The individual who arrived at so inopportune a moment was little calculated to smooth Joan's ruffled brow,being Charles,the eldest son of the Durazzo family.After he had introduced his fair cousin to the people as their only legitimate sovereign,he had sought on various occasions to obtain an interview with her,which in all probability would be decisive.Charles was one of those men who to gain their end recoil at nothing;devoured by raging ambition and accustomed from his earliest years to conceal his most ardent desires beneath a mask of careless indifference,he marched ever onward,plot succeeding plot,towards the object he was bent upon securing,and never deviated one hair's-breadth from the path he had marked out,but only acted with double prudence after each victory,and with double courage after each defeat.His cheek grew pale with joy;when he hated most,he smiled;in all the emotions of his life,however strong,he was inscrutable.He had sworn to sit on the throne of Naples,and long had believed himself the rightful heir,as being nearest of kin to Robert of all his nephews.To him the hand of Joan would have been given,had not the old king in his latter days conceived the plan of bringing Andre from Hungary and re-establishing the elder branch in his person,though that had long since been forgotten.But his resolution had never for a moment been weakened by the arrival of Andre in the kingdom,or by the profound indifference wherewith Joan,preoccupied with other passion,had always received the advances of her cousin Charles of Durazzo.
Neither the love of a woman nor the life of a man was of any account to him when a crown was weighed in the other scale of the balance.
During the whole time that the queen had remained invisible,Charles had hung about her apartments,and now came into her presence with respectful eagerness to inquire for his cousin's health.The young duke had been at pains to set off his noble features and elegant figure by a magnificent dress covered with,golden fleur-de-lys and glittering with precious stones.His doublet of scarlet velvet and cap of the same showed up--by their own splendour the warm colouring of his skin,while his face seemed illumined by his black eyes that shone keen as an eagle's.
Charles spoke long with his cousin of the people's enthusiasm on her accession and of the brilliant destiny before her;he drew a hasty but truthful sketch of the state of the kingdom;and while he lavished praises on the queen's wisdom,he cleverly pointed out what reforms were most urgently needed by the country;he contrived to put so much warmth,yet so much reserve,into his speech that he destroyed the disagreeable impression his arrival had produced.In spite of the irregularities of her youth and the depravity brought about by her wretched education,Joan's nature impelled her to noble action:when the welfare of her subjects was concerned,she rose above the limitations of her age and sex,and,forgetting her strange position,listened to the Duke of Durazzo with the liveliest interest and the kindliest attention.He then hazarded allusions to the dangers that beset a young queen,spoke vaguely of the difficulty in distinguishing between true devotion and cowardly complaisance or interested attachment;he spoke of the ingratitude of many who had been loaded with benefits,and had been most completely trusted.
Joan,who had just learned the truth of his words by sad experience,replied with a sigh,and after a moment's silence added--May God,whom I call to witness for the loyalty and uprightness of my intentions,may God unmask all traitors and show me my true friends!
