René was received at Naples tumultuously as lawful King and Sovereign. Mounted on a great black charger, crowned and habited in cloth of gold and covered with the royal mantle of state of crimson velvet and ermine, the sword of St. Januarius in his hand, he rode through people, flowers, banners, and huzzahs, right into the nave of the cathedral; there Queen Isabelle received her consort exultingly, and with him knelt lowly for the benediction of the Mass. That day marked an amazing contrast in the fortunes of two men--King René, the prisoner of Bracon, seated upon the ancient throne of Naples, and King Alfonso, the conqueror of Aragon, pacing uneasily his prison chamber at Milan!
The reunion of the royal couple was a happy thing indeed, so often parted had they been and so sadly. Isabelle had acted the part of a good woman and a faithful spouse despite splenetic insinuations to the contrary. Her position had been most trying in anxious times, and among ill-disposed aspirants for her favour. She knew intuitively who to trust of those that expressed themselves most devoted to her service, and no one ever was more zealously preoccupied with the interest of her friends than she. Now came the time to award honours to the faithful and the true, and King René deputed his Queen to bestow the royal favours. The first to profit by the new dispensation was, naturally, the widowed Queen Margaret, who after the burial of her consort, King Louis III., had sought refuge in Naples, under the sheltering wing of her royal sister-in-law. Still resplendent in her beauty and possessed of every youthful grace, the young Queen was the object of deep solicitude and affection.
The condition of the Two Sicilies was parlous; almost every commune was divided against itself on the subject of the succession to the throne, and almost daily were recorded deeds of cruelty and aggression, pointing to the outbreak of serious hostilities all over the dual kingdom. The blue and white ensign of Anjou and the red and yellow banner of Aragon were reared, not in friendly contest, but in deadly feud. Under these circumstances René judged it expedient for the Queen and their little son Louis to go back to France, and Queen Margaret refused to be separated from her sympathetic sister-in-law. It was a pang to both again so soon to part, but rulers of States are not like ordinary mortals; for public duties must take precedence of private interests. Isabelle’s brief rule at Naples had done wonders in the way of conciliation, and Étienne Pasquier did not exaggerate her virtues when he wrote: “_Cette vraye Amazone, que dans un corps de femme portoit un cœur d’homme, fist tant d’actes généraux pendant la prisonment de son mari, que ceste pièce este enchassée en lettres d’or dedans les annales de Lorraine_.” All Naples shed tears at their beloved Queen’s departure. Margaret they hardly knew, but the last Queen they had known, Giovanna, was hated quite as thoroughly as Isabelle was adored.