CHAPTER IV

ISABELLE DE LORRAINE--“THE PRIDE OF LORRAINE”

I.

Child-marriage was a distinguishing mark of the Renaissance, but its fashion in the Sovereign States of France was very much more commendable than its prototype in Italy. In the Italian republics it became a holocaust of immature maidens, condemned to untimely death through the perverted passions of worn-out men of middle age. In France the girl brides were mated with boy husbands, but cohabitation was regulated by the watch and will of guardians. In both countries, doubtless, the marriage contract was essentially a commercial undertaking, but in France it marked the attainment of political and dynastic aims. Sovereign families rarely allied their offspring out of the ruling class. At the same time the danger of conjugal union between individuals nearly related was immeasurably increased. Indeed, such relationships were those most zealously cultivated by ambitious and exclusive rulers. The marriage of René d’Anjou and Isabelle de Lorraine was a striking and typical instance of this precocious marital custom.

Isabelle, “the Pride of Lorraine,”--as she was acclaimed by her devoted subjects at the time of her betrothal,--was born at the Castle of Nancy, March 20, 1410. Her parents were Charles II., Duke of Lorraine, and his consort, Margaret of Bavaria. Charles himself was the eldest son of Jehan, Duke and Count of Lorraine, and Sophie, Princess of Würtemberg. Born in 1364, at Toul,--a free city of the German Empire and an ecclesiastical sovereign see,--Charles succeeded his father in 1392. Originally a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, Lorraine was erected a kingdom by the Emperor Lothair, who styled himself “King and Baron of Lothairland.” The first Prince to bear the ducal title was Adelebert, in 979, and that style descended unbroken through 500 years.

The Duchess Margaret was the second daughter of the Emperor Robert III., Duke and Baron of Bavaria. She married Charles II. in 1393. To them were born eight children, but, alas! Louis and Rodolphe died in infancy, Charles and Ferri before their majority, and Robert in 1419, unmarried, at twenty-two. Of their three daughters, Isabelle was the eldest. Marie became the wife of Enguerrand de Coucy, Baron of Champagne and Lord of Soissons, a lineal descendant of the founder, in the thirteenth century, of the famous Château de Coucy, the most complete feudal fortress ever built, whose proud motto may still be seen on the donjon wall:

“Roi je ne suis Prince ni Comte aussi: Je suis le Sire de Coucy.”

This union was childless. Catherine, the third daughter, in 1426 married James, Marquis of Baden, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Elector. She renounced all claims to Lorraine. Their only child was a daughter.

At the time of their marriage, Charles II. of Lorraine and Margaret of Bavaria were a model couple upon the principles of dissimilarity and contrast. The Duke, a soldier born, had made good his degree of knighthood ten years before, when, a mere stripling, he won his spurs fighting daringly by the side of his cousin, Philippe “le Hardi,” Duke of Burgundy. With him he went on a punitive expedition against the pirates of the Barbary coast. At Rosebach, and especially at the tremendous battle of Azincourt, he did prodigies of valour. In Flanders and in Germany his ensign led on victorious troops. Charles’s last military achievement was the rout of the Emperor Wenceslas under the very walls of Nancy. No warrior loved fighting more than the Duke of Lorraine. Slightly to alter the text, he was one of those war-lords whom Shakespeare, in his “seven ages of man,” says “sought reputation at the cannon’s mouth.” He yearned for the applause of gallant knights, both friends and foes; he yielded himself amorously to the smiles and embraces of the fair sex, and he revelled in the praise and adulation of poets and minstrels. His mailed fist was ever toying with his trusty sword and grappling the chafing-reins of his charger; his mailed foot was ever ready for the stirrup and to trample upon the head of a fallen foe.

At the same time he was a gay and polished courtier, one of the most accomplished Princes in Europe. Fond of literature and poetry, he studied daily his Latin copy of the “Commentaries of Julius Cæsar” and similar treatises. He had besides a taste for music, and was no mean exponent of the lute and guitar, and a friend of troubadours.

On the other hand, the gentle, lovable Duchess was born for the cloister and for the worship of the Mass. Her bare feet were ever moving in penitential pilgrimages and religious processions, and her shapely hands were ever joined in prayer or divided in charity. Her passion was the submissive rule of Christ, her will the conquest of herself.

Daring and devotion thus harnessed together rocked the family cradle, and insured for their offspring the best of two worlds. Such a union was bound to be productive of genius and corrective of faults of heredity. What a bitter disappointment, then, it must have been for both the Duke and the Duchess when one after another their beauteous babes and adolescent sons dropped like blighted rosebuds from their young love’s rosebush prematurely into the cold, dark grave, leaving only the aroma of their sweet young lives to soothe their sorrowing parents!

Isabelle was the fairest daughter of the three. She inherited the force of character of her father and the pious disposition of her mother, and to these precious traits she joined a spirit of intelligence much in advance of her years as a growing girl. In short, she was remarkable “_pour ses qualités de l’esprit et du cœur_,” a description difficult to render into good English; perhaps we may say she had her father’s will and her mother’s love.

Many were the suitors for her hand, some for the pure love of beauty, grace, and spirit, but most with a view to the Duke-consortship in the future of rich Lorraine. The “Pride of Lorraine,” indeed, served as an ever-reinforced magnet. She became remarkable for her loveliness of person, her animation of manner, and her distinguished carriage. The natural sweetness of her voice lent a gracious persuasiveness to her eloquence, which in later life proved invaluable in the recruiting of adherents to her husband’s cause. High-souled and condescending, she brought her enemies to her feet, only to raise them her warmest friends. Talented beyond the average of Princesses, she had also the charm of winsome gaiety, and proved herself a worthy spouse and companion for her gallant and clever consort René. Tall, slim, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a skin of satin softness, the “Pride of Lorraine” won all hearts and turned many a head.

To Louis, Cardinal de Bar, was due the accomplishment of an idea suggested by Queen Yolande with respect to the future of her second son, René d’Anjou. He had for ever so long been considering what steps he should take with respect to the succession to the duchy. He of course, as an ecclesiastic, could have no legitimate offspring. His brothers had died childless, and only one of his sisters had male descendants, the grandsons of Violante de Bar, his own grand-nephews. In His Eminence’s mind, too, was a project to reconstitute the ancient kingdom of Lothair by merging Barrois and Lorraine proper. Whilst Duke Charles II.’s young sons were living, the Cardinal looked to one of them as his heir; and when they all drooped and died, he reflected whether or not he should name Charles as his successor. At this juncture his niece, the Queen of Sicily-Anjou, was busy looking out for brides for her two elder sons, Louis and René. For the former a Bretagne alliance was indicated; for the latter a union with Lorraine--Burgundy for the time being out of the question--or Champagne seemed desirable.

The Cardinal clinched the matter, and paid a visit to the Duke of Lorraine in furtherance of his project, which was the very natural and sensible one of marrying his nephew René with the Duke’s eldest daughter Isabelle. Whether Charles had any inklings of the Cardinal’s cogitations with relation to his own position with respect to Bar we know not; but possibly he had, for he met the proposition with a direct refusal. He read to his relative two clauses of a will he had recently executed, which forbade his daughter Isabelle to marry a Prince of French origin, and especially barred the House of Anjou. This latter prohibition was inserted with reference to the rupture between Jean “sans Peur,” the Duke of Burgundy, and Louis II., King of Sicily and Duke of Anjou, which resulted from the part the former had played in the assassination of the Duke of Orléans in 1407, and the consequent repudiation of the betrothal of Catherine de Bourgogne and Louis d’Anjou. Lorraine and Burgundy were in close alliance.

The Cardinal, however, was not to be diverted from the course he had taken. He placed ten considerations before the Duke and his advisers:--(1) The advisability of reuniting the two portions of Lorraine; (2) Charles’s lack of male heirs; (3) his own incompetence in the same direction; (4) his choice of his grand-nephew, René d’Anjou, as his successor at Bar-le-Duc; (5) the attractive personality, mental attainments, and high courage of the young Prince; (6) his descent from a Barrois-Lorraine Princess, Violante, his sister; (7) the risks of the application of the power of the Salic Law over his daughters; (8) the equality of age of René and Isabelle; (9) the wish of the late King and of the Queen of Sicily-Anjou for an alliance with Lorraine and a better understanding politically; (10) the welfare of the peoples of the two duchies and the love of the Lorrainers for their princely house.

Charles asked time to consider these points, but meanwhile he summoned the Estates, and laid before them a proposition concerning the succession to Lorraine at his death. He named his eldest daughter as Hereditary Duchess, and proposed that her consort should bear the title, and with her exercise the prerogatives, of Duke of Lorraine. A concordat was agreed to whereby the Estates were pledged to support the Duchess Isabelle, and to carry out Charles’s wishes.

Queen Yolande had seconded her uncle’s negotiations in a very womanly and sensible way. She communicated directly with good Duchess Margaret. She pointed out to her the mutual advantages of the marriage of the two children, and declared that such a union would heal the breach between the eastern and the western Sovereigns of France. Margaret, loving peace and holy things, was easily persuaded to reason with her husband; she submitted absolutely to the overpowering personality of the Queen. With Charles, Yolande had a stiffer fight, but she gathered up her strength, and in the end, lusty warrior that he was, he yielded up his defence to the tactful diplomacy of the good mother of Anjou. Woman’s wit once more, as it generally does, triumphed over man’s obstinacy.

Charles agreed to receive the young Prince, and judge for himself of his prepositions and qualifications. The result was beyond the Cardinal’s expectation, for the Duke declared himself charmed with the boy. He was, he said, ready to rescind the prohibitory clauses of his will, but he made it a condition that he should have the personal and unrestricted guardianship of the boy until he reached the age of fifteen. He desired René to proceed at once to Angers to obtain Queen Yolande’s consent to the matrimonial contract between himself and Princess Isabelle. Everything went merrily, like the marriage-bells which soon enough pealed forth all over Lorraine, Barrois, and Anjou, at the auspicious nuptials. The final arrangements were completed, and René and Isabelle were betrothed at the Castle of St. Mihiel, and on October 20, 1420, married at the Cathedral of Nancy by the Bishop of Toul, Henri de Ville, Duke Charles’s cousin. Immediately before the wedding, Cardinal-Duke Louis caused a herald to proclaim publicly, in the market-place of Nancy, René d’Anjou, Comte de Guise, Hereditary Duke of Bar, with the _ad interim_ title of Marquis of Pont-à-Mousson.

The record of the marriage is thus entered in “_Les Chroniques de Lorraine_”: “_Les nopces furent faictes en grant triomphe, et la dicte fille menée à Bar moult honorablement. Le Cardinal fust moult joyeulx._”[A] The contract had been signed on March 20, 1420, by the Duke and the Cardinal at the Château de Tourg, near Toul, Queen Yolande’s signature being provided by her proxy. She granted to her son the right to quarter the arms of Bar and Lorraine with those of Anjou and Guise.

[A] “The nuptials were celebrated with great ceremony, and the said Princess was conducted to Bar very honourably. The Cardinal was full of joy.”

On November 10 formal proclamation was made in every important town in Lorraine, to the effect that Duke Charles II. constituted his eldest daughter, now Duchess of Barrois and Countess of Guise, heiress to the duchy of Lorraine, and confirmed to her, and to her issue by René d’Anjou and Bar, full rights of succession and government. The proclamation named Queen Yolande of Sicily-Anjou, Louis, Cardinal de Bar, and the Duke himself, Charles’s guardians during the minority of the young couple.

“René,” wrote a chronicler, “is well-grown, well-bred, and well-looking. He is greatly admired by all the fair sex, and loves them in return. He will make a good husband, and has the making of a great Sovereign.” The bride’s praises were sung by poets and minstrels the length and breadth of Lorraine and Bar.

Among the earliest to congratulate the young people and their parents was the redoubtable Duke of Burgundy! He sent a special embassy to Nancy with this striking message: “_Tous estoient si joyeulx de veoir la fervente et cordiale amour qui estoit entre ces deulx jeuns gens, que je me trouve capable des sentiments les plus amiables pour tous mes cousins royales. Je salue mes bons frères les Souverains Ducs de Lorraine et Barrois avec Madame la Duchesse Marguerite, et sans autre choses la bonne Rogne de Cecile, son épous le Roy Louis, pour jamais._”[A]

[A] “Everybody was delighted to behold the fervent and cordial love which exists between the two young people, whilst I found myself filled with the most amiable sentiments for all my royal cousins. I salute my good brothers the Sovereign Dukes of Lorraine and Barrois, and also the Duchess Margaret, and equally the good Queen of Sicily and her consort King Louis.”

This was as a jewel in the hair of Queen Yolande, and as nectar in the cup of Cardinal Louis. Their plans had succeeded splendidly.

Shortly after his marriage, René returned to Bar-le-Duc with his child-bride, and they were received in royal state by the Cardinal, who had renovated and decorated the castle specially in their honour and for their use. The town of Ligny was causing trouble in Barrois by refusing to pay the accustomed tribute. The Prince de Ligny claimed that portion of the duchy of Bar as his, by the marriage contract of his wife, the Cardinal’s sister. He attacked the Castle of Pierrepoint and the town of Briey, whose garrison he caused to be put to the sword. The Cardinal took arms, and, accompanied by René and companies of Lorraine soldiers from Longwy, defeated his relative and took him prisoner. The young Prince received the rebel’s sword and personally conducted him to Nancy, where, after two years’ confinement in the fortress, he signed an act of renunciation of his pretensions in Barrois.

René, only twelve years old, the following year accompanied Charles II. of Lorraine to the siege of Toul,--for many years a turbulent element in his dominions,--where there was a hot dispute concerning certain laws and customs oppositive to the claims of the crown of Lorraine. Toul was captured, and mulcted in an annual tribute of a thousand livres.

Directly the proclamation of Isabelle of Lorraine with René as the sharer of her throne was made, Antoine de Vaudémont, Duke Charles’s eldest nephew, entered a protest and claimed the succession. He based his action upon the three conditions--(1) The Salic Law ruled the succession of Lorraine; (2) the male line had not been broken since the creation of the duchy; and (3) the realm had never gone out of the family. Charles scouted all these positions, affirmed his own sovereign right to name his successor, and refused to alter the terms of the proclamation so far as regarded the succession of his daughter and Duke René.

All the church-bells in Barrois and Lorraine were again set jingling joyously when, in the ducal castle of Toul, on the morning of January 17, 1437, a young mother,--very young indeed, barely seventeen,--brought forth her first-born--a beauteous boy, the image, as the midwives said, of the boy-father, not yet nineteen. Church-bells, too, rang merrily all over Anjou and Provence when the glad tidings reached their borders that a male heir was born to the honours of Sicily-Anjou-Provence. Perhaps René and Isabelle were too young to realize what it all meant for France at large, but Queen Yolande understood well enough its tenor, and with her congratulations she greeted her first son’s grandchild with the title of “Prince of Gerona,” linking him ostentatiously with her hereditary rights in Aragon. Duke Charles, too, and Duchess Margaret were the happiest of grandparents, and baby Jean was created Comte de Nancy as future Duke.

Charles’s death was somewhat sudden and quite unexpected. Strong man that he was, King Death seemed to be a power not immediately to be feared. René was not at Nancy when the death-knell sounded, but news swiftly reached him, and he returned at once to the capital. Duchess Margaret,--despite her lamentations and her natural dislike to public appearance,--attired herself in full Court dress, the crown she rarely wore upon her head, and all the officials of the Court, the Government, and city, in her retinue, and hastened to the gate to welcome the new Duke of Lorraine. Before her carriage rode a number of lords and knights, who dismounted on the approach of René, and, saluting him deferentially, greeted him as “_Vous estoit le nostre duc!_” The cry was taken up by all the gallant company, whilst René, having dismounted at the portal of St. George, took the sacred missal offered by the Dean into his hands, and swore then and there to respect and safeguard the ancient liberties of the State and city.

One of the quaintest of quaint observances followed, a custom peculiar to Lorraine. After receiving the ecclesiastical blessing, the new Duke remounted his horse, and into his hand was placed the ancient altar cross called “Polluyon.” He rode slowly through the city to St. Nicholas Gate, where he again dismounted, and gave his charger into the care of one of the canons, who took his place in the saddle and rode out of sight. This strange custom had been observed at all the public recognitions of new Dukes of Lorraine ever since its inception by Duke Raoul, in 1339. The Duke then returned on foot to St. George’s, bearing still the jewelled cross. At the entrance the Bishop stood ready to administer the customary oaths and to accord the Papal benediction. This ceremony also was unique. The Bishop told him to face the assembly of his subjects at the four points of the compass, and to repeat at each the formula: “I take this oath before God and you willingly, and look to God for assistance, and to you for service.”

Then conducted to the castle in great circumstance, amid the vociferous plaudits of the populace,--“_Noël! Noël!_” they cried,--the Duke knelt and kissed the hand of Duchess Isabelle, who was waiting there, and presented her to the delirious citizens. “_Vive le nostre Duc! Vive la nostre Duchesse!_” rang through the city, and, caught up by the sculptured pinnacles and turrets of the cathedral, mingled harmoniously with the musical cadences of the bells, and so was wafted over all that fair and smiling land.

René, although but two-and-twenty, gave immediate evidence of wisdom beyond his years. His power to grasp and handle complex affairs of State, and his discrimination in matters of moment, proved the excellence of his grand-uncle’s training. His personal appearance was all in his favour, and his graceful, well-set-up figure, his open countenance, his majestic manner,--ever ready to bend to circumstances,--gained general admiration and confidence. His gracious, patient, and conciliatory bearing was remarkable. His modesty and absolute lack of presumption attracted the best men of all parties. His readiness to appoint a Council of State, with unusual freedom of deliberation and action, was only, perhaps, what might have been looked for from the son of the founder of the free Parliament of Provence in 1415. The new Duke set on foot movements for the amelioration of the condition of the poor, for the improvement of education, and for the rectification of the morals of the Court and city. One of his earliest edicts was for the suppression of blasphemy; a first charge was punishable by the judge in the ordinary way, a second involved a heavy fine, a third obtained correction in the public pillory, and a fourth offence was purged only by the splitting of the tongue and rigorous imprisonment.

In all these, and many similar acts of sapient policy, Duchess Isabelle bore her part in counsel and example; her conduct was beyond all praise. The next move was a progress through every part of the two duchies. At each considerable town the royal cortège halted first of all that the Duke and Duchess might make their devotions in the principal church, and endow Masses and ecclesiastical grants. Then, assembling the officials and chief citizens, they inquired into the hardships of the people and encouraged local institutions, at each place leaving largesse for distribution. In strong places with garrisons, the Duke interested himself in redressing injuries and inequalities among the veterans. He offered to pay all the losses of officers in the wars; he allowed eighteen sols for each horse killed in battle or on march; he bestowed on each soldier a surcoat and steel helmet with his royal cognizance, and created many knights. Meanwhile Duchess Isabelle endeared herself to the women-folk by consoling words of sympathy and gracious doles of charity. Widows and orphans she took under her personal patronage, and no worthy claimant for her benevolence lacked favour and assistance.

Thus René and Isabelle won, not only golden opinions, but the sincerest affection of their subjects, rich and poor. But a climax was put to the noble works of the kindly Sovereigns, and never came truer the saying; “Providence ever destroys the good that men do.” An evil genius appeared upon the peaceful scene when Antoine de Vaudémont refused to pay allegiance to the new Duke and Duchess. The moment of his declaration of hostility was as unfortunate as it was cruel. At the public baptism of Prince Jean, the Duke’s eldest son, who had been privately baptized at his birth, in 1426-27, the Count entered the Cathedral of Nancy in full armour, and objected to the Duke of Calabria,--the title of the young boy,--being received by the Church as heir to the throne of Lorraine.

The Duke immediately summoned him to appear before the Council of State, and also before a meeting of principal citizens, and there repeat his protest. By both assembles his pretensions were scouted unanimously. Sieur Jehan d’Haussonville, the Mayor, addressed the Count, and said: “Your uncle has left daughters; the eldest, Isabelle, is Duchess of Lorraine. I salute you. You may go.” Vaudémont left Nancy in a violent rage, crying out as he passed through the gateway of St. George: “I shall be Duke of Lorraine all the same, and soon, and then will I reckon with you dogs!” He posted off to Dijon, and there took counsel with the Duke of Burgundy.

The body of Charles II. had scarcely been consigned to its monumental tomb in the choir of St. Georges de Port at Nancy, when the Comte de Vaudémont revealed himself in his true colours. After his protest against the edict of the Duke which named Duke René of Barrois, the consort of the heiress to the throne, as his successor to the title of Duke of Lorraine, he had remained skulking in his castle, where he welcomed as many malcontents and disturbers of the peace as accepted his pretensions to the crown. The coronation of Duchess Isabelle was the signal for Vaudémont’s attempt to vindicate his claim. He had hardly a sympathizer at Court, for Charles had caused all the principal nobles and citizens to swear allegiance to his daughter and her husband before he died. The Count appeared suddenly before Nancy, and demanded the keys and the custody of the Duchess. Duke René was away besieging Metz, but he at once posted off to Nancy, and assisted with men-at-arms by Charles VII., and aided by the generalship of Barbazan, he defeated Vaudémont in eight battles great and small.

Vaudémont rallied his forces from Burgundy under Antoine de Toulongeon, Duke Philippe’s favourite general, and enlisted foreign mercenaries from Flanders and Germany. René had at his back all the armed men of Lorraine and Bar, and contingents from Anjou and Provence. James, Marquis of Baden, and Louis of Bavaria, joined him with squadrons of cavalry, and his army numbered nearly 20,000 men. Perhaps he was over-confident of his strength, his right, and his intrepidity; and having a very much more numerous following, he advanced upon his enemy disregarding sundry cautions and wise counsels. The two armies met upon the plain of Bulgneville, near Neufchâteau, on July 2. Vaudémont played a waiting game; besides, he had in reserve heavier artillery than his royal foeman. Early in the encounter Barbazan fell mortally wounded, and then René himself received a wound which incapacitated him for a time. The fall of their leaders demoralized the Lorraine army, and Vaudémont, seeing his advantage, made a dash with a column of heavy cavalry. René was smitten to the ground and surrounded. He refused to surrender until an officer of sufficient rank should be allowed to receive his sword. Then Toulongeon galloped up, and the Duke, covered with blood and dust, was lead away to the Burgundian camp.

Taken the same evening to the Château de Talant, near Dijon, the royal prisoner was treated with the deference due to his rank, but, alas! he had fallen into the hands of the enemy of his house--the hated Duke of Burgundy. That evening the curfew sounded not in Nancy, but the gates were shut and barred, and two weeping women, powerless in their woe, never sought their couches in the castle. Mother and daughter, Margaret and Isabelle, were nigh death themselves. No tidings could they gain of the whereabouts or of the condition of the man they loved. Duchess Isabelle cried out: “Alas! I do not know whether my husband is dead or alive or wounded, nor where they have taken him.” None had a consoling answer, for all Nancy was in mourning. Two thousand good men and true lay dead upon the stricken field, and three thousand more shared the imprisonment of their Duke. The wounded in hundreds crawled into city, village, and mansion; not a house in Lorraine but was flooded with women’s tears and men’s blood that desperate day and night. At last splashed and bedraggled heralds brought news of the Duke’s captivity, and that his wounds were not serious: “_M’sieur le Duc, madame, estoit en bon santé; les Bourguignons l’avoient pris: il se trouv at Dijon demain_.”

Thus assured of her husband’s safety, Isabelle brushed away her tears and roused herself to action. Promptly she called together the Council of State, where she presided in person, and eloquently demanded that strong measures should at once be taken to carry on the war against Vaudémont and Philippe de Bourgogne, raise sufficient funds to make good losses, and secure the liberty of the Duke. The Council responded nobly and patriotically to the call of their Duchess; as the “_Chroniques de Lorraine_” has it: “They had pity upon her, for she had borne four sturdy children as comely as you might wish to see.” “_Elle fust allegrée!_” was the universal testimony to Isabelle’s worth as a wife and mother. Duchess Margaret, too, perhaps for the first time in her life of devotion, raised her voice, and called for the temporal sword to be reground to avenge the disaster. She accompanied her daughter, both mounted, to Vézelise, which Isabelle had appointed as the rendezvous of the new army, and personally enrolled companies and squadrons, fastening to each man’s helm a thistle--the cognizance of Lorraine. Then she addressed a protest to the victor of Bulgneville, in which she warned him not to approach Nancy, but to regard herself as his implacable foe until he should deliver up the Duke. Étienne Pasquier, the chronicler, sums up in ten words the courageous character of Duchess Isabelle. “Within the body of a woman,” he says, “the Duchess carries the heart of a man.” After warning Vaudémont, she concluded with him a truce of three months, during which period she went in person to Charles VII., who was then in Dauphiné, and implored his intervention and assistance. In her train was a young Maid of Honour, Agnes Sorel, whose beauty and _naïveté_ rightly affected that unstable monarch; it was an introduction which ripened later on into something more intimate than mere admiration.

Duchess Margaret also greatly bestirred herself. Hearing that her uncle, the Duke of Savoy, and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Berry, were at Lyons awaiting the coming of King Charles, she posted off there, taking with her as advisers the Bishops of Toul and Metz. In company with the King of France was no less a person than Queen Yolande, his mother-in-law--

“Aussi vient en icelle ville, Accompaignée de demoiselles, La noble Royne de Cecile.”

“There also came to the same town, accompanied by Maids of Honour, the noble Queen of Sicily.”

as we read in the “_Heures de Charles VII._”

René was not kept long at Talant, but transferred to the fortress of Bracon, near Salines. His imprisonment varied in severity; at times he was treated roughly, half starved and unclothed, with no resources or intercourse with friends outside. Then he was served with dignity befitting his rank, and granted facilities for the better occupation of his time. But what a staggering blow was his misfortune to all his dreams and aims of honour, glory, and sovereignty!

Lorraine was in a terrible state, and so was Barrois; men knew not what to do nor whom to trust. Overrun with soldiers of fortune and the riff-raff of foreign camp-followers, security for person and for property was no more. Vaudémont made, however, no use of his victory--at least, so far as pressing his claims to the duchy. Everywhere his cause was unpopular; indeed, he found himself in the very unusual and humiliating position of a victor denied the fruits of his victory. He disbanded his army and retired from Lorraine, and took up his abode with his ally, Philippe of Burgundy, and there awaited developments. René found means to communicate with his desolated wife, and forwarded instructions to the Estates of Lorraine and Barrois to acknowledge and serve Duchess Isabelle as Lieutenant-General during his captivity. She entered upon her responsible duties with the utmost fortitude and courage. All historians testify to her indefatigable zeal and administrative ability.

Whilst the two Duchesses were doing all they could to effect the Duke’s release and maintain the rights of Lorraine and Barrois, René himself made a direct appeal to Philippe of Burgundy, and on March 1, 1432, he proposed certain terms to his royal gaoler. They were as follows: (1) The acceptance by the Duke of Burgundy of Duke René’s two young sons, Jean and Louis, as hostages for their father; (2) the cession of the castles of Clermont en Argonne, Châtille, Bourmont, and Charmes; and (3) the payment of the Burgundian troops in full for all arrears. Philippe accepted these hard conditions, and added to their harshness by fixing a ransom of 20,000 _saluts d’or_. At the same time thirty nobles of Lorraine and Barrois offered themselves in lieu of the two young Princes.

This contract Philippe submitted to the Comte de Vaudémont for his approval, which he gave after much consideration, but required the insertion of a clause to the effect that his son Ferri should be betrothed to Yolande, Duke René’s eldest daughter, then not quite three years old, and that she should receive a dowry of 18,000 _florins de Rhin_ for the purchase of an estate in Lorraine, and he added very cunningly a proviso that residuary rights to the duchy should be settled upon the issue of the marriage. This was with grim vengeance the hoisting both of the Duke and the Count upon their own petards. Such an extraordinary arrangement was, perhaps, never before contrived by the craft of man.

At Nancy in the Queen’s apartments there was sorrow keen. Isabelle’s heart was stabbed to the core. Could she part with her dear children? That was the question she had to answer. The other clauses of René’s charter of freedom were serious enough, to be sure, but none of them weighed upon a mother’s heart as did this. As she looked out upon the pleasaunce whence came echoes of childish laughter, her will failed her. No, there they were, Jean and Louis, lovely boys of six and four, too tender much to leave her fostering care, too young to face the rigours of captivity. And yet her dearly loved husband, René, could not be left in durance vile; his liberty was of the first importance, and no sacrifice would be too great to bring him home to her again. What should she do? First of all she knelt in prayer to God, and implored the aid of St. Mary and the saints. St. George was for Lorraine. Then she hied her to the boudoir of her mother, Duchess Margaret, and fell upon her bosom, sobbing violently, the woman with the courage of a man! Those tears, however, washed away her momentary want of resolution, and when she had laid bare her troubles before her sympathetic parent, the answer to her prayers came through the same devoted channel.

“Isabelle, my child,” the old Duchess said, “dry your tears, and thank God in any case, for this trouble will pass. St. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, feels for you, the mother of her boys. She inspires me, too, and I am ready to take the dear children myself to Dijon or wherever our René may be, and to remain with them till Philippe of Burgundy plays the man and the Christian and releases them, and then our René shall fold thee to his heart ere many suns have set.”

This pious and heroic resolution of the good-living Duchess-Dowager was, perhaps, no more than Isabelle expected. She, of course, could not take her hand off the helm of State, but her mother was a _persona grata_ at the Burgundian Court; at least, she had been so when she came as a bride to Nancy many years before. The long and the short of the matter was that Duke René was released from his prison on March 1, 1432. He gave his parole to return there within a twelvemonth if the conditions of his freedom were not complied with.

By a curious concatenation of circumstances the arrival of Duchess Margaret and her two little grandsons at Dijon synchronized with that of the Duke of Burgundy. He had been away in Flanders and in the English camp on political business, and had postponed the bestowal of rewards and honours upon his adherents at Bulgneville. Now he called a Chapter of the “Order of the Toison d’Or” at Bracon, of all places in the duchy, apparently forgetful of the fact that his royal prisoner was there. The fortress possessed two towers; in one of these René was confined,--henceforward known as _La Tour de Bar_. There were three floors; on the topmost were the Duke’s two chambers, below certain Lorraine prisoners of distinction were accommodated, and the guard occupied the ground-floor. The other tower contained the regalia and the archives of the Order. A very pleasant story is told of a meeting of the two Dukes at Tour de Bar, and it delightfully illustrates the French proverb, “_Noblesse oblige_.” On the day of the Chapter the Duke of Burgundy, passing the portal of René’s tower, cast up his eyes, and beheld his prisoner looking out of a window. He tossed up his bare hand in token of recognition, and sent an officer up to René’s chamber with a request that he would permit him to enter and hold converse there. Such a demand appealed, of course, instantly to the chivalrous instinct of the Duke of Lorraine and Bar, and the two Sovereigns clasped each other’s hand in silence. Philippe’s heart failed him at the greeting of his captive, and he shed tears. Whilst the Princes were so engaged, a noble of the Court of Dijon approached his liege and delivered him a despatch, the perusal of which greatly affected him. It was, indeed, the intimation that Duchess Margaret of Lorraine was in attendance with René’s two young boys at the palace in Dijon, awaiting Duke Philippe’s pleasure. He communicated the intelligence to Duke René, who covered his face with his hands and sank to his seat in a conflict of emotions.

Duke Philippe, laying his hand on his prisoner’s shoulder, said: “_La parole du Duc du Bar est plus forte que les ôtages!_” Then he added: “Pray, Monseigneur, consider the portals of the Tour de Bar open to your orders. Let us go together and greet the good Duchess Margaret. You and she and your children shall be set forth this day to Nancy. May the good God cheer your way!” This was magnanimity incarnate--a choice trait of the days of _la vraie chivalrie_! To describe the joy of René as he once more caressed his sons and kissed the hand of his mother-in-law, and to set forth the rejoicings at Nancy, and, indeed, all along that joyous march from Dijon, with the blessedness of reunion between Isabelle and her spouse, would tax the pen of any ready writer. René was free, and Philippe had attained his apogee. Joy-bells rang, voices cheered, and Lorraine and Barrois gave themselves over to unbridled festivity; whilst the Duke and Duchess and their two brave boys made a royal progress, whereon they were nearly torn to pieces by their enthusiastic subjects. René and Isabelle once more visited every town, and personally thanked all and sundry for their loyalty and affection.

But business is business even in royal circles, and the Estates of Lorraine and Bar were assembled by the Sovereigns to consider and fulfil the terms of René’s charter of liberty. The crux was the amount of the money ransom, and how to raise it. Both duchies were stripped bare of resources, prolonged wars had impoverished the nobles, and had brought upon all classes great privations. In Anjou and Provence much the same conditions existed, and Queen Yolande had as much as she could do to make all ends meet. King Charles VII. was a fugitive or little better, he had no money, and the Duke of Brittany had his own responsibilities and cares. The only wealthy member of the Sicily-Anjou family was the Queen of Naples, and she was financing King Louis III. and his conflict with the King of Aragon. Nevertheless something had to be done, and René and Isabelle together put their pride into their pocket and made approaches to their unlovely relative. Queen Yolande and Duchess Margaret also backed up the appeal.

René embarked at Marseilles directly Queen Giovanna’s reply reached him, for she demanded that his request for assistance should be made in person at Aversa. It was not a very pleasant prospect that presented itself to the Duke of Bar-Lorraine. The ill-fame of the Queen of Naples had by no means been lessened by her attempted liaison with his elder brother, King Louis. Nevertheless, René was prepared to pay a high price for the 20,000 _saluts d’or_, but Isabelle had no fear for his honour. The mission was a failure. The Queen’s price was impossible; and although René remained in dalliance upon her, and played the part of a complete courtier, so far as was possible for him to do, she dismissed her relative with a sneer and a refusal.

News of René’s failure reached Nancy before his own arrival, and resourceful Duchess Isabelle immediately set to work upon an alternative plan for securing the liberty of her consort. The city of Basel was then preparing to receive the Fathers of the Ecumenical Council of the Roman Church, and with them the citizens were required to welcome the Emperor of Germany, under whose protection they were. Sigismund was the son of Marie de France, sister of Louis I. of Sicily-Anjou. Moreover, he had married the Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria, a sister of Duchess Margaret.

Isabelle despatched a notable embassy to greet her uncle the Emperor, and at the same time to crave his sympathy and help. A very favourable reply came quickly back to Nancy, and with the returning Lorraine envoys travelled two Chamberlains of the Imperial Court, sent by the Emperor to escort René to Basel. Sigismund furthermore cited the Comte de Vaudémont to appear before him and state his case. A most patient hearing was granted by His Majesty to the arguments of the victorious Count, but on April 24 Sigismund ascended the imperial throne in the Cathedral of Basel, and there solemnly gave his judgment. He decreed that René was lawful Duke of Lorraine, that he should not be required to return to prison, and that further grace should be allowed for the payment of the ransom.

With scant reverence for the sacred edifice, and with much discourtesy to the Emperor and the dignitaries who sat with him as assessors,--the Papal Legate and the Patriarch of Constantinople,--Vaudémont indignantly refused to accept the imperial ruling, and demanded the immediate payment of the 20,000 _saluts d’or_ or the prompt return of Duke René to Bracon. Duchess Isabelle, who had courageously accompanied her husband, fell upon her knees before their stern, irreconcilable enemy, and pleaded with him to extend knightly magnanimity towards his prisoner. No! Vaudémont would have the duchy or René’s money or his person. René, gently raising his loving spouse, led her from the scene, and then, tenderly embracing her, he returned to where he had left Vaudémont scowling. “See,” said he, “here I am: take me at once to Dijon.” Before leaving the Imperial Court the Emperor beckoned to him, and, directing him to kneel, formally invested him with the temporalities of the duchy of Lorraine, and upon Isabelle he bestowed with the Papal benediction the honour of the “Golden Rose.”

Torn from the bosom of his family once more, René bore his misfortune like a man, and Isabelle rose superior to her trouble. Their noble bearing gained further the respect and good-will of all the Sovereigns and peoples of Europe, whilst the spleen and meanness of Vaudémont rendered him odious everywhere. René submitted obediently to the newly-imposed discipline. He beguiled his time by adorning the walls and windows of his chamber with sketches and paintings. What a thousand pities it is that none of those treasures have been preserved! Alas! France has suffered more than any other land from the suicidal tendencies of her people. Over and over again national passion has swept away works of art and historical memorials. King René’s frescoes have, with the fortress of Bracon, wholly disappeared. Music, too, and poetry, formed for him consolations. He composed _ballades_, he sang songs, sacred and profane. He played the viol and zither, and so whiled away some of the tedium of his captivity. “_Les Chroniques de Lorraine_,” note that “_il a sçu la musique, et marier la voix aulx doulx accents d’un luth, gémissant sous ses doigts_.”[A]

[A] “He knew music, and how to modulate his voice to the notes of a lute, striking it with his fingers.”

At Bracon was the Duke of Burgundy’s splendid library, to which René was freely admitted. There he studied painstakingly classical works in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.

Cut off as he was entirely from intercourse with his family, friends, and subjects, at times he gave way to melancholy, and regarded himself as unjustly treated by Providence. He craved to behold his children, and this longing was assuaged by the chivalrous consideration of the Duke of Burgundy, who permitted the little Princes Jean and Louis to visit their unhappy father in his prison.

II.

The years 1434 and 1435 were full of tragic happenings for René and Isabelle. Death claimed three important personages near of kin. All Lorraine mourned the saintly Duchess Margaret. She died in her devoted daughter’s arms during the feast of Pentecost, and they buried her beside her consort, Charles II., in the ducal tomb at St. George-by-the-Gate. Her quiet influence had been all for good, both upon her children’s account and upon the morals of the Court and nation. She could, as we have seen, act the heroine as well as the devotee. Isabelle missed her mother’s goodly counsels more than she could express in words. René’s greatest loss was undoubtedly his brother, Louis III., King of Sicily-Anjou and Naples. This bereavement wholly changed the position and prospects of the Bar-Lorraine ducal family; for Louis dying without surviving issue, all his honours, titles, and dominions, were inherited by his next brother, René.

This event, and what it meant for René, were the climax of his career. The proclamation of the new King was a tragedy and a travesty combined. The pathos of his position was emphatic. The news stunned him--powerless and wellnigh nerveless, hopeless and wellnigh demented. He had not regained his equanimity, when the mockery of his fate was borne still more cruelly upon him in the intelligence that reached him on February 2, 1435, in the Tour de Bar, of the demise of Queen Giovanna II., whose will named him her successor as King of Naples.

Louis died of fever at Cosenza, the capital of Calabria, on November 15, 1434, lamented by his enemies as well as by his friends. His devoted mother was not with him. She was broken-hearted at the news which reached her at Angers. Alas that so gallant a soldier-King should be cut off so suddenly and so prematurely in the first bloom of his manhood! Cast down with grief unspeakable and mute, his girl-wife--still a bride--Marguerite, consoled his last hours. No child had come to bless their union, and the palpitating passion of the honeymoon was naturally cooling. The stress, too, of martial movements separated all too soon and too frequently the bridal couple. Still, Queen Marguerite ministered tenderly to her sick spouse, and her love burst forth in undiminished fervency as she realized that death would so cruelly part them. Very nobly and unselfishly, Louis in his will,--very strangely, made exactly to the day a year before,--required all honour to be paid to his widow, for his sake as well as for her own, and left her the bulk of his private property--alas! greatly diminished by the expenses of his military campaigns. Moreover, he expressly directed that she should be free to go where she would,--if not to Anjou, then to her home again in Savoy,--and he besought her, “for the love she bore him, not to pine away in sadness, but to choose some good man and marry him, for the relief of nature and for the love of God.”

Marguerite buried Louis with the burial of a King, and built a monument to his memory in the cathedral, and she directed that the sword of Lancelot, the British knight whom Louis had unhorsed at tilt and slain, should be suspended over the royal burying-place. Then she speeded back to her father’s Court, not adventuring herself at Naples, where Queen Giovanna lay a-dying. Good and true wife that she was, she kept her sorrow silently and unaffectedly for twelve long years, and then she married another Louis--Louis IV., Duke of Bavaria. Short was again this second union, for after another two years’ widowhood she married, for a third time, Ulric VII., Count of Würtemberg, in 1452. At Stuttgart, after so many tragic changes, Queen-Duchess-Countess Marguerite settled down, and lived seventeen years in peace and happiness, drawing her last breath upon the very day of November, the 15th, which had witnessed the marriage vows of Louis III. and herself just thirty-six years before.

Duchess Isabelle de Lorraine, now Queen of Sicily-Anjou and Naples, with her accustomed promptitude, despatched a messenger to the King in prison, announcing her instant departure for Naples. She sapiently understood that her presence in Italy was essential if the crown of Naples was to rest securely upon her husband’s head. She would receive the allegiance of the Neapolitans in his name, and administer the government as his Lieutenant-General. On November 28 she left Nancy with her second son, Louis, Marquis of Pont-à-Mousson, and travelled post-haste into Provence. Again her presence kindled the most enthusiastic expressions of commiseration for the lot of the King and Count, and of devotion to his person and to herself. Men and money poured in upon her. She welcomed all, and accepted gratefully everybody’s contribution.

From Marseilles the Queen and her following sailed to Genoa, where the Doge and the nobles gave her a right royal reception, and volunteered help and amity. Thence to Milan the intrepid traveller took her way, where she gained over the Duke, and he made René’s cause his own. In Rome, Pope Eugenius IV. blessed her and her son, and conjured all the Italian States to lend their aid. Her arrival at Naples was so entirely unexpected by the Alfonsists that they were not only checkmated in their attempt on King René’s inheritance, but were thrown into a panic, from which they were unable to rally.

The Neapolitans of every grade and class welcomed their new Queen and her five great galleys, filled with the flower of Provence, Milan, and Genoa, with every manifestation of joy and loyalty. Her charms of person transported them, her intrepidity roused them, and her gracious words delighted them. The old love of Naples for the House of Anjou returned, and every adherent of the Spanish King was cast out. Queen Isabelle had very soon more serious work in hand than graciously acknowledging the salutations of the enthusiastic citizens. King Alfonso was at the gates of Naples with a strong force on land and sea. She in person assumed command of the loyal troops in the capital, appointed trusty commanders, and placed Naples in a good state of defence. Besieged rigorously by the Spanish army, the Queen directed sorties which were perfectly successful, and the enemy retreated to a more respectful distance. In one of these affrays, Dom Pedro, brother of the King of Aragon, was slain, and Queen Isabelle, with a spirit of chivalry worthy of a noble knight and a magnanimous Sovereign, offered his dead body royal sepulchral rites in the cathedral.

During Queen Isabelle’s absence from Lorraine, King René named their eldest son, Jean, now Duke of Calabria,--the traditional title of the heir to the throne of Naples,--as his Lieutenant-General in Barrois and Lorraine, child though he was, not yet ten years old. Nominally he was placed under the tutelage and guardianship of Queen Yolande, who made a progress to Nancy to assist in carrying out her son’s command, and to look after the two little “orphaned” girls, Yolande and Marguerite, her granddaughters. Most prudently she abstained, as might have been expected from her high-toned character, from interfering in any affairs of State in these two eastern duchies of her son’s dominions. Four high officials she selected to direct the policy of the palace and safeguard the crown, all men of proven probity and loyal disinterestedness, and to them she, by René’s wish, delegated the actual charge of the young Duke: Jehan de Fenestranger, Grand Marshal; Gerard de Harancourt, Seneschal; Jacques de Harancourt, Bailli or Mayor of Nancy; and Philippe de Lenoncourt, tutor to the young Princes.

Queen Yolande having seen all these matters settled, and having named Anne, Countess of Vaudémont, _governante_ of the two young Princesses, she took her departure to Provence and Marseilles, there to await the course of events in Naples. The appointment of a Vaudémont must have struck most people as extraordinary. The Countess was mother of the implacable Count Antoine, and it was due to Queen Yolande’s remarkable foresightedness that she was chosen. She saw the perils ahead caused by the number and dispersion of the dominions of the crowns unfortunate King René had not yet put upon his head. It appeared to her that Naples and Sicily would be the chief appanage, and require the presence of the Sovereign almost continuously. Anjou and Provence might fall to the government of René’s second son, and then Bar and Lorraine would go to his daughters, perhaps upon their marriage. Vaudémont would never relax his efforts to gain Lorraine. Might not a matrimonial alliance between a son of his and a granddaughter of her own, thought the Queen, solve amicably and profitably a very vexed question?

All the while that Queen Isabelle was holding Naples for her consort and keeping Alfonso of Aragon in check, nothing was neglected which might hasten the release of the royal captive. With commendable astuteness Isabelle made overtures to her namesake Isabelle, Duchess of Burgundy, and her efforts were seconded on the spot by Queen Yolande. Isabelle of Portugal was in disposition and tastes very much like the late lamented Duchess of Lorraine--much affected by religion, by charity, by pity. The separation of the King of Sicily-Anjou and Naples from his family, and the sorrows of his Queen, appealed to her womanly sympathy. She talked long and well to Duke Philippe, and at last succeeded in gaining his signature to a decree of pardon and an order of release for the distinguished captive. Under her persuasion the amount of the ransom was halved, and René’s liberty was unlimited.

King René of Sicily-Anjou and Naples was set free from durance vile at Bracon on November 25, 1436. No doubt this achievement was greatly due to the urgent pressure of all the Sovereigns of France, headed by King Charles VII.; indeed, the Duke of Burgundy had hardly any choice in the matter, for Arthur de Richemont, brother of the Duke of Brittany and Constable of France, who was the bearer of the united royal protest, gave him plainly to understand that the retention of René at Bracon would mean the immediate invasion and devastation of the duchy.

René went off at once to Nancy and Bar-le-Duc, there to be welcomed by his subjects and to thank personally his many warm friends and helpers. After embracing his children, he hurried on to Angers, where Queen Yolande greeted him tenderly and made him rest and refresh himself. She had been busy, as was her wont, in more matrimonial adventures, and now she broached the subject of the betrothal of the young Duke of Calabria, her eldest grandson. The bride she had chosen for him, with Queen Isabelle’s approval, was the Princess Marie, a daughter of the Duke of Bourbon, a little motherless girl who had been under her care for some time. She was a granddaughter of King John II. the Good, and niece and ward of the Duke of Burgundy, who dowered her with 50,000 _écus d’or_.

There was, however, not much time for King René to waste in festivities. He set off to thank King Charles, the Duke of Brittany, and all the other friendly Princes who had so greatly aided his deliverance. Then he hastened by water,--the usual method of quick transit,--down to his favourite Provence, where the transports of delight with which he was welcomed surpassed all former demonstrations. He wanted men and money,--and Provence was never backward in contributions for her Count,--for his next move was to be to Naples, to embrace his noble Queen and relieve her of her heavy responsibilities.

The usual course was taken by the royal galley. Genoa was the rendezvous, as of old. The Genoese gave their visitor a splendid reception. His romantic career had greatly affected them, and now that they beheld his gracious person their delight knew no bounds. Never had a royal visitor such an ovation in Liguria. The famous Tommaso Fregoso, the Doge, lodged him in the Ducal Palace, the streets were wreathed in spring greenery, and all the maids and matrons of the proud city combed out their rich brown, lustrous locks of hair, jauntily fixed their white lace veils with jewelled pins, and put on their best attire and massive chains of gold. At the entrance of the Piazza di San Lorenzo one hundred of the fairest of the fair scattered flowers before King René’s white steed of state, and six of the prettiest and the noblest were dedicated to his personal wish and disposition. This indeed was a Scriptural and a patriarchal custom, but always duly observed in decorous and sensuous Genoa. But again pleasure had to give way to business, and King René had the satisfaction of sailing out of that famous harbour followed by a goodly flotilla of fighting ships well found.

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.

The galley bearing back to Marseilles those whom he most loved had hardly passed beyond the horizon of the Bay of Naples when René took action. On September 22 an Anjou herald appeared in the camp of King Alfonso, and threw down King René’s bloodstained glove as a challenge, first to a personal encounter between the two Kings, and then to a combat _à l’outrance_ between the two armies. On the part of Alfonso, who was on his way from his Milan prison, the challenge was accepted by his chief of the staff, who indicated the locality for the trials of chivalry and force,--the level country between Nola and Arienzo, at the foot of Vesuvius. Single combat was denied by Alfonso, and then René attacked his rival with all the forces at his command. Numerically again, as at the stricken field of Bulgneville, the Angevine army was much the stronger, for under René’s banner marched the Milan-Genoese contingent, with Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, at its head. René’s fleet, too, was at anchor in the bay, commanded by the intrepid Admiral Jehan de Beaufort, to act in conjunction with the land forces of his King. The Spanish army was better disciplined and better furnished with artillery, and King René once more had to bow to circumstances, and to look in vain for Fortune’s smile. His forces were cut in two and slaughtered right and left, and he himself wounded and all but captured, for he was not a leader to skulk behind his men: he led the van, and was ever in the thick of the fight. His appeal, “_Anjou-Cecile! Amor Chevaliers!_” was of no avail. He was beaten, and fled with only two knights, and shut himself in Castel Nuovo. A truce was signed, and the King of Naples went off to report his defeat at Rome, Florence, and Genoa.

Pope Eugenius IV. and the Emperor Joannes Paleologos, who were both at Florence, received the royal fugitive ardently, blessed him, and awarded him and his heirs, disregarding the victory of King Alfonso, the right to govern the Two Sicilies in perpetuity. The Medici and other Florentines of mark and wealth offered subsidies for the recovery of the Neapolitan throne, and at Genoa and Milan men and supplies were to be had for the asking; but René had had his fill of war, and bloodshed was now to him abhorrent. “Too much blood,” he remarked, “has been shed already. We will rest awhile, and ask God to pardon our sins.” René returned to Marseilles in 1442 a sadder and a wiser man. There he met once more his Queen, to rejoice his stricken heart; but that heart, and hers too, tenderly bled again and again, for not only did the melancholy news of his good mother’s death in Anjou shatter him, but Isabelle and he had the terrible grief of parting with their dearly-loved second son, the Marquis of Pont-à-Mousson. Prince Louis, so promising, so handsome, and so loyal, they buried sadly: he was his mother’s favourite child, the companion of her triumphs and her trials.

King René was called from his grief over the tomb of his young son to Tours by Charles of France. To the French Court had come Ambassadors, with the Earl of Suffolk at their head, to treat for peace between the two conflicting kingdoms. The French King, with his usual lassitude, deputed to King René the conduct of the deliberations, which ended honourably for all parties concerned, in the guarantee of two years’ cessation of hostilities, with the acknowledgment of in _statu quo_. Nearer home, however, matters were not so stable; the state of the allied duchies was deplorable. So insecure were the roads in Lorraine,--infested by wandering bands of discontented peasantry and ill-affected townspeople,--that travelling was attended with the utmost danger. The higher the dignity of a wayfarer, the greater the eagerness to attack and pilfer. Queen Isabelle was herself the victim of a dastardly outrage. Journeying forth soon after her dear son Louis’s death, to pray at his grave at Pont-à-Mousson, her cortège was attacked by a party of marauders from Metz. They compelled her to leave her litter, with its cloth of gold curtains and luxurious cushions, and subjected her to rough treatment in spite of her protestations.

“You villains!” she cried, “you know perfectly who I am. How dare you offer this gross insult to your Sovereign! Begone, and let me pass. You shall richly pay for your temerity.” Jeers and offensive remarks greeted this haughty command. They cared nothing for Isabelle nor her consort; indeed, they were unrighteous allies of the Count of Vaudémont. The Duchess was stripped of her jewellery, her _coffrets_ were rifled, and her servants beaten, and then the miscreants made off.

The Queen hastily returned to Nancy, and laid the matter before the Council, demanding satisfaction. “Unless you, my lords,” she said, “at once make a strong representation to the Governor of Metz, I will set off to Anjou, and bring the King back to recompense the miscreants.” All the chivalry of France was shocked at this amazing outrage, and King Charles, with Arthur de Richemont and a strong force, hurried into Lorraine from Dauphiné, determined to make an example of the gross behaviour of the Messins. The city barricaded her gates, sounded the tocsin, and prepared to resist, if might be, the united forces of France. The besieged held out for six months, flinging taunt on taunt against the King and Queen. At last it fell, and the price the rebels had to pay was onerous, besides the forfeiture of all their charters and privileges. A general amnesty was granted on February 27, 1445, in Barrois as well as in Lorraine. The Messins signalized their deliverance by offering to their liege Lord complete allegiance, together with 25,000 _écus d’or_ enclosed in a splendid gold and enamelled vase.

René now for the first time in his thirty years of public service and command found himself in the possession of that rare blessing, Peace, and he prepared to celebrate it adequately. Isabelle, too, was only too thankful for the respite; her sorrows and anxieties had wellnigh broken her courageous heart. After she parted with her husband in the Bay of Naples, she landed at Marseilles, and made all haste to Angers, too late, indeed, to soothe the last moments of her noble mother-in-law, but drawn there by the tranquillity of Anjou. There she gave herself to the education of her two young daughters, to whom she was happily reunited--Marguerite just thirteen, and Yolande a year younger. René again joined his spouse, whom he loved so fondly, and in whose honour he had adopted a new royal motto and cipher, “_Ardent Désir_,” below a burning brasier. They gave themselves up to religious exercises, and led a calm and retired life--precious to them both after the alarums of the past. The world was still very young for them both--René no more than thirty-seven, and Isabelle two years his junior.

The most delightful ingredient in their full cup of joy was the home-coming of their son and heir, Prince Jean, Duke of Calabria and Lieutenant-General of Barrois-Lorraine. During eleven strenuous years he and his devoted parents had rarely met. He had zealously, after their brave example, addressed himself to his public duties, and had won golden opinions from the loyal subjects of the throne. He was nearing his majority, and with him came his young wife Marie, whose marriage had been but lately accomplished. They were stepping bravely together along the marital way, which their grandparents and their parents had traversed, unscathed by scandal and beloved by all.

Great festivities were organized at Angers, Tarascon, and Nancy, to celebrate the general peace, and in particular the betrothal of Princess Marguerite d’Anjou. A magnificent tournament was held between Razilly and Chinon in the summer of 1446, which attracted all the most famous knights in France and beyond the frontiers and an immense crowd of spectators. One there was, and she one of the fairest of the fair, came riding beside her father, one of King René’s dearest friends, Count Guy de Laval; and the King for the first time set eyes upon lovely Jehanne, who was destined to mingle her destiny with his right on to his dying day. René caused “_Le Châtel de Joyeuse Garde_” to be built of wood richly adorned with paintings, tapestries, and garlands, and for forty days jousts and floral games engaged the attention of the gallant and beauteous company. A very singular and popular custom was inaugurated at the King’s suggestion. Four knights of proved probity crossed their lances in the roadway beyond the Castle of Chinon. Cavaliers, accompanied by their ladies fair, were made to fight their way through and carry safe their sweethearts. A faint heart lost his lady, a knight unhorsed his horse, and a victorious competitor his sash of knighthood, which was immediately tied to the crupper of his fair one’s palfrey. The King himself took his place in the “Lists” in black armour; his mantle was of black velvet sewn with silver lilies of Anjou, and his well-trained charger was black also. Queen Isabelle and her ladies occupied a flower-decked tribune, and with her was poor young Queen Marguerite and her son’s child-wife, Marie. They were the Queens of the Tournament, but the damosel Jehanne de Laval was “Queen of Beauty,” scarce thirteen years old.

Alas! a deadly “bolt shot out of the blue.” The Duchess of Calabria had but just risen from childbed; she was not strong enough to bear the excitement and the toil of such tumultuous gaiety, and upon the last day of the tournament she fainted in the royal tribune, and breathed out her brief life before she could be borne to couch. Thus into life’s sweetest joys comes sadly too often the relentless bitterness of sorrow. Faces which only a few short hours before were wreathed in smiles were furrowed with the ravages of grief ere the curfew sounded. The tournament ended in a “Triumph of the Black Buffaloes.” Happily, perhaps, the child died too, and both sweet bodies were consigned to one flower-decked grave in the chapel garden of the Castle of Saumur,--“_la gentille et la bien assise_,”--a paradise of fragrant trees and pleasant prospects.

Dire news, too, reached Angers from Provence. A winter of unparalleled inclemency was followed by a famine and a pest, which decimated people and domestic animals, and wrought havoc with the crops. René and Isabelle took boat once more for their southern province, and their “_le bon roy_,” as he was now called affectionately by his subjects, laid himself out to alleviate his people’s sufferings. Taxes were remitted, the poor fed and clothed, and farms restocked. “_La bonté_,” he said, “_est la première grandeur des roys_.” People noted the King’s grey hair--hair “white less by time than white through trouble,” as chroniclers have written. Trouble makes all the world akin: the King and Queen bore their people’s, and they humbly shared their rulers’ griefs.

The clouds cleared off that sunny land, and birds once more sang in the meadows, and men and maids were gay. Then it was Tarascon’s turn to celebrate the virtues of the Count and Countess of Provence. A Provençal tournament was a celebration _ne plus ultra_, and René made that of 1448 famous and unique by his institution of the knightly “_Ordre du Croissant_.” To be sure, it was established at Angers, whose warrior-patron, St. Maurice, was honoured as guardian and exemplar of chivalry, and in whose cathedral church the banners of the knights were hung. The King himself drew up the statutes of the Order. With characteristic and chivalrous modesty, he named, not himself First Master, but chose Guy de Laval for that honourable post. Conditions of membership were dictated by religion, courtesy, and charity, in harmony; only knights of goodly birth and unblemished reputation were eligible. They were enjoined to hear Mass daily and to recite the daily “Hours.” Fraternal love was to be exemplified in all dealings with their fellow-men at large. An impious oath or an indecent jest was never to pass their lips. Women and children were in a special sense committed to their care. The poor and ailing were to engage their best offices. Debts of every sort and gambling under every guise were absolutely forbidden. With respect to the fair sex, the code of rules had in golden letters the following order: “_De ne mesdire des femmes de quelques estats quelles soient pour chose qui doibue d’advenir_.” The knights first impanelled, having taken their oaths of obedience and accepted service, departed from Anjou, and made their rendezvous at the King’s Castle of Tarascon on August 11. René himself again entered the “Lists,” but champion honours were carried off by his son-in-law, Ferri de Vaudémont, and Louis de Beauvais; and the Queen-Countess Isabelle placed floral crowns upon their brows, a golden ring upon their right hands, and received a kiss of homage upon her still smooth and comely cheek.

Nancy was the scene of the most magnificent gaieties Lorraine had ever beheld. The espousals of the Princess Marguerite and King Henry VI. were solemnized in the ancient Gothic church of St. Martin at Pont-à-Mousson by Louis d’Harcourt, Bishop of Toul. The King was represented by the gallant Earl of Suffolk, one of the most famous Knights in Europe. The ecclesiastical ceremony was rendered all the more auspicious by the joint nuptials of the Princess Yolande and Count Ferri de Vaudémont. All France,--Sovereigns, ladies, nobles, citizens,--thronged around the King and Queen; their congratulations were, however, restrained until the actualities of the Vaudémont marriage were revealed. To marry a dear child to the son of a man’s worst enemy appeared quixotic at the least, and few called to mind that strange clause in René’s charter of release from Bracon. The King was, as Duke Philippe of Burgundy had styled him, a man of his word; and if proof were wanted, then the appointment of the young bridegroom’s mother, the Countess, as _governante_ of René’s daughters furnished it. Besides this, the presence of the Count himself at the marriage of his son exhibited not only the reconciliation of the two rivals for the throne of Lorraine, but emphasized the innate chivalry of both. To be sure, Antoine de Vaudémont was in ill-health, his fighting days were over, and he was searching for comfort and absolution before he faced his end; and, in truth, that end was nearer than he thought, for he died six months after he had given his blessing to Ferri and Yolande.

A pretty and characteristic story is told of the loves of Ferri and Yolande. King René was wishful that his daughter and future son-in-law should attain more mature age before the consummation of Count Antoine’s wishes concerning them. The young knight, “who was,” wrote Martial, “regarded among men and youths much as Helen of Troy was among her companions,”--a very handsome fellow,--chafed at delay, and, emboldened by the vows of his fiancée, one dark, windy night he with two trusty comrades broke into her boudoir, where she, ready for the signal, awaited her lover. Romeo carried his Juliet away to Clermont in Argonne, and held her till her father consented to their marriage. This story is contained in an old manuscript, the handiwork of Louis de Grasse, the Sire of Mas.

Splendid fêtes covering eight full days followed the Church ceremonies. The “Lists” were held in the Grande Place of Nancy, in the presence of the right worshipful company, headed by Kings Charles and René and Queens Isabelle, Marie, and Margaret. Quaintly Martial d’Auvergne wrote in “_Les Vigiles de Charles VII._”:

“Les Roynes de France, Sécille, La Fiancée et la Dauphine, Et d’autres dames, belles filles, Si en firent devoir condigne.”

“The Queens of France and Sicily, The Bride and the Dauphine, And many other dames of honour, Compelled the homage of the men.”

All the _châtelaines_ forsook their _manoirs_ and took the field-marital in force. Mars had come in strength, Venus would join the fray, and victory was never doubtful. If comely, gallant, doughty knights fell not in deathly conflict in those “Lists” of love, their hearts were captured by fair vanquishers all the same.

“En gagea sans retour Son cœur et sa liberté,”

describes those battle-fields of Cupid’s warfare!

The pageantry of the tournament over, the panoply of the encampment claimed the knightly company of Nancy, and a mighty cavalcade--ladies, too, in litter and on palfrey--ambled off serenely to the great wide plains of Champagne, where René and Charles reviewed at Châlons-sur-Marne the united armies of all the crowns. It was a sight which stirred all the best blood in France, and spoke to her Sovereigns and her statesmen of a new age, when the artifices of war should give place to the arts of peace. Alas! when human things appear to promise peace and joy, there ever comes over the scene the pall of Providence. War again broke out between France and England, but now the French held their own and more; and King René, revived in military ardour, led the victorious vanguard, and crowned his bays of triumph by new palms of peace.

Sad news came to him, however, when in Normandy, from his ancestral Angers. His devoted and dearly loved Queen, Isabelle, was laid low with illness. Stalking fever had crossed the castle moat and fixed its baneful touch upon the royal _châtelaine_. Do what she would,--and her will to the end was vigorous enough,--she could not shake off the deadly visitant. She felt that her end was approaching unrelentlessly, and with admirable piety the noble, high-toned Queen controlled her pains, and patiently prepared herself to face her last foe with courageous resignation. Her children were gathered by her bedside--Jean and Yolande in person, Marguerite in spirit, and perhaps Louis, too, from his tomb at Pont-à-Mousson. Quietly and prayerfully on February 28, 1453, she passed away to join her babes in Paradise, and “Black Angers” was plunged in deepest mourning.

The death of a great Queen deeply affects men and women everywhere. Isabelle’s name, like that of “good Queen Yolande,” had become a household word in Europe far and wide. Everywhere tokens of bereavement were displayed, and King René, the royal widower, hastening home too late to close his fond wife’s eyes in death, wrote in his tablets: “Since the life of my dear, dear wife has been cut off by death, my heart has lost its love, for she was the mainspring of my consolations.” In every one of his “_Livres des Heures_,” and in other books and places, the artist in the Sovereign painted and drew the features and the figure of his Queen.

Their married life,--chequered as it had been,--had been as happy as could be. Devoted to one another with a rare force of faithfulness which knew no flaw, René and Isabelle were examples for their generation. No stone has ever been cast at either of them. Nine children were born to them: four, Charles, René, Anne, and Isabelle, died in infancy; Nicholas, their third son, was a twin with Yolande, born in 1428; he had the title of Duke of Bar, but died before his majority. Good Queen Isabelle was buried in the Cathedral of Angers, where nearly forty years later René’s bones were laid beside her ashes, to mingle in the common decay till the last trump shall sound to wake the dead.

There cannot be a better summing up of her gifts, her graces and her virtues than in the words of the sententious life’s motto she herself composed, and wrote in golden letters upon parchment, and gave to each of her dear children:

“Si l’Amour fault, la Foy n’est plus chérie; Si Foy périt, l’Amour s’en va périe; Pour ce, les ay en devise liez Amour et Foy.”

“If Love fails, Faith becomes more precious; If Faith perishes, Love dies too; Whence Love and Faith together are my device.”