enjoy
her newly found happiness in peace, as her domains were soon invaded by
Louis, the elder brother of Andreas, who had recently ascended his
father's throne as King of Hungary, and who now came to avenge his
brother's death and seize Naples by way of indemnity. Joanna, deserted
by many of her nobles in these dire straits, and not knowing what to
do,--as her husband seems to have played no part in this
emergency,--decided upon flight as the only means of safety, and,
embarking with her entire household in three galleys, she set sail for
Provence, where loyal hearts awaited her coming. There she went at once
to Avignon, where Pope Clement VI. was holding his court with the utmost
splendor; and in the presence of the pope and all the cardinals, she
made answer in her own behalf to the charges which had been made against
her by the Hungarian king. Her address, which she had previously
composed in Latin, has been called the "most powerful specimen of female
oratory" ever recorded in history; and the Hungarian ambassadors, who
had been sent to plead against her, were so confounded by her eloquence
that they attempted no reply to her defence.

In the meantime, Naples, in the hands of the invaders, had been stained
with blood, and then ravaged by the great plague of which Boccaccio has
given us a picture. Revolting at length under the harsh measures of the
Hungarian governor who had been left in charge by Louis, the Neapolitans
expelled him and his followers from the city, and sent an urgent
invitation to Joanna to return to her former home. Right gladly was the
summons answered, and with a goodly retinue of brave knights who had
sworn to die in her service she returned to her people, who welcomed her
homecoming with unbounded enthusiasm. Now the court resumed its gayety
and animation, and again it became, as in the days of King Robert, a
far-famed school of courtesy. Alphonse Daudet gives us a hint of all
this in his exquisite short story entitled _La Mule du Pape_, where he
tells of the young page Tistet Vedene, _qui descendait le Rhone en
chantant sur une galere papale et s'en allait a la cour de Naples avec
la troupe de jeunes nobles que la ville envoyait tous les ans pres de la
reine Jeanne pour s'exercer a la diplomatie et aux belles manieres_ [who
descended the Rhone, singing, upon a papal galley, and went away to the
court of Naples with the company of young nobles whom the city (of
Avignon) sent every year to Queen