him in his last illness, and begged them help to dress him in the coarse
garb of a Franciscan monk, that God, as he said, seeing him die in
poverty, humility, and penitence, might the more easily grant him
pardon. The confessor and doctor placed upon his naked feet the sandals
worn by mendicant friars, robed him in a Franciscan frock, and tied the
rope about his waist. Stretched thus upon his bed, his brow surmounted
by his scanty locks, with his long white beard, and his hands crossed
upon his breast, the King of Naples looked like one of those aged
anchorites who spend their lives in mortifying the flesh, and whose
souls, absorbed in heavenly contemplation, glide insensibly from out
their last ecstasy into eternal bliss. Some time he lay thus with closed
eyes, putting up a silent prayer to God; then he bade them light the
spacious room as for a great solemnity, and gave a sign to the two
persons who stood, one at the head, the other at the foot of the bed.
The two folding doors opened, and the whole of the royal family, with
the queen at their head and the chief barons following, took their
places in silence around the dying king to hear his last wishes.

His eyes turned toward Joan, who stood next him on his right hand, with
an indescribable look of tenderness and grief. She was of a beauty so
unusual and so marvellous, that her grandfather was fascinated by
the dazzling sight, and mistook her for an angel that God had sent to
console him on his deathbed. The pure lines of her fine profile, her
great black liquid eyes, her noble brow uncovered, her hair shining like
the raven's wing, her delicate mouth, the whole effect of this beautiful
face on the mind of those who beheld her was that of a deep melancholy
and sweetness, impressing itself once and for ever. Tall and slender,
but without the excessive thinness of some young girls, her movements
had that careless supple grace that recall the waving of a flower stalk
in the breeze. But in spite of all these smiling and innocent graces one