Giovanna was delighted that such redoubtable champions should worst each other on her account. Her vanity was flattered--and that is a happy condition for a scheming woman. Undoubtedly she most favoured Caracciolo, but Sforza’s fine physique appealed to her irresistibly, and she fanned his passion. If Caracciolo was for the moment master of her heart, Sforza was master of her future, and she was happy. One day she invited the rivals to join her in the chase, and she rode between them. She cared little for hunting save as an incentive to amorous relations. Tiring soon of the exercise, she expressed a wish to dismount and saunter in the forest glades, but her mood lead to an extraordinary contest. Caracciolo threw himself at once off his mount, and gave the Queen his hand to rid her of her pommel. Sforza, seeing his advantage, pressed his horse against the Queen’s and seized her other hand. Each hero pulled his hardest, until Giovanna was compelled to cry aloud for pain! Then, slipping quietly down, she ordered Sforza to release her. This token of non-preference excited the _condottiere’s_ passion. “If Caracciolo,” he hissed out, “had not been so clumsy, your Majesty would not have been so greatly disarranged!” “It is not you,” replied the Queen, “that should dare to regulate my conduct, or, for the matter of that, your rival’s. Hold your tongue and leave me; your presence is not grateful just now!” “As you will, madam,” said Sforza fiercely. “Yes, I will leave you with the favourite of your heart, but you ought to know that you cannot treat thus a man like me!” Then he turned to Caracciolo, and exclaimed in a tone of scornful disdain: “As for you, I advise you to use all your wits and all your resources, for you will stand in need of them!” Giovanna was on that day absolutely overcome by her physical passions. She cared for nothing, and the last sight the enraged Sforza had of her was locked in her lover’s arms and reclining on a mossy bed, lost to the world around. The erring Queen speedily came to her senses with respect to the position Sforza had taken up; and when she learnt that he had thrown in his lot for better or for worse with Louis III., under a pretext, she despatched Caracciolo to Rome to claim the Papal reversal of his excommunication, and to assure the Pope of her filial devotion to the Holy See. Before he departed, Giovanna required him to deliver up his sword as Seneschal of the kingdom, which she promptly offered as a bribe to Sforza.