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.
[Illustration: KING LOUIS OF SICILY-ANJOU
(KING RENÉ’S FATHER)
From Coloured Glass Window, Le Mans Cathedral
_To face page 68_]
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.
[Illustration: COMMUNION OF A KNIGHT
Sculpture from Interior, Western Façade, Reims Cathedral
_To face page 74_]
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.
[Illustration: A ROYAL REPAST, FIFTEENTH CENTURY
PROCESSION OF THE KNIGHTS OF THE TABLE
From “L’Album Historique de France”
_To face page 80._]
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.
[Illustration: STREET SCENE IN AIX OF PROVENCE
FOREGROUND: MIRACLE OF ST. MAXIME
From a Painting by Nicholas Froment (1475-76). Aix Cathedral
_To face page 86_]
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.