Provence, the incomparable 'fair mischief' whose guilt ... must ever remain one of the enigmas of history." This "enigma" has strange analogies to one which has puzzled and impassioned the writers of many generations, the mystery of that other "fair mischief" of a later century, Mary Queen of Scots. Like Mary, Jeanne was accused of the murder of her young husband, and being pressed by the vengeance of his brother--no less a person than the King of Hungary,--she decided to retreat to her native Provence and appeal to the Pope, her gallant and not over-scrupulous suzerain. "Jeanne landed at Ponchettes," continues the writer who has so happily described her, "and the consuls came to assure her of their devotion. 'I come,' replied the heiress, whose wit always suggested a happy phrase, 'to ask for your hearts and nothing but your hearts.' As she did not allude to her debts, the populace threw up their caps; the Prince de Monaco, just cured of his wound at Crecy, placed his sword at her service; and the Baron de Benil, red-handed from a cruel murder, besought her patronage which, perhaps from a fellow-feeling, she promised with great alacrity. At Grasse she won all hearts and made many more promises, and finally, arriving at Avignon, she found Clement covetous of the city and well-disposed to her. Yet morality obliged him to ask an explanation of her recent change of husbands, and before three Cardinals, whom he appointed to be her judges, the Queen pleaded her own cause. Not a blush tinged her cheek, no tremor altered her melodious voice as she stood before the red-robed Princes of the Church and narrated, in fluent Latin, the story of the assassination of Andrew, the death of her child, and her marriage with the murderer, Louis of Tarento, who stood by her side. The wily Pope noted behind her the proud Provencal nobles, the Villeneuves and d'Agoults, the de Baux and the Lescaris, who brought the fealty of the hill-country, and who did not know that, having already sold her jewels to the Jews, their fair Queen was covenanting with the Pope for Avignon. The formal trial ended, the Pontiff solemnly declared the Queen to be guiltless,--and she granted him the city for eighty thousand pieces of gold." [Illustration: "THE GREAT PALACE."--AVIGNON.]