impossible to describe. They had hoped that the king would be
stopped by the pope's legate, who had come to Foligno to forbid him, in
the name of the Holy Father, and on pain of excommunication to proceed
any further without his consent; but Louis of Hungary replied to the
pope's legate that, once master of Naples, he should consider himself a
feudatory of the Church, but till then he had no obligations except
to God and his own conscience. Thus the avenging army fell like a
thunderbolt upon the heart of the kingdom, before there was any
thought of taking serious measures for defence. There was only one plan
possible: the queen assembled the barons who were most strongly attached
to her, made them swear homage and fidelity to Louis of Tarentum, whom
she presented to them as her husband, and then leaving with many tears
her most faithful subjects, she embarked secretly, in the middle of
the night, on a ship of Provence, and made for Marseilles. Louis of
Tarentum, following the prompting of his adventure-loving character,
left Naples at the head of three thousand horse and a considerable
number of foot, and took up his post on the banks of the Voltorno, there
to contest the enemy's passage; but the King of Hungary foresaw the
stratagem, and while his adversary was waiting for him at Capua, he
arrived at Beneventum by the mountains of Alife and Morcone, and on the
same day received Neapolitan envoys: they in a magnificent display of
eloquence congratulated him on his entrance, offered the keys of the
town, and swore obedience to him as being the legitimate successor of
Charles of Anjou. The news of the surrender of Naples soon reached the
queen's camp, and all the princes of the blood and the generals left
Louis of Tarentum and took refuge in the capital. Resistance was
impossible. Louis, accompanied by his counsellor, Nicholas Acciajuoli,
went to Naples on the same evening on which his relatives quitted the
town to get away from the enemy. Every hope of safety was vanishing as
the hours passed by; his brothers and cousins begged him to go at once,
so as not to draw down upon the town the king's vengeance, but unluckily
there was no ship in the harbour that was ready to set sail. The terror
of the princes was at its height; but Louis, trusting in his luck,
started with the brave Acciajuoli in an unseaworthy boat, and ordering
four sailors to row with all their might, in a few minutes disappeared,
leaving his family in a grea