Charles,her foster son,loved her as a mother,and she was the confidante of his two wives in turn,especially of the second wife,Marie of Valois.And as the quondam laundress had in the end learned all the manners and customs of the court,she was chosen at the birth of Joan and her sister to be governess and mistress over the young girls,and at this juncture Raymond was created major-domo.Finally,Marie of Valois on her deathbed commended the two young princesses to her care,begging her to look on them as her own-daughters.Thus Philippa the Catanese,honoured in future as foster mother of the heiress to the throne of Naples,had power to nominate her husband grand seneschal,one of the seven most important offices in the kingdom,and to obtain knighthood for her sons.Raymond of Cabane was buried like a king in a marble tomb in the church of the Holy Sacrament,and there was speedily joined by two of his sons.The third,Robert,a youth of extraordinary strength and beauty,gave up an ecclesiastical career,and was himself made major-domo,his two sisters being married to the Count of Merlizzi and the Count of Morcone respectively.This was now the state of affairs,and the influence of the grand seneschal's widow seemed for ever established,when an unexpected event suddenly occurred,causing such injury as might well suffice to upset the edifice of her fortunes that had been raised stone by stone patiently and slowly:this edifice was now undermined and threatened to fall in a single day.It was the sudden apparition of Friar Robert,who followed to the court of Rome his young pupil,who from infancy had been Joan's destined husband,which thus shattered all the designs of the Catanese and seriously menaced her future.The monk had not been slow to understand that so long as she remained at the court,Andre would be no more than the slave,possibly even the victim,of his wife.Thus all Friar Robert's thoughts were obstinately concentrated on a single end,that of getting rid of the Catanese or neutralising her influence.The prince's tutor and the governess of the heiress had but to exchange one glance,icy,penetrating,plain to read:their looks met like lightning flashes of hatred and of vengeance.The Catanese,who felt she was detected,lacked courage to fight this man in the open,and so conceived the hope of strengthening her tottering empire by the arts of corruption and debauchery.She instilled by degrees into her pupil's mind the poison of vice,inflamed her youthful imagination with precocious desires,sowed in her heart the seeds of an unconquerable aversion for her husband,surrounded the poor child with abandoned women,and especially attached to her the beautiful and attractive Dona Cancha,who is branded by contemporary authors with the name of a courtesan;then summed up all these lessons in infamy by prostituting Joan to her own son.The poor girl,polluted by sin before she knew what life was,threw her whole self into this first passion with all the ardour of youth,and loved Robert of Cabane so violently,so madly,that the Catanese congratulated herself on the success of her infamy,believing that she held her prey so fast in her toils that her victim would never attempt to escape them.
A year passed by before Joan,conquered by her infatuation,conceived the smallest suspicion of her lover's sincerity.He,more ambitious than affectionate,found it easy to conceal his coldness under the cloak of a brotherly intimacy,of blind submission,and of unswerving devotion;perhaps he would have deceived his mistress for a longer time had not Bertrand of Artois fallen madly in love with Joan.
Suddenly the bandage fell from the young girl's eyes;comparing the two with the natural instinct of a woman beloved which never goes astray,she perceived that Robert of Cabane loved her for his own sake,while Bertrand of Artois would give his life to make her happy.
A light fell upon her past:she mentally recalled the circumstances that preceded and accompanied her earliest love;and a shudder went through her at the thought that she had been sacrificed to a cowardly seducer by the very woman she had loved most in the world,whom she had called by the name of mother.
Joan drew back into herself,and wept-bitterly.Wounded by a single blow in all her affections,at first her grief absorbed her;then,roused to sudden anger,she proudly raised her head,for now her love was changed to scorn.Robert,amazed at her cold and haughty reception of him,following on so great a love,was stung by jealousy and wounded pride.He broke out into bitter reproach and violent recrimination,and,letting fall the mask,once for all lost his place in Joan's heart.
His mother at last saw that it was time to interfere:she rebuked her son,accusing him of upsetting all her plans by his clumsiness.
"As you have failed to conquer her by love,"she said,"you must now subdue her by fear.The secret of her honour is in our hands,and she will never dare to rebel.She plainly loves Bertrand of Artois,whose languishing eyes and humble sighs contrast in a striking manner with your haughty indifference and your masterful ways.The mother of the Princes of Tarentum,the Empress of Constantinople,will easily seize an occasion of helping on the princess's love so as to alienate her more and more from her husband:Cancha will be the go between,and sooner or later we shall find Bertrand at Joan's feet.
Then she will be able to refuse us nothing."
While all this was going on,the old king died,and the Catanese,who had unceasingly kept on the watch for the moment she had so plainly foreseen,loudly called to her son,when she saw Bertrand slip into Joan's apartment,saying as she drew him after her--"Follow me,the queen is ours."
