The favourite of the Queen was not a _persona grata_ at her Court. His arrogance and presumption raised up enemies on every side; in particular, the old nobility looked askance upon a courtier of his low origin. Sergianni was by name a Caracciolo, by birth the son of a common woman--so it was said. The Queen’s Mistress of the Robes was Covella Ruffo, Duchess of Sessa,--her husband was a pretender to the crown,--and she voiced the palace discontent. She boldly demanded of Giovanna the immediate disgrace of her Seneschal, and proclaimed the Court preference for King Louis and his fascinating consort Margherita. The Queen indignantly stood by Caracciolo, and forbade the Duchess to name the matter again. Within ten days,--it was August 25, 1432,--the body of the favourite was picked up by brethren of the Misericordia and given decent burial. In the dead man’s heart, plunged up to the hilt, was the jewelled poniard of the Duchess of Sessa! The incident passed, for the Queen deemed it inexpedient to ask for explanations; besides, she had become wearied by the obsequiousness of her Minister, and she had other fish to fry! With rare commercial acumen, she seized all Caracciolo’s belongings,--most of them he had received from herself,--and actually, with feminine inconsequence, shared them with the Duchess! III. Whilst Louis was strengthening his position at Naples, Duke René of Bar and Lorraine was languishing in the Tour de Bar at Bracon, vanquished at Bulgneville and crushed by the Duke of Burgundy. Louis added his protest against his brother’s retention in captivity to that of all the Sovereigns and peers of France, and his appeal was carried by Queen Margherita to her father, the Duke of Savoy, whose influence was great with the Court of Burgundy. René’s release on parole for a year was largely due to the intercession of his brother. Giovanna expressed a wish to see “my other cousin of Anjou,” as she put it, and Louis pressed his brother to bend his steps to Naples and recruit his health and spirits in the sunny, merry South. The Duke’s first step, however, was to hurry off to Nancy to fold his heroic wife Isabelle and darling children to his breast; here, too, to regulate many affairs of State awaiting his decision. To Angers next he boated, to pay his filial homage to his courageous, resourceful mother, Queen Yolande, and to relieve her of some of the worry of government. René, too, had much business to do at the Court of King Charles of France, and his loyal, devoted subjects in Provence demanded his presence. So passed nearly the whole of his twelvemonth’s grace. Giovanna’s reception of her “cousin” was affectionate in the extreme, and she was warm in her admiration of “another handsome Prince of Anjou.”