The queen was slowly reviewing in her mind all her life since she ceased to be a child—­fifty years of disillusionment and suffering.  She thought first of her happy, peaceful childhood, her grandfather’s blind affection, the pure joys of her days of innocence, the exciting games with her little sister and tall cousins.  Then she shuddered at the earliest thought of marriage, the constraint, the loss of liberty, the bitter regrets; she remembered with horror the deceitful words murmured in her ear, designed to sow the seeds of corruption and vice that were to poison her whole life.  Then came the burning memories of her first love, the treachery and desertion of Robert of Cabane, the moments of madness passed like a dream in the arms of Bertrand of Artois—­the whole drama up to its tragic denouement showed as in letters of fire on the dark background of her sombre thoughts.  Then arose cries of anguish in her soul, even as on that terrible fatal night she heard the voice of Andre asking mercy from his murderers.  A long deadly silence followed his awful struggle, and the queen saw before her eyes the carts of infamy and the torture of her accomplices.  All the rest of this vision was persecution, flight, exile, remorse, punishments from God and curses from the world.  Around her was a frightful solitude:  husbands, lovers, kindred, friends, all were dead; all she had loved or hated in the world were now no more; her joy, pain, desire, and hope had vanished for ever.  The poor queen, unable to free herself from these visions of woe, violently tore herself away from the awful reverie, and kneeling at a prie-dieu, prayed with fervour.  She was still beautiful, in spite of her extreme pallor; the noble lines of her face kept their pure oval; the fire of repentance in her great black eyes lit them up with superhuman brilliance, and the hope of pardon played in a heavenly smile upon her lips.

Suddenly the door of the room where Joan was so earnestly praying opened with a dull sound:  two Hungarian barons in armour entered and signed to the queen to follow them.  Joan arose silently and obeyed; but a cry of pain went up from her heart when she recognised the place where both Andre and Charles of Durazzo had died a violent death.  But she collected her forces, and asked calmly why she was brought hither.  For all answer, one of the men showed her a cord of silk and gold....

“May the will of a just God be done!” cried Joan, and fell upon her knees.  Some minutes later she had ceased to suffer.

This was the third corpse that was thrown over the balcony at Aversa.