On the 17th of the same month Louis was crowned King of Poland, at Cracow, by the Archbishop of Gnesen. At the very moment when he was about to reach the goal of the highest ambition of his predecessor, and of himself, Louis seemed to waver, and to doubt the expediency of accepting the crown. He could not help reflecting that governing two nations, which were united by no other tie except his own person, and defending them against their enemies, might prove a task to which one king was not equal. He nevertheless accepted the crown, but his sinister presentiments were fated speedily to be confirmed. The Polish lords were not used to an energetic rule. The nobles of Little and Great Poland were eager, each for themselves, to secure the offices of state, but both equally hated the queen-mother sent there to rule. The country soon fell a prey to internal dissensions and strife, compelling the queen to fly from the land, in which a new pretender had appeared. This pretender to the throne was a kinsman of the late king of Poland, and had retired to a convent in France in the lifetime of Casimir. His ambition made him exchange the cassock for armor, and a large portion of the people of Poland very soon acknowledged him to be their king. But his royalty was of short duration; the army of the adventurer was scattered by the adherents of King Louis. The Lithuanians, whom we have before mentioned as being driven back by Andrew Laczfy, now took advantage of the disorders prevailing in Poland, and succeeded in securing such a foothold in that country that one of their dukes, Jagello, who was converted to Christianity, and subsequently married Hedvig, the daughter of King Louis, became in the course of a few years the founder of a new Polish dynasty, the Jagellons, a dynasty of mournful memory in the history of Hungary. [Illustration: CASTLE OF BETZKÓ.]