with him, should he persist in attacking their privileges and defying
their anger.

Moreover, the women who were about Joan at the court egged her on, each
one urged by a private interest, in the pursuit of her fresh passion.
Poor Joan,--neglected by her husband and betrayed by Robert of
Cabane--gave way beneath the burden of duties beyond her strength to
bear, and fled for refuge to the arms of Bertrand of Artois, whose love
she did not even attempt to resist; for every feeling for religion
and virtue had been destroyed in her own set purpose, and her young
inclinations had been early bent towards vice, just as the bodies of
wretched children are bent and their bones broken by jugglers when
they train them. Bertrand himself felt an adoration for her surpassing
ordinary human passion. When he reached the summit of a happiness to
which in his wildest dreams he had never dared to aspire, the young
count nearly lost his reason. In vain had his father, Charles of Artois
(who was Count of Aire, a direct descendant of Philip the Bold, and one
of the regents of the kingdom), attempted by severe admonitions to stop
him while yet on the brink of the precipice: Bertrand would listen to
nothing but his love for Joan and his implacable hatred for all the
queen's enemies. Many a time, at the close of day, as the breeze from
Posilippo or Sorrento coming from far away was playing in his hair,
might Bertrand be seen leaning from one of the casements of Castel
Nuovo, pale and motionless, gazing fixedly from his side of the square
to where the Duke of Calabria and the Duke of Durazzo came galloping
home from their evening ride side by side in a cloud of dust. Then the
brows of the young count were violently contracted, a savage, sinister
look shone in his blue eyes once so innocent, like lightning a thought
of death and vengeance flashed into his mind; he would all at once begin
to tremble, as a light hand was laid upon his shoulder; he would turn