I., cannot be compared for
cruelty with the infamous Pedro. Burke has said that if Pedro was not
absolutely the most cruel of men, he was undoubtedly the greatest
blackguard who ever sat upon a throne, and King Juan was far from
meriting similar condemnation. Sibyl de Foix, his stepmother, had
exercised so strange and wonderful a power over his father, that when
Juan came to the throne he was more than eager to turn upon this
enchantress and make her render up the wide estates which the late king
had been prevailed upon to leave to her. It is actually asserted that
Juan charged Sibyl with witchcraft and insisted that she had bewitched
his father and that she had all sorts of mysterious dealings with Satan
and his evil spirits. Whatever the truth may have been, the unhappy
queen only escaped torture and death by surrendering all of the property
which had been given her. Juan was by no means a misogynist, however,
for he was noted for his gallantry, and his beautiful queen, Violante,
was surrounded by a bevy of court beauties who were famed throughout all
Christendom at this time. Juan's capital at Saragossa was the talk of
all Europe. It became famed for its elegance, was a veritable school of
good manners and courtly grace, and to it flocked poets and countless
gentlemen who were knightly soldiers of fortune, only too willing to
serve a noble patron who knew how to appreciate the value of their
chivalry. Violante was the acknowledged leader of this gay and brilliant
world; at her instigation courts of love are said to have been
established, and in every way did she try to reproduce the brilliant
social life which had been the wonder and admiration of the world before
Simon de Montfort had blighted the fair life of Provence. More than ever
before in Spain, women were put into positions of prominence in this
court; and so great was the poetic and literary atmosphere which
surrounded them, that they were known more than once to try their hands
at verse making. Their attempts were modest, however, and no one has
ever been tempted to quote against them Alphonse Karr's well-known
epigram: "A woman who writes, commits two sins: she increases the number
of books, and she decreases the number of women;" for they were content,
for the most part, to be the source of inspiration for their minstrel
knights. Violante's gay court was looked upon with questioning eye,
however, by the majority of her rude subjects, and, finally, when the