of general assent drowned her closing words, several hands flew to their
sword-hilts, and the Hungarian ambassadors retired covered with shame
and confusion.

That same evening the sentence, to the great joy of all, was proclaimed,
that Joan was innocent and acquitted of all concern in the assassination
of her husband. But as her conduct after the event and the indifference
she had shown about pursuing the authors of the crime admitted of no
valid excuse, the pope declared that there were plain traces of magic,
and that the wrong-doing attributed to Joan was the result of some
baneful charm cast upon her, which she could by no possible means
resist. At the same time, His Holiness confirmed her marriage with Louis
of Tarentum, and bestowed on him the order of the Rose of Gold and the
title of King of Sicily and Jerusalem. Joan, it is true, had on the eve
of her acquittal sold the town of Avignon to the pope for the sum of
80,000 florins.

While the queen was pleading her cause at the court of Clement VI, a
dreadful epidemic, called the Black Plague--the same that Boccaccio has
described so wonderfully--was ravaging the kingdom of Naples, and indeed
the whole of Italy. According to the calculation of Matteo Villani,
Florence lost three-fifths of her population, Bologna two-thirds, and
nearly all Europe was reduced in some such frightful proportion.
The Neapolitans were already weary of the cruelties and greed of the
Hungarians, they were only awaiting some opportunity to revolt against
the stranger's oppression, and to recall their lawful sovereign, whom,
for all her ill deeds, they had never ceased to love. The attraction
of youth and beauty was deeply felt by this pleasure-loving people.
Scarcely had the pestilence thrown confusion into the army and town,
when loud cursing arose against the tyrant and his executioners. Louis