let me offer up some part of that service of prayer that you composed in
honour of your sainted brother to implore God's protection in this hour
when we can ill afford to lose it."

Then opening a richly bound book, she read with fervent devotion certain
verses of the office that Robert had written in a very pure Latin for
his brother Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, which was in use in the Church as
late as the time of the Council of Trent.

Soothed by the charm of the prayers he had himself composed, the king
was near forgetting the object of the interview he had so solemnly
and eagerly demanded and letting himself lapse into a state of vague
melancholy, he murmured in a subdued voice, "Yes, yes, you are right;
pray for me, for you too are a saint, and I am but a poor sinful man."

"Say not so, my lord," interrupted Dona Sancha; "you are the greatest,
wisest, and most just king who has ever sat upon the throne of Naples."

"But the throne is usurped," replied Robert in a voice of gloom; "you
know that the kingdom belonged to my elder brother, Charles Martel; and
since Charles was on the throne of Hungary, which he inherited from his
mother, the kingdom of Naples devolved by right upon his eldest son,
Carobert, and not on me, who am the third in rank of the family. And I
have suffered myself to be crowned in my nephew's stead, though he was
the only lawful-king; I have put the younger branch in the place of the
elder, and for thirty-three years I have stifled the reproaches of my
conscience. True, I have won battles, made laws, founded churches; but
a single word serves to give the lie to all the pompous titles showered
upon me by the people's admiration, and this one word rings out clearer
in my ears than all the flattery of courtiers, all the songs of poets,