At this juncture Queen Isabelle and her children, except the heir to the throne, returned to France, much against her will, but obedient to her royal consort’s wishes. Jean, Duke of Calabria, now a promising lad of nearly thirteen, remained with his father at the post of danger. Alfonso was by no means discouraged; he intended to be master of Naples cost him what it might. In 1440 and 1441 he made fresh assaults on Naples and other seaports of the Calabrian peninsula. All of these René resisted triumphantly, but at Troia, on October 21 in the latter year, Alfonso in person defeated René’s army under the command of Sforza and Sanseverino, and made good his footing in the kingdom of Naples. He further pressed home his attack upon the capital by seizing the island of Ischia, where he compelled the women, whether married or not, to wed his victorious soldiers. René wearied of the contest; he had been warring for twenty years, and he yearned for repose. The Neapolitans quickly took his measure, and his indecision and slackness of energy disheartened his principal supporters. His troops fell away from him, and when, in May, 1442, the King of Aragon once more summoned the capital to surrender, René meekly handed over the keys to his enemy, and made his escape to Marseilles. Alfonso on June 2 entered Naples in triumph, and put an end to the rule of the Angevine Kings. Alfonso has been styled “the Magnanimous”; perhaps “the Philosopher” would fit his character better. He was a student of metaphysics and a classicist to boot, and, moreover, he had a ready wit. He hated dancing and frivolity, and once remarked that “a man who danced only differed from a fool because his folly was shorter!” An ideal domestic menage appeared to him to be “a blind wife and a deaf husband.” His treasurer was one day giving out scrip for 20,000 ducats, when an officer standing by exclaimed: “Alack, if I only had that amount I should be a happy man!” “Take it,” replied the King! Nevertheless, Alfonso was hated by his new subjects quite as thoroughly as René had been beloved. The war dragged on; in Calabria the Prince of Taranto raised once more the banner of Anjou, and Giovanni Toreglia, a cousin of Lucrezia d’Alagni, Alfonso’s last mistress, seized Ischia for Jean, Duke of Calabria, René’s eldest son. René himself made two more attempts to regain Giovanna’s inheritance: in 1458 and 1461; but Charles VII. and Louis XI. each failed him in turn with reinforcements. Last of all, Jean, Duke of Calabria, was decisively defeated at Troia in 1462 by Ferdinand I., Alfonso’s bastard son, who succeeded to the throne of Naples after his father’s death in 1458, a man treacherous and vindictive, and a libertine. “_Sic transit gloria mundi_” may be written as a footnote to the story of Naples in the fifteenth century. CHAPTER VIII MARGUERITE D’ANJOU--“THE MOST INTREPID OF QUEENS” I.