These soft nocturnes and sweet visions of ancient days still linger in Anjou. The memory of the Queen of Sicily, Jehanne, is cherished, and almost a proverb it has become, that all good things done in that rich province are due to the watchful spirit of the Queen. In this connection a very weird narrative may be told. In 1469 Guillaume de Harancourt, Bishop of Verdun, invented a cage of wood and iron for refractory criminals. One such was sent to Angers, which after Jehanne’s death became known as the “cage of the Queen of Sicily.” It was said that Jehanne had been put therein wearing wooden sabots. The why and wherefore of her incarceration was perfectly uncertain, but the sabots are to-day in Angers Museum; the cage has disappeared. Another version has it that King René had among his wild creatures at Reculée and elsewhere a very ferocious eagle which he could not tame, and so the bird was sent to Angers and placed in the Bishop’s wood and iron cage, and dubbed “_La Reine_”--“The Queen”! This bird of prey deserved the name; its appetite was prodigious. In _Les Comptes_, among other entries referring to “her Majesty,” is--“June 3, 1474, ‘La Reine’ has a whole sheep day by day.” This is quaint indeed, but characteristic of stories and storytellers! Queen Jehanne died at the Castle of Beaufort, December 19, 1498,--as the chroniclers tell us,--“in the odour of sanctity and with all the consolations of Holy Church.” The Queen’s will--a most lengthy document--contains many affecting and many quaint bequests. She first of all commends herself conventionally to the Almighty, and then goes on to indicate her desire to be laid not far from “Marie of blessed memory”--her consort’s grandmother, Marie de Blois-Châtillon--“before the altar where is laid my lord and consort,” and she warns all and sundry against laying any other bodies there. Her heart she bequeaths to the Chapel of St. Bernardin, within the Church of the Cordeliers at Angers, to be placed beside that of René. She directs that her body shall be covered with a pall of black silk, and that at her funeral six poor religious should attend habited in black, and each bearing a flaming torch. Her heart and René’s should repose upon a pall of cloth of gold embroidered in crimson, and bearing their joined shields of arms. Lights shall always burn in front of the tomb and the cardial reliquary. She instructs her brother and nephew, Seigneurs de la Roche and de Montafiland, to hand over to the Chapter of St. Maurice in Angers 200 _livres tournois_ (_circa_ £120) to pay for her burial cortège, and for Mass, absolutions, vespers, and bells. Particularly she notes her preference for flags of _bougran_--stuff (?)--over silken banners.