On returning from his ride, Robert, astonished that the bridge was not at once lowered for him, at first loudly called upon the soldiers on guard at the fortress, threatening severe punishment for their unpardonable negligence; but as the gates did not open and the soldiers made no sign of fear or regret, he fell into a violent fit of rage, and swore he would hang the wretches like dogs for hindering his return home.  But the Empress of Constantinople, terrified at the bloody quarrel beginning between the two brothers, went alone and on foot to her son, and making use of her maternal authority to beg him to master his feelings, there in the presence of the crowd that had come up hastily to witness the strange scene, she related in a low voice all that had passed in his absence.

A roar as of a wounded tiger escaped from Robert’s breast:  all but blind with rage, he nearly trampled his mother under the feet of his horse, which seemed to feel his master’s anger, and plunging violently, breathed blood from his nostrils.  When the prince had poured every possible execration on his brother’s head, he turned and galloped away from the accursed castle, flying to the Duke of Durazzo, whom he had only just left, to tell him of this outrage and stir him to revenge.  Charles was talking carelessly with his young wife, who was but little used to such tranquil conversation and expansiveness, when the Prince of Tarentum, exhausted, out of breath, bathed in perspiration, came up with his incredible tale.  Charles made him say it twice over, so impossible did Louis’s audacious enterprise appear to him.  Then quickly changing from doubt to fury, he struck his brow with his iron glove, saying that as the queen defied him he would make her tremble even in her castle and in her lover’s arms.  He threw one withering look on Marie, who interceded tearfully for her sister, and pressing Robert’s hand with warmth, vowed that so long as he lived Louis should never be Joan’s husband.

That same evening he shut himself up in his study, and wrote letters whose effect soon appeared.  A bull, dated June 2, 1346, was addressed to Bertram de Baux, chief-justice of the kingdom of Sicily and Count of Monte Scaglioso, with orders to make the most strict inquiries concerning Andre’s murderers, whom the pope likewise laid under his anathema, and to punish them with the utmost rigour of the law.  But a secret note was appended to the bull which was quite at variance with the designs of Charles:  the sovereign pontiff expressly bade the chief-justice not to implicate the queen in the proceedings or the princes of the blood, so as to avoid worse disturbances, reserving, as supreme head of the Church and lord of the kingdom, the right of judging them later on, as his wisdom might dictate.