CHAPTER III

YOLANDA D’ARRAGONA--“A GOOD MOTHER AND A GREAT QUEEN”--_continued_

I.

A royal corpse reposed upon the state tester bedstead within the great Hall of Audiences in the enceinte of the Castle of Angers, and a royal widow knelt humbly at a prie-dieu at his feet. It was late in the evening of that sweet April day,--half sun, half shower,--that the body of Louis II., King of Sicily, Naples, Jerusalem, and Anjou, was ceremonially displayed, flanked by huge yellow wax candles in chiselled sticks of Gerona brasswork. The tapestried walls of this _chapelle ardente_ were covered with sable cloth sewn with silver lilies and hung with great garlands of yew. The head of the lamented Sovereign reposed upon a soft cushion of blue velvet, put there by the widow herself. Upon his breast, with its pectoral cross, was his favourite “_Livre des Heures_,” one of the famous treasures of the collection of King John the “Good,” his grandfather.

In her black velvet _chapelle_, with its close gauze veil concealing her beautiful hair, and attired in sombre black, unrelieved, the devotional figure, sorrowful and brave, was none other than “Good” Queen Yolande. Her right hand rested consolingly upon the shoulder of her eldest son, now Louis III., a well-grown stripling of fourteen. Around his neck his mother had but just hung the chain and medallion of sovereignty, taken tenderly from her dead spouse. Behind them knelt Prince René and Princess Marie, the fondest of playmates, weeping bitterly, poor children! The vast hall was filled with courtiers, soldiers, citizens, all manifesting signs of woe and regret. The royal obsequies were conducted magnificently, under the personal direction of the Queen, within the choir of the Cathedral of St. Maurice. Feuds of rival Sovereigns, operations against the foreign foe, quarrels of fault-finders, and the like, were all hushed in the presence of the King of Terrors. To Angers thronged royal guests and simple folk to pay their last tributes of respect and devotion. In state, King Charles VI. started to tender his homage to the dead, but, struck down with sudden illness at Orléans, he requested Queen Isabeau to take his place. Burial rites were not much in that giddy woman’s way, and her hard heart had no room for sympathy and condolence; so the “Scourge of France,” as she was called, gave Angers a wide berth.

The Angevine royal children were five in number, and Louis left besides a natural son,--Louis de Maine, Seigneur de Mezières,--and a natural daughter,--Blanche,--whom René, when he attained his father’s throne in 1434, married to the Sieur Pierre de Biège. The defunct King’s will appointed four simple knights,--his henchmen true,--executors: Pierre de Beauvais and Guy de Laval for Anjou, and Barthélèmy and Gabriel de Valorey for Provence, with Hardoyn de Bueil, Bishop of Angers, as moderator. The Queen-mother was constituted Regent of the kingdoms and dominions and guardian of the young King, whilst Prince René was commended, under his father’s will, to the charge of his great-uncle Louis, Cardinal and Duke de Bar, with the family title of Comte de Guise.

The loss of her second son and the parting of the brothers was a sore trial to the whole family. The Cardinal, however, insisted upon his young nephew being sent to him at Bar-le-Duc, to be educated under his eye and prepared for his destiny as future Duke of Bar, which the Cardinal caused to be announced both in Anjou and Barrois. Louis de Bar was a very distinguished ecclesiastic; he had passed through every grade of Holy Order with rare distinction. In 1391 the Pope conferred upon him the bishopric of Poitiers, and two years later translated him to Langres, with the Sees also of Châlons and Verdun. The latter dignity carried with it the degree of Grand Peer of France, and in those days Bishops were regarded as temporal Sovereigns within the jurisdiction of their Sees. Benedict XIII. in 1397 preconized Louis de Bar Cardinal-Bishop, and named him Papal Legate in France and Germany. His temporal honours as Duke of Bar came to him in 1415, after the calamitous battle of Azincourt, in which his two elder brothers, Édouard and Jehan, fell gloriously. Their untimely deaths and disasters keen and sad brought about, too, the death of good Duke Robert, their father. He died of a broken heart, whilst Duchess Marie shut herself up in a convent, and was never known again to smile. Her death has not been recorded.

After bidding adieu to her dearly loved son,--perhaps her favourite child, and most like herself in temperament and character,--Queen Yolande, with the young King, was fully occupied in receiving addresses of condolence and assurances of loyalty both at Angers and at Aix, to which they made a progress in full state. She assumed the personal direction of affairs, appointing tactfully as assessors the most prominent men of all classes in both domains. In a very distinct sense she was a democratic Sovereign, and under her régime the Estates were allowed a good deal of independent action in matters, at least, of local policy. Thus, by maintaining the dignity of the crown of Sicily-Anjou-Provence and encouraging popular government, Queen Yolande initiated the first free constitution in the history of all France.

The stability of the throne and the welfare of its subjects having been secured, the Queen turned her attention to the matrimonial prospect of her eldest son. Some years before King Louis’s death, Jean “sans Peur,” Duke of Burgundy,--in days when the Courts of Angers and Dijon saw eye to eye, and the States were not rivals in the direction of the general policy of the French Sovereigns,--had confided his little daughter Catherine to the charge of the eminent Queen of Sicily-Anjou, to be brought up with her own girls, the Princesses Marie and Yolande. Then the idea of the betrothal of Louis d’Anjou and Catherine de Bourgogne was accepted as a very excellent mutual arrangement; indeed, the Duke had named his intention of dowering the Princess with 50,000 _livres tournois_ (= _circa_ £30,000), besides placing the castle at the disposal of the young couple upon the consummation of the marriage.

There had arisen coolness and suspicion between the Sovereigns of France and the Duke of Burgundy, whose connection with the assassination of the Duke of Orléans, in 1407, had never been cleared up. The Duke, moreover, had seen good,--in view of his professed claims to the crown of France,--to make terms with the King of England which would, under certain circumstances, gain territorial aggrandizement for Burgundy, and ultimately the reversion to his family of the royal title. This _rapprochement_ with the hated invader of Northern France,--the foe at the gates of Anjou,--lead summarily to the renunciation by the Angevine Sovereigns of all matrimonial affinities between the Houses of Anjou and Burgundy. Little Princess Catherine was sent home to Dijon, and the Duke scouted the Anjou alliance, and made terms with Lorraine, a step which in another decade told disastrously against the son of Queen Yolande.

She, on the other hand, cared very little for the change of front of Duke Jean “sans Peur.” Her mind had all along been made up in the matter of her son’s betrothal, and her eyes were turned to Brittany, whose Sovereigns were the most stable and the most powerful in France. The dual crown of Sicily-Anjou was rich, and the prospects of the new occupant of that throne with respect to Naples, and possibly to Aragon, were of the highest; consequently the matrimonial market was absolutely at her command. Politically it was clear that an alliance of Anjou and Brittany would more than balance that of Burgundy and Lorraine. Very tactfully the Angevine Queen-mother caused her “cousin” at Nantes to know that a nuptial arrangement between her son and a daughter of Duke Jean VI. would be favourably considered at Angers. To pave the way more auspiciously, splendid fêtes were organized at the castle, to which the ducal family of Brittany were invited as principal guests of honour. The Duke and Duchess were accompanied by their young daughter, Princess Isabelle, and were greatly affected by their reception. In the tournaments, pageants, and floral games, the young Bretagne Princes gained all the laurels, whilst the blushing Princess, as the “Queen of Beauty,” bestowed the prizes upon the victors.

On July 3 a royal function in the Cathedral of Angers brought the fêtes to an auspicious finish, for there Louis d’Anjou and Isabelle de Bretagne were formally espoused, the young couple being of the same age. Alas for the hopes of all concerned! the Princess,--a very beautiful and an accomplished girl,--was not destined to wear the Queen-consort’s crown of Sicily-Anjou. Before the year was out she sickened of plague,--as captious critics said, caught in “Black Angers,”--and died. This was a serious blow to Queen Yolande’s diplomacy, but she was not the sort of woman to waste time in unprofitable lamentations.

By the force of circumstances, seen and unseen, the Queen-mother’s search for favourable alliances and an eligible consort for her son was greatly aided by the fresh aggression of the English under Henry V. In face of the common danger, which threatened alike the western and the eastern States of France, Queen Yolande found her opportunity of immensely strengthening the position of her son’s dominions by detaching Burgundy and Lorraine from the English alliance. At Saumur she signed the articles of a defensive and offensive treaty between the four great duchies,--Bretagne, of course, being one,--_La Ligue de Quatre_, it was called.

Next to the assurance of political security at home, this instrument set the astute Queen free to turn her attention to the support of her son’s claims to the throne of Naples. First appertaining to the older line of Anjou in the person and descendants of Jehan, brother of St. Louis, they had lapsed until King Louis I. of Sicily-Anjou asserted his right as head of the younger line of Anjou in virtue of the grant by his father, King John the “Good.” These prerogatives, alas! Louis II. had lost the year he died, and their reacquisition was the destiny of his son. In furtherance of these duties, Queen Yolande conceived that an Italian alliance, with the corollary of a matrimonial contract for the young King, were indicated, and she set to work to elaborate a scheme which should achieve the ends in view.

In September, 1418, Queen Yolande opened negotiations directly with Amadeo VIII., Duke of Savoy, first for his assistance in the field of battle, and next for the betrothal of his daughter Margherita, then an infant of three years old. A treaty was signed on October 18, wherein the Duke agreed to receive young King Louis in Savoy, and either personally to accompany him through the proposed campaign, or at least to see his embarkation at Genoa at the head of a Savoyard contingent of ten thousand men-at-arms, for the recovery of the crown of Naples. One clause ceded the county of Nice to Savoy in lieu of moneys borrowed by Louis II. for his Naples expedition. Appended to this treaty was the marriage contract, which appointed Chambéry,--the capital of Savoy,--as the place, and Lady Day the following year as the date, for the formal espousal of Louis and Margherita.

Steps were at once taken for the young King to enter upon his expedition in a manner suited to his rank and commensurate with the military movements of the time. Angers once more resounded to the metallic music of armourers. A Guild of Sword-Cutlers was incorporated, and skilled craftsmen from Aragon were again welcomed by the Queen. Masters of Arms, too, were invited to give Louis the best instruction in warlike exercises, Yolande herself meanwhile inculcating lessons of hardihood, chivalry, and patriotism. Hers, happily, was the satisfaction of knowing that these efforts were productive of the best results, for the youthful Sovereign quickly became an expert and an enthusiast.

It does not appear that the young King took much interest in the matrimonial part of the negotiations. An unripe boy of sixteen would naturally be very much more affected by military prowess than by uxorious daintiness. The service of Mars was very much more to his liking than that of Venus, and he addressed himself zealously to the task of winning back his grandfather’s crown and sceptre, which his father had failed to retain. It was doubtless a daring enterprise for a youth to undertake, but we may be quite sure that he inherited not a little of his family’s well known fearlessness. Province was denuded of her garrisons, and Languedoc also; but no men could be spared from Anjou and Bar, and it was but the nucleus of an army which Queen Yolande reviewed at Marseilles, whither she went to bid adieu to her dearly loved son upon his adventurous career.

Louis sailed for Genoa, where he met the Duke of Savoy and took command of his contingent. He anchored in the Bay of Naples on August 15, 1420, a day full of favourable omens. On the voyage he fell in with the fleet of the King of Aragon, his rival for the crown of Naples, and worsted it. At once he went off to Aversa, where the Queen of Naples, Giovanna II., received him with open arms. His _naïveté_ delighted her, jaded as she was with the attentions of willing and unwilling aspirants for her favours. She created him Duke of Calabria, and proclaimed him her heir in lieu of the defeated and discredited Alfonso.

It was a perilous position for the vigorous and gallant stripling Prince, but the counsels of his virtuous mother were not thrown away. The young King refused the amorous royal overtures successfully, and having kissed the Queen’s hand, he offered a plausible excuse, and speedily took his departure for Rome. The Supreme Pontiff extended to the youthful hero his paternal benediction, and detained him at the Vatican just long enough to invest him with the title of King of Naples, in place, as His Holiness wished, of the worthless and abandoned Queen. Thence Louis travelled on to Florence and Milan, and obtained promises of substantial assistance from their rulers against the pretensions of the King of Aragon.

But to return to Anjou and the “good mother” there, the anxious and busy Queen Yolande.

The _Revue Numismatique du Maine_ contains many paragraphs recounting the Queen’s prudence and activity in military matters. Under date June 10, 1418, for example, she issued an order to the Seneschal and Treasurer of Provence “to reimburse one Jehan Crepin, keeper of the Castle of Forcalquier, whence one of the sovereign titles are taken, the advance made by him for the reparation of the said castle.” On February 18, 1419, the States of Provence assembled at Aix besought the Queen, as head of the State, “to suppress the tax which had been levied upon the circulation of foreign money, with a view to greater facilities being accorded for the payment of sums required for the defence of the country.” A few years later,--in 1427,--the authorities of the city of Marseilles prayed the Queen, then at Tarascon, to authorize them to impose a poll-tax upon all foreign merchants in the port, “so that the funds at their command might be enlarged, for the express purpose of fitting out vessels of war.” The inhabitants of Martignes, which county Yolande had brought, on her marriage, to the possessions of her husband,--on December 20, 1419,--sought for their Queen-Countess, as ruler and administrator, the right to retain certain dues on the production of salt for the defence of their coast-line. There are very many such entries in the State papers of the reign; indeed, both before and after the departure of Louis III. for Naples, Queen Yolande was recognized as responsible ruler for her son.

II.

If Louis’s matrimonial prospects were somewhat clouded by the extreme youth of his child-bride, the Queen was by no means discouraged in her policy of influential alliances. Her second son, René, who had won all hearts in Barrois, was actually married to Princess Isabelle of Lorraine in 1420, although she was no more than nine years old, and he but twelve. This match was, however, not wholly the work of Queen Yolande; her ideas, however, were those which impelled her uncle, Cardinal Louis de Bar, directly to ask the hand of the juvenile Princess.

The year before this precocious marriage the Cardinal had formally proclaimed René his heir to the duchy of Bar, and created him Marquis of Pont-à-Mousson. This action greatly displeased Arnould, Duke of Berg, whose wife was Marie de Bar, a sister of the Cardinal. She preferred claims to the succession as next of kin to her brother, and when she was refused, the Duke took up arms and advanced upon Bar-le-Duc. The movement failed, and young René saw the Duke’s dead body taken away for burial without emotion. The young Prince had been for nearly two years residing at his great-uncle’s castle, under his immediate care and instruction. Among the tutors chosen for his training were Maestre Jehan de Proviesey, a grammarian and Latinist, and Maestre Antoine de la Salle, poet and musician. Such instructors were _de rigueur_, of course, for the true development of a perfect gentleman and courtier. The latter master wrote a treatise entitled “_Les quinze joyes de la mariage: instructions addressés aux jeunes hommes_.” This he dedicated to his pupil, Prince René. Among the quaint aphorisms it contains, this must have caused more than a smile on the part of the young knight:

“Bon cheval, mauvais cheval, veut l’esperon; Bonne femme, mauvaise femme, veut le baston!”

Perhaps the pith of the treatise is expressed in the neat quintet:

“Quattuor sunt que mulieres summe cupiunt, A formis amari juvenibus, Pottere fillis pluribus Ornari preciosis vestibus Et dominari pre ceteris in domibus.”

René’s time was, however, not wholly absorbed by his studies in school and Court, for he bestrode his warhorse like a man, and rode forth by his great-uncle’s side on punitive expeditions against recalcitrant vassals and against the incursions of freebooters, who under the designation of “_Soudoyers_” were devastating the duchy. It was said of the Cardinal: “_Il savait au besoin porter ung bassinet pour mitre et pour croix d’or un tache d’acier_!”

Directly Duke Robert died, and the succession fell to an ecclesiastic, the dissatisfied subjects of the Barrois crown considered it a favourable opportunity for throwing off their allegiance. Jean de Luxembourg, a cousin of the widowed Duchess Marie, and Robert de Sarrebouche,--at the extreme limits of the territories of the duchy,--were perhaps the most conspicuous for their infidelity. The Cardinal-Duke struck home at once, and both rebels surrendered. In the case of the latter, Prince René was put forward to receive his submission, on his great-uncle’s behalf. The “proud Sieur de Commercy,” as he was called, was compelled to kneel in the market-place of Commercy before the boy-knight, and, putting his great hands between the tender palms of his Prince, obliged to swear as _vostre homme et vostre vassail_! The Prince’s bearing in this his first military campaign was beyond all praise, and the Cardinal was delighted with his chivalry. The Duke of Lorraine sent to compliment him upon his courage, and his doting mother, Queen Yolande, held a ten-days festival at Angers, and rang all the church bells in honour of her son’s baptism of blood.

These exploits caused the youthful hero to carry himself proudly, and greatly increased his self-conceit. This latter development had an amusing and yet a very natural sequel. The Prince with his own hand, under the instruction of Maestre Jehan de Proviesey, wrote letters to all the leading men of Angers, Provence, Barrois, and Lorraine, in which he enlarged upon the boldness of his conduct; and inditing sententious maxims, he sought their approbation and good-will. The Cardinal-Duke doubtless smiled good-humouredly at these juvenile effusions, but at the same time he reconstituted the Barrois knightly “_Ordre de la Fidélité_,” which embraced as members all the young French Princes, and created René de Bar, as he was now called, first and principal Knight. The Prince henceforward wore the motto of his Order embroidered upon his _berretta_ and chimere--“_Tout Ung_”--and chose it as his _gage de guerre_.

Louis de Bar had, however, other duties and pursuits to place before his favourite nephew. At the Court of Dijon resided two famous Flemish painters, brothers--Hubert and Jehan Van Eyck, pensioners of the enlightened Duke of Burgundy. By means of bribes and other influences brought to bear, they were induced to remove to Bar-le-Duc, and with them came Petrus Christus and other pupils. Keen patron of the arts and crafts, the Cardinal-Duke encouraged his principal courtiers and vassals to send their sons to them for instruction in the art of painting. The first pupil enrolled in Barrois upon the books of the Van Eycks was none other than Prince René, and no pupil showed greater talent and greater perseverance. His uncle once said to him: “René, if thou wast not destined to succeed me as Duke of Bar and leader of her armies, I would make of thee an artist.” In his veins, we must remember, ran Flemish blood,--his famous and talented ancestress, the Countess-Princess Iolande, came from Flanders,--and these excellent pigment masters appear to have stirred qualities in the young Prince which eventually proclaimed him the foremost royal artist in Europe.

The Cardinal also inculcated in his nephew the love and taste for objects of beauty. He was himself a proficient in the craft of goldsmithery, and, moreover, possessed a very magnificent collection of gold and silver work. Part of this had come to him from his mother, Duchess Marie of France, who took to Bar her share of her father’s treasures, the good King John. Of these, the Cardinal presented to Pope John XXIII. in 1414 a writing-table made of cedar, covered with plates of solid gold, and the superb gold chalice and paten which are still used in the Papal chapel at Rome at special Masses by His Holiness himself. Another precious goblet, mounted with sapphires and rubies, was bequeathed to the Cardinal’s sister, the Princess Bonne, Countess of Ligny.

The ducal gardens at Bar-le-Duc were famous. The Cardinal sent to Italy for skilled gardeners, who reproduced something of the terrestrial glories of that favoured land. Tuscan sculptors and Venetian decorative painters followed in the wake of the gardeners, who not only designed architectural terraces with marble statues and garden-pavilions with painted ceilings, but also designed and minted medals and plaques of the Cardinal, Prince René, and other members of the family. Naturally, the young Hereditary Duke revelled in these graceful settings for the floral games and festive pastimes which made the Barrois Court, even in the absence of a reigning Duchess, the rendezvous of poets, gallants, and beauties. Here, too, the Prince’s natural love for music had full play; he became a poet and a troubadour “in little,” if not in “great.” In a very real kind of way René’s training in the arts of war and in the arts of peace was the very same which made a Lorenzo de’ Medici at Florence and a Francesco Sforza at Milan.

Amid all these occupations, the Prince had few opportunities for visiting his birthplace, Angers, and his devoted mother there. Travelling was very insecure, and the Cardinal disparaged any expedition beyond the bounds of the duchy. Only one such visit is recorded, and that in 1422, when René took his absent brother’s place to give away his favourite sister Marie to Charles VII. of France, and then Queen Yolande once more embraced her son. On the other hand, the Prince was permitted by his uncle to vigorously assist King Charles against Louis de Châlons, Prince of Orange, who was devastating Dauphiné. In another direction the young warrior gained laurels also. Named protector of the city of Verdun, he destroyed the rebel castle of Renancourt and the fortresses of La Ferté, and hastened to the assistance of his kinsman, the Count of Ligny, at Baumont en Argonne. Guillaume de Flavy and Jehan de Mattaincourt surrendered, and René cleared the country of disaffected marauders and adventurers.

Charles V.’s speech at the siege of Metz one hundred years later might very well have fitted the youthful conqueror in Barrois: “Fortune is a woman: she favours only the young.”

Queen Yolande’s eldest son, Louis III., was meanwhile meeting with varying fortunes in Italy, but the slow progress of his campaign greatly chagrined his dauntless mother. She actually made up her mind to set out for Naples in person to try and turn the slow tide of victory into an overpowering flood; but Anjou was too closely invested by the English for the realization of her project. Here, however, the Queen had her militant opportunity, for at the bloody battle of Baugé,--between La Flèche and Saumur,--in 1421, the English were routed and so greatly disheartened that they evacuated all their strategic points within and around the duchy. That victory was gained directly by Queen Yolande, who commanded in person, sitting astride a great white charger, clothed in steel and silver mail. Some years later King René built an imposing castle upon the heights overlooking the field of battle in memory of his mother’s valour.

The Queen’s warlike ardour, however, received a check, for Queen Marie, driven with King Charles before the all-conquering English, escaped to Bourges, and there begged her mother to hasten to her side. She needed, not a mailed woman’s fist, but the gentle hand of her good mother at her accouchement. Louis le Dauphin, her first-born, saw the light in the Archbishop’s Palace on July 3, 1423. Those days were dark indeed for France, but a brilliant star was about to rise above her eastern horizon. Towards the end of 1428 strange reports began to spread all over the stricken country concerning a simple village maiden in far-off Champagne, to whom, in the obscure village of Domremy, Divine visions had been vouchsafed. Her mission, it was stated, was nothing less than the deliverance of France and the coronation of King Charles at Reims.

Nowhere did the mysterious tidings create greater interest than among the members of the Royal Families and Courts of Sicily-Anjou and France. When the news of Jeanne d’Arc’s arrival with Duke René reached Angers, Queen Yolande set out at once for Chinon, that she might judge for herself of the girl and her mission. Very greatly struck was the Queen by the maid’s youth, comeliness, and innocence. Her simple manners and unaffected devotion convinced Yolande that she had no adventuress to deal with. She conversed freely with her, and her simple narrative and fearless courage determined her to take the maid under her direct patronage. When it was proposed to inquire formally into Jeanne’s character and mental bias, the Queen promptly allocated to herself that duty. She called to her assistance three ladies of her Court of good repute. Jehan Pasquerelle has quaintly recorded this plenary council of matrons: “_Fust icelle Pucelle baillée à la Royne de Cecile, mère de la Royne, nostre souveraine, et à certaines dames d’estant avec elle, dont estoient les Dames de Gaucourt, de Fiennes, et de Trèves_.” Another chronicler adds the name of Jeanne de Mortèmar, wife of the Chancellor, Robert le Maçon. Their verdict was a complete vindication of Jeanne’s honour and sincerity.

The tongue of slander had associated René and Jeanne in a liaison. The Court of Chinon was full of evil gossip, and the more ill-conditioned courtiers and hirelings, both men and women, revelled in compromising insinuations and coarse jests. Queen Yolande determined once and for all to put an end to these baseless and foul rumours. She knew her son too well to doubt his honour, and now she pledged herself to defend that of the village maid. Several of the offenders were dismissed the service of the King, and warned to hold their tongue, unless they wished for condign punishment.

History has done scant justice to Queen Yolande for the part she bore in the drama of Jeanne d’Arc. It was in a very great measure due to her that the maid’s mission was carried out. Whilst Charles was dallying with his idle associates and procrastinating in his military measures, Yolande played the man. Her intrepid counsels and fearless insistence were the levers which moved her son-in-law’s inertness. There is a story told that, when Queen Marie’s gentle chiding had failed to rouse her desponding consort, Queen Yolande appeared before him clothed in full armour, and demanded why the King of France skulked in his castle!

“See, Charles,” she said, “if you refuse to follow _La Pucelle_ at once and do your duty to God and to your country, I will go forth as your lieutenant, and in person lead your army against the English. But shame to you to trust in a woman’s arm rather than your own! Rouse you like a man, and begone!”

This emphatic order fairly called out Charles’s manhood, roused, to be sure, by the mission of Jeanne d’Arc. Nothing excites a man more than a woman’s threats to take his place and do his work; and many women can be as good as their word, and one of these was Yolande of Sicily-Anjou-Aragon.

The noble patriotic Queen-mother, moreover, backed her stout words by actions firm. With that splendid unselfishness which marked her character, she raised a considerable sum of money by the sale of her jewellery and other precious possessions, and applied it, together with the substantial offerings of her devoted subjects, to the fitting out of a convoy of provisions and necessaries for the besieged garrison of Orléans. She also persuaded the University of Angers, which her late consort, Louis II., had founded in 1398, to vote a goodly sum of money towards the King’s expenses. Charles, stirred by the gentleness of Jeanne and the vigour of Yolande, was no longer despondent. The Queen thankfully noted his confidence in his mysterious guide from Domremy, but she remained at Chinon until she had seen him and his equipage take boat upon the Loire. His last words to his mother-in-law were: “Yes, now I am on my way to Reims with Jeanne, my oracle, my Queen--_ma Royne blanche: tous pour Dieu et la France!_” Yolande then quietly returned to her castle at Angers, and Anjou once more greeted the King’s guardian and the Lieutenant-General of his dominions.

The decade had its consolations as well as its troubles, and among them Queen Yolande rejoiced at the births of vigorous grandchildren. To Queen Marie were born Princesses Jeanne and Yolande, as well as the Dauphin Louis; and to Duke René, Jean, Louis, Nicholas, Yolande, and Marguerite, in lawful wedlock. The Queen-mother, too, had satisfaction in the less disturbed state of Barrois and Lorraine, of receiving at Angers her son René and his fair young wife Isabelle. He had added to the bays of victory the palms of peace, and his fame as an administrator of justice and charity was already spread abroad.

The Cardinal-Duke Louis was ageing rapidly, and he executed his final testament whilst his nephew and niece were in Anjou. Everything was left to René, who had as much as he could do to get back to Bar-le-Duc in time to receive his uncle’s last blessing and close his eyes in death. The dying Prince was at the Abbey of Varennes when he breathed his last, on February 15, 1431. Duke René was at once proclaimed his successor, and the Estates of Barrois did their homage heartily. The career of the young Duke had been developed under the approving eyes of his uncle’s subjects, and his marriage with Isabelle de Lorraine had been immensely popular. The new reign opened, then, under the happiest auspices.

René’s future being thus amply provided for,--his hand was also on the throne of Lorraine,--Queen Yolande turned her attention to the settlement in life of her younger children--Yolande, just eighteen, and Charles, two years younger. For her daughter, whose espousal three years before to Jehan, Comte d’Alençon, had not led to marriage, the Queen sought once more an alliance with the House of Bretagne. The Duke’s eldest son, François, Comte de Montfort, who had been first champion at the Angers tournament in 1417, was the chosen bridegroom. He, indeed, had seen and played with the Princess then, but she was a little child of five; their betrothal, however, had been considered, and only hindered by the military exigencies of the time. The Prince was in person as handsome as could be, and talented, but his character was not one that Queen Yolande looked for in a son-in-law. More addicted to warlike deeds and the free licence of a soldier’s calling, he had little taste for peaceful pursuits, and still less for the restrictions of family life. He was, like most Princes at the time, more or less of a _débauché_, and his fair fame was besmirched by sordid and licentious habits. Still, the Comte de Montfort stood for political advantages, and questions of character were counted of less importance. The royal nuptials were celebrated in due course at the Cathedral of St. Pierre at Nantes, the capital of Brittany, on July 1, 1431, in the presence of Queen Yolande and the Duke and Duchess of Barrois. Alas! once more marriage proved a failure, for the year following the home-coming of the Count and Countess he was slain in a foray with the English, leaving his childless young widow to bewail her ill-luck alone.

The marriage of Prince Charles d’Anjou was delayed many years, and his experience of the vicissitudes of Cupid’s thraldom was almost identical with that of King Louis III., his elder brother. Affianced in 1431, at the same time as his sister Yolande, to a daughter of Guy, Count of Laval, his brother René’s bosom friend, and one of Jeanne d’Arc’s _preux cavaliers_, another Yolande, he broke off the match because the infant Princess,--she but three years old,--was “so plain and weak.” “Besides, I will not wait twelve years for her.” He was himself just seventeen. The baby-fiancée’s mother was a Bretagne princess, Isabelle, a daughter of Queen Yolande’s great ally, Duke Jehan VI. The young Prince had in his mind another amour, perhaps hardly in his heart; but he had seen and admired, when assisting at the _sacre_ of King Charles VII., his brother-in-law, at Reims, a Princess of Champagne, and, much against his mother’s wish, he bespoke her for his own. They were betrothed at the ancient castle of Coucy, near Soissons, in 1435. This match, too, came to nothing, for the fair fiancée, Catherine, perished in the flames of her boudoir curtains, set on fire by accident, and left her young Prince of twenty-one free to step along the uncertain path of courtship once more. Such were some of the ups and downs of the Queen of Sicily-Anjou and of her family.

The death of Charles II., Duke of Lorraine, on January 25, 1431, saw the reunion,--after a century or more apart,--of Bar and Lorraine under one Sovereign. Duke René and his Duchess Isabelle had resided more or less quietly for ten years at the Castle of Bar-le-Duc, and there the greater part of their family was born. Now they prepared to move to Nancy, but their way, which Duke Charles had, as he thought, secured, was barred, and René was called out to fight for his throne. Antoine, Comte de Vaudémont, Duke Charles’s eldest nephew, thrust the provisions of the Salic Law in the new Duke’s face, and drew his sword to enforce his action. Varied were the fortunes of the civil war, but at the Battle of Bulgneville Duke René was taken prisoner by Philippe, Duke of Burgundy, who supported his kinsman Vaudémont, and was kept in captivity for nearly three years. In vain Queen Yolande tried every expedient to set her son free. His captors required his absolute renunciation of the duchy of Lorraine, and would accept no compromise. Then came another crushing blow. Louis III., King of Sicily, Naples, and Jerusalem, Duke of Anjou, and Count of Provence, died of fever at Cosenza, the capital of Calabria, on November 15, 1434, lamented alike by friend and foe. Queen Giovanna had in 1424 created him Duke of Calabria, but many attributed his death, indeed, to poison administered by order of the Queen. Never was there a more gentle nor a braver Prince--“_l’escarboucle de gentilesse_,” he was styled in the annals of chivalry. His devoted mother, of course, was not with him; she was broken-hearted at Marseilles. Cast down by grief unspeakable, the young Queen of Sicily-Anjou and Naples, Margherita, still a bride, was by his side to console his last hours. They had been married by proxy at Geneva,--not at Chambéry, as arranged,--years before, but had sworn to each other recently in the Cathedral of Cosenza. Alas! no son was left to succeed his father and cheer his mother’s heart; their only child, a little daughter, had survived her birth a short six weeks.

Queen Giovanna, in spite of her iniquity in seeking to foist upon René d’Anjou and Bar a child not his nor hers, in all probability, but so acknowledged, made no opposition to his proclamation as King of Naples or the Two Sicilies. What an exquisite piece of irony it was, to be sure--a King proclaimed when fast bound in prison, a crayon for a sceptre in his hand, his crown a drab _berretta_! Three devoted women, good and bad, supported the royal captive’s prerogatives--three Queens indeed: Yolande was for Anjou and Provence, Isabelle for Barrois and Lorraine, and Giovanna for Naples and Sicily; whilst a fourth, Queen Margherita, looked to the donjon of Dijon for clemency. It was said that a copy of King René’s proclamation was fixed upon the portal of his prison in insolent derision. “_Sic transit gloria mundi_” might well have been penned beneath it.

Upon King René’s succession to the throne of Sicily-Anjou, Queen Yolande continued to act as his Lieutenant-General for Anjou and Provence, and left negotiations for his release to the young Queen-Duchess Isabelle, who was very much more favourably placed, and near at hand to serve the royal prisoner’s interests. She spent most of her time in Anjou, but paid many visits to Marseilles, her favourite residence in Provence. She never crossed the Aragonese frontier; she could have done so only as Queen-regnant, which of course was impossible. However, she named her grandson Jean, Duke of Calabria, King René’s eldest son, as the heir to her ancestral claims.

The Queen-mother’s presence in Anjou was necessary in the interests of her daughter, Queen Marie of France, and she never relaxed her control of the policy of her royal son-in-law. At each accouchement of the French Queen her devoted mother assisted, and it was a long family of grandchildren she nursed upon her knee. Her succour in sickness, her stay in trouble, and her help in poverty, were immeasurably precious to the fugitive Sovereigns. In 1437 Queen Yolande had the felicity also of receiving her son René, after his release from durance vile, in the Castle of Tine, near Saumur, and with him came Queen Isabelle and her children,--Prince Jean, the eldest, being a fine lad of eleven. It was a season of universal rejoicing in Anjou, and the Queen-mother, laying aside her widow’s _chapelle_ and veil, entered whole-heartedly into the festivities. The most cheering feature of the gaiety was due to the magnanimity of the Duke of Burgundy, who quite unexpectedly and unreservedly offered the crown of peace by proposing that Princess Marie, daughter of Charles I., Duke of Bourbon, his niece, should be affianced to the young Duke of Calabria. The ceremony of betrothal was duly celebrated in Angers Cathedral, the little bride being no more than seven years old. This was a great joy to the Queen-mother, and René and Isabelle were very happy, too.

Again in 1440 the splendours of the Angevine Court were once more revived by the Queen-mother, when she welcomed right royally King Charles VII. and Queen Marie. It was by way of being a family gathering also, for King René and Queen Isabelle were of the party. It was a reunion remarkable in one way, as the introduction at Angers of the most lovely girl in France, in the suite of Queen Isabelle,--a girl destined to play a very important part in the private life of King Charles VII.,--Agnes Sorel. The Queen-mother was charmed with her lovely young visitor, and never made any opposition to her appointment as Maid of Honour to Queen Marie. These festivities, however, were the last in which Queen Yolande took part. The sorrows she was called upon to bear and the anxieties of the life she lived had their natural effect even upon such an ardent and vigorous constitution as hers. Gradually she retired altogether from public life, and in 1441 she took up her residence at Saumur. The castle was one of the strongest fortresses in France, and was one of the very few which held out successfully all through the Hundred Years’ War. Originally called _La Tour du Tronc_, Count Foulques Nerra, Count of Anjou, in the tenth century gave it the appearance and stability which it subsequently retained. Queen Yolande placed her suite within the castle precincts, but she herself, putting on an oblate’s habit, occupied for some time a house in the Faubourg des Ponts, where her privacy could be less easily disturbed. What remains,--and that, alas! is very little, of this habitation,--is still called _La Maison de la Reine Cicile_ (Sicily). In this humble abode Yolanda d’Arragona, “the great Queen,” died quietly on December 14, 1443.

Whether King René was present to close his beloved mother’s eyes we know not, but it is significant of absence that the expense,--500 livres,--of the Queen’s obsequies was borne by her youngest son, Charles, Duke of Maine; indeed, it is almost certain that René was at Marseilles when he heard of his mother’s death. In one of his “_Livres des Heures_” he inscribed: “_Le 14 Decembre de l’an 1443 trespassa au Château de Saumur Madame Yolande, fille de Roy d’Aragon et depuis mère de Roy René_.” The funeral ceremonies were celebrated by the Archbishop of Tours, her private chaplain, not at Saumur, but at Angers, in the Cathedral of St. Maurice, to which her remains were conveyed by night two days after her death. Her grave was that of her consort’s, twenty-five years before,--in front of the high-altar,--but all trace of it has disappeared, and explorations have failed to reveal her burial casket.

It is eloquent of the irony of human affairs, that whereas no memorial, or even inscription, is left to record the virtues of the royal mother of Anjou, in the Church of Nôtre Dame de Nantilly at Saumur there is a memorial to Mère Théophaine la Magine, the devoted nurse of King René and Queen Marie, who died March 13, 1458. The original monument, erected by the King, presented his faithful domestic holding him and Marie in her arms. This has been destroyed, but an epitaph still remains:

“Cy gist la nourrice Théophaine La Magine, qui ot grant paine A nourrie de let en enfance Marie d’Anjou, Royne de France, Et après, son frère René, Duc d’Anjou.”

“Here lies good nurse Théophaine La Magine, who at great pain Foster-mother’d in infancy Marie d’Anjou, Queen of France, And then René, Duke of Anjou.”

The only existent memorials to King Louis II. and Queen Yolande are to be seen in a stained-glass window in the Cathedral of St. Julien at Le Mans, the capital of Maine, one of the richest and most beautiful specimens of fifteenth-century glass in Europe. The royal couple are upon their knees, attired in conventional costumes, and bare-headed. Their youngest son, Charles of Anjou and Maine, is buried near that splendid window, an interesting and curious circumstance in the happenings of Providence. He died in 1474. All Anjou and Provence bewailed their Queen, her virtues, her benevolence, her piety, her loyalty.

Yolande’s claim to the title with which she has been honoured, “a good mother and a great Queen,” needs no vindication. She was, in short, the most noble woman in all France during the first half of the fifteenth century.