Then Louis, seeing that it would be difficult to take the place by storm, determined to starve them out.

For three months the besieged performed prodigies of valour, and further assistance was impossible.

Their capitulation was expected at any moment, unless indeed they decided to perish every man.

Renaud des Baux, who was to come from Marseilles with a squadron of ten ships to defend the ports of the capital and secure the queen's flight, should the Hungarian army get possession of Naples, had been delayed by adverse winds and obliged to stop on the way.

All things seemed to conspire in favour of the enemy.