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.

For this imposing trial Bertram de Baux made great preparations.  A platform was erected in the great hall of tribunal, and all the officers of the crown and great state dignitaries, and all the chief barons, had a place behind the enclosure where the magistrates sat.  Three days after Clement VI’s bull had been published in the capital, the chief-justice was ready for a public examination of two accused persons.  The two culprits who had first fallen into the hands of justice were, as one may easily suppose, those whose condition was least exalted, whose lives were least valuable, Tommaso Pace and Nicholas of Melazzo.  They were led before the tribunal to be first of all tortured, as the custom was.  As they approached the judges, the notary passing by Charles in the street had time to say in a low voice—­

“My lord, the time has come to give my life for you:  I will do my duty; I commend my wife and children to you.”

Encouraged by a nod from his patron, he walked on firmly and deliberately.  The chief-justice, after establishing the identity of the accused, gave them over to the executioner and his men to be tortured in the public square, so that their sufferings might serve as a show and an example to the crowd.  But no sooner was Tommaso Pace tied to the rope, when to the great disappointment of all he declared that he would confess everything, and asked accordingly to be taken back before his judges.  At these words, the Count of Terlizzi, who was following every movement of the two men with mortal anxiety, thought it was all over now with him and his accomplices; and so, when Tommaso Pace was turning his steps towards the great hall, led by two guards, his hands tied behind his back, and followed by the notary, he contrived to take him into a secluded house, and squeezing his throat with great force, made him thus put his tongue out, whereupon he cut it off with a sharp razor.