foreign yoke. But the queen had
encountered no obstacle in her flight, and arrived at Nice five days
later. Her passage through Provence was like a triumph. Her beauty,
youth, and misfortunes, even certain mysterious reports as to her
adventures, all contributed to arouse the interest of the Provencal
people. Games and fetes were improvised to soften the hardship of exile
for the proscribed princess; but amid the outbursts of joy from every
town, castle, and city, Joan, always sad, lived ever in her silent grief
and glowing memories.

At the gates of Aix she found the clergy, the nobility, and the chief
magistrates, who received her respectfully but with no signs of
enthusiasm. As the queen advanced, her astonishment increased as she saw
the coldness of the people and the solemn, constrained air of the great
men who escorted her. Many anxious thoughts alarmed her, and she even
went so far as to fear some intrigue of the King of Hungary. Scarcely had
her cortege arrived at Castle Arnaud, when the nobles, dividing into two
ranks, let the queen pass with her counsellor Spinelli and two women;
then closing up, they cut her off from the rest of her suite. After
this, each in turn took up his station as guardian of the fortress.

There was no room for doubt: the queen was a prisoner; but the cause of
the manoeuvre it was impossible to guess. She asked the high
dignitaries, and they, protesting respectful devotion, refused to explain
till they had news from Avignon. Meanwhile all honours that a queen
could receive were lavished on Joan; but she was kept in sight and
forbidden to go out. This new trouble increased her depression: she did
not know what had happened to Louis of Tarentum, and her imagination,
always apt at creating disasters, instantly suggested that she would soon
be weeping for his loss.

But Louis, always with his faithful Acciajuoli, had after many fatiguing
adventures been shipwrecked at the port of Pisa; thence he had taken
route for Florence, to beg men and money; but the Florentines decided to
keep an absolute neutrality, and refused to receive him. The prince,
losing his last hope, was pondering gloomy plans, when Nicholas
Acciajuoli thus resolutely addressed him:

"My lord, it is not given to mankind to enjoy prosperity for ever: there
are misfortunes beyond all human foresight. You were once rich and
powerful, and you are now a fugitive in disguise, begging the help of
others. You must