the high court of
justice which was performed against his will and against the queen's
prerogative: he armed all his adherents, increasing their number by
all the adventurers he could get together, and so put on foot a strong
enough force to support his own party and resist his cousin. Naples was
thus split up into hostile camps, ready to come to blows on the smallest
pretext, whose daily skirmishes, moreover, were always followed by some
scene of pillage or death.

But Louis had need of money both to pay his mercenaries and to hold his
own against the Duke of Durazzo and his own brother Robert, and one day
he discovered that the queen's coffers were empty. Joan was wretched
and desperate, and her lover, though generous and brave and anxious
to reassure her so far as he could, did not very clearly see how to
extricate himself from such a difficult situation. But his mother
Catherine, whose ambition was satisfied in seeing one of her sons, no
matter which, attain to the throne of Naples, came unexpectedly to their
aid, promising solemnly that it would only take her a few days to be
able to lay at her niece's feet a treasure richer than anything she had
ever dreamed of, queen as she was.

The empress then took half her son's troops, made for Saint Agatha, and
besieged the fortress where Charles and Bertrand of Artois had taken
refuge when they fled from justice. The old count, astonished at the
sight of this woman, who had been the very soul of the conspiracy, and
not in the least understanding her arrival as an enemy, sent out to
ask the intention of this display of military force. To which Catherine
replied in words which we translate literally:

"My friends, tell Charles, our faithful friend, that we desire to speak
with him privately and alone concerning a matter equally interesting to
us both, and he is not to be alarmed at our arriving in the guise of
an enemy, for this we have done designedly, as we shall explain in the
course of our interview. We know he is confined to bed by the gout, and
therefore feel no surprise at his not coming out to meet us. Have the
goodness to salute him on our part and reassure him, telling him that
we desire to come in, if such is his good pleasure, with our intimate
counsellor, Nicholas Acciajuoli,