— 11 — THE ANGELSIn a ruined villa, shattered by the barbarians and crumbled by time, sat Ysabeau the Empress looking over the sunless Maremma. A few olive trees were all that shaded the bare expanse of marshy land, where great pools veiled with unhealthy vapours gleamed faintly under the heavy clouds. Here and there rose the straight roof of a forsaken convent, or the stately pillars of a deserted palace. There was no human being in sight. She had dwelt here for three days; at every sunrise a peasant girl, daring the excommunication, had brought her food, then fled with a frightened face. Ysabeau saw nothing before her save death, but she did not mean to die by the ignoble way of starvation. She had not heard of the defeat of Balthasar at Tivoli, nor of the election of Theirry to the crow
