第18章 CHAPTER III(6)

"King of Sicily and Jerusalem:yes,my lord;there is no need for you to read this document that brings the joyful,unexpected news.You can see it in your mother's tears;she holds out her arms to press you to her bosom;you can see it in the happiness of your old teacher;he falls on his knees at your feet to salute you by this title,which he would have paid for with his own blood had it been denied to you much longer.""And yet,"said Elizabeth,after a moment's mournful reflection,"if I obey my presentiments,your news will make no difference to our plans for departure.""Nay,mother,"said Andre firmly,"you would not force me to quit the country to the detriment of my honour.If I have made you feel some of the bitterness and sorrow that have spoiled my own young days because of my cowardly--enemies,it is not from a poor spirit,but because I was powerless,and knew it,to take any sort of striking vengeance for their secret insults,their crafty injuries,their underhand intrigues.It was not because my arm wanted strength,but because my head wanted a crown.I might have put an end to some of these wretched beings,the least dangerous maybe;but it would have been striking in the dark;the ringleaders would have escaped,and Ishould never have really got to the bottom of their infernal plots.

So I have silently eaten out my own heart in shame and indignation.

Now that my sacred rights are recognised by the Church,you will see,my mother,how these terrible barons,the queen's counsellors,the governors of the kingdom,will lower their heads in the dust:for they are threatened with no sword and no struggle;no peer of their own is he who speaks,but the king;it is by him they are accused,by the law they shall be condemned,and shall suffer on the scaffold.""O my beloved son,"cried the queen in tears,"I never doubted your noble feelings or the justice of your claims;but when your life is in danger,to what voice can I listen but the voice of fear?what can move my counsels but the promptings of love?""Mother,believe me,if the hands and hearts alike of these cowards had not trembled,you would have lost your son long ago.""It is not violence that I fear,my son,it is treachery.""My life,like every man's,belongs to God,and the lowest of sbirri may take it as I turn the corner of the street;but a king owes something to his people."The poor mother long tried to bend the resolution of Andre by reason and entreaties;but when she had spoken her last word and shed her last tear,she summoned Bertram de Baux,chief-justice of the kingdom,and Marie,Duchess of Durazzo.Trusting in the old man's wisdom and the girl's innocence,she commended her son to them in the tenderest and most affecting words;then drawing from her own hand a ring richly wrought,and taking the prince aside,she slipped it upon his finger,saying in a voice that trembled with emotion as she pressed him to her heart--"My son,as you refuse to come with me,here is a wonderful talisman,which I would not use before the last extremity.So long as you wear this ring on your finger,neither sword nor poison will have power against you.""You see then,mother,"said the prince,smiling,"with this protection there is no reason at all to fear for my life."There are other dangers than sword or poison,"sighed the queen.

"Be calm,mother:the best of all talismans is your prayer to God for me:it is the tender thought of you that will keep me for ever in the path of duty and justice;your maternal love will watch over me from afar,and cover me like the wings of a guardian angel."Elizabeth sobbed as she embraced her son,and when she left him she felt her heart was breaking.At last she made up her mind to go,and was escorted by the whole court,who had never changed towards her for a moment in their chivalrous and respectful devotion.The poor mother,pale,trembling,and faint,leaned heavily upon Andre's arm,lest she should fall.On the ship that was to take her for ever from her son,she cast her arms for the last time about his neck,and there hung a long time,speechless,tearless,and motionless;when the signal for departure was given,her women took her in their arms half swooning.Andre stood on the shore with the feeling of death at his heart:his eyes were fixed upon the sail that carried ever farther from him the only being he loved in the world.Suddenly he fancied he beheld something white moving a long way off:his mother had recovered her senses by a great effort,and had dragged herself up to the bridge to give a last signal of farewell:the unhappy lady knew too well that she would never see her son again.

At almost the same moment that Andre's mother left the kingdom,the former queen of Naples,Robert's widow,Dona Sancha,breathed her last sigh.She was buried in the convent of Santa Maria delta Croce,under the name of Clara,which she had assumed on taking her vows as a nun,as her epitaph tells us,as follows:

"Here lies,an example of great humility,the body of the sainted sister Clara,of illustrious memory,otherwise Sancha,Queen of Sicily and Jerusalem,widow of the most serene Robert,King of Jerusalem and Sicily,who,after the death of the king her husband,when she had completed a year of widowhood,exchanged goods temporary for goods eternal.Adopting for the love of God a voluntary poverty,and distributing her goods to the poor,she took upon her the rule of obedience in this celebrated convent of Santa Croce,the work of her own hands,in the year 1344,on the gist of January of the twelfth indiction,where,living a life of holiness under the rule of the blessed Francis,father of the poor,she ended her days religiously in the year of our Lord 1345,on the 28th of July of the thirteenth indiction.On the day following she was buried in this tomb."The death of Dona Sancha served to hasten on the catastrophe which was to stain the throne of Naples with blood:one might almost fancy that God wished to spare this angel of love and resignation the sight of so terrible a spectacle;that she offered-herself as a propitiatory sacrifice to redeem the crimes of her family.