King René d'Anjou and His Seven Queens. Staley Edgcumbe
le fard et le vice,
Vous luy ostez l’âme et le corps.”
“Take away fashion and vice,
And you expose both soul and body.”
On her side Queen Yolande caused a sensation among the French courtiers. No one had ever seen such a wealth of gold and jewels as that which adorned the winsome Spanish Queen. In spite of their great dissimilarity in age, appearance, character, and manner, the two Queens became fast friends, and Yolande was permitted to weld the intimacy into a permanent relationship at the fortunate accouchement of Isabeau. With admirable simplicity and charm she assumed the charge of the royal infant, sponsored it, and gave it her own name added to Catherine. Born to be the consort of Henry V. of England, the victor of Azincourt, Catherine de Valois served as the gracious hostage and pledge of a greatly-longed-for peace.
Queen Yolande was, however, approaching her own accouchement, and Louis, judging that a fortified castle was not a desirable locality for such an auspicious event, hurried his consort and her boudoir entourage off to Toulouse, the gay capital of Languedoc—Toulouse of the Troubadours. There, upon September 25, 1403, within the palace, Yolande brought forth her first-born, her royal husband’s son and heir. Louis the bonny boy was named by the Archbishop at the font of St. Étienne’s Cathedral. Great was the joy over all the harvest-fields and vineyards of Provence and Languedoc. Perhaps the good folk of Aix felt themselves a little slighted. Why was not the happy birth planned for their capital? they asked. Nevertheless, they sent a goodly tribute of 100,000 gold florins to the cradle of the little Prince, and saluted him as “Vicomte d’Aix.”
The year 1404 had seasons of peculiar sorrow for the Angevine Court, followed, happily, by joyous days. On May 19 the King-Duke’s brother, Charles, Duke of Maine and Count of Guise, died suddenly at Angers—the “Black Death” they called his malady—amid universal regret. He had been content to play a subordinate rôle in the affairs of State—a man more addicted to scholarly pursuits than political activities. He had, however, proved himself the son of a good mother and the stay of his young sister-in-law from Aragon during her spouse’s absence from his own dominions. The Duke left one only child—a boy—who succeeded him as Charles II. of Maine. Queen-Duchess Marie felt her dear son’s untimely death acutely, and, notwithstanding the loving care of her devoted daughter-in-law, she never recovered from the prostration of her grief. Within a fortnight of the obsequies of her son, the feet of those who had so sorrowfully borne his body forth to burial were treading the same mournful path, tenderly bearing her own funeral casket.
Ever since her happy marriage to Louis I. in 1360, Marie de Châtillon-Blois had borne nobly her part as the worthy helpmeet of her spouse and the devoted mother of his children. For ten years after his death her gentle presence and wise counsels had directed the affairs of the House of Sicily-Anjou, and smoothed away all difficulties from the path of her son. She left immense wealth, which, added to the goodly fortune of Louis I., made her son the richest Sovereign in all France. It was said at the time that she was worth “more than twenty-two millions of livres.” “In spite of reputed avarice and hoarding,“ said a not too friendly historian, ”she was a sapient ruler, moderate and firm, and she left Anjou the better for a good example.” “Sachiez,” wrote Bourdigne of her, “que c’estoit une dame de goût faiet, et de moult grant ponchas, car point ne dormoit en poursuivant ses besoignes.”
These dark clouds hung heavily over Louis II. and Yolande, but the cause of their passing was a signal of enthusiastic joy. On October 14 a little baby-girl was born. Mary, the “Mother of Sorrows,” heard the prayer of the stricken Royal Family, and sent a new Mary to fill the place of the lamented Duchess; for the child was named Marie simply, and was offered to St. Mary for her own.
Troubles, however, were gathering thickly all over the devoted land of France. The enemy in the gate, ever victorious, plundered and pauperized every State in turn, so that the country was “like a sheep bleating helplessly before her shearers.” Tax-gatherers and oppressors of mankind beggared the poor and feeble, and spoiled the rich and brave. “Sà de l’argent? Sà de l’argent?”—“Where’s your money?”—was the desolating cry which the rough cailloux of the village pavé tossed through the draughty doorways of peasant cottages, and the smooth courtyards echoed through the mullioned windows of seigneurs’ castles. The gatherings, in spite of rape and rapine, fell far short of the requirements of these times of stress, and a general appeal was made to Queens and châtelaines to exercise their charms in staying the hands of ravishers. The famous answer of Queen Isabeau was that, alas! of Queen Yolande, though more sympathetically expressed: “Je suis une povre voix criant dans ce royaume, désireuse de paix et du bien de tous!”[A]
[A] “I am a poor voice crying helplessly in this wretched kingdom, seeking only peace and the good of all.”
This aptly expressed the weary sense of disaster which saw that fateful year expire, but for the King and Queen of Sicily-Anjou-Provence a gleam of the brightness of Epiphany fell athwart their marital couch. Yolande was for the third time a mother, and her child was a boy. Born on January 6, 1408, in a crenellated tower of the castle gateway of Angers, his mother had to bear the anxiety and the vigil all alone, for Louis II. was in Italy fighting for his own.
As before the birth of the Princess Marie devotions had been addressed to the Mother of God and to the saints for a favourable carriage, now, in view of the troubles of the land, special petitions were addressed to the most popular saint of Anjou, St. Renatus, that the new deliverance might presage a new birth of hope for France, and that the holy one—the patron of child-bearing mothers who sought male heirs—might supplicate at the throne of heaven for a baby-boy.
Baptized in the Cathedral of St. Maurice eight days after birth, the little Prince had for sponsors no foreign potentates, but men of good renown and substance in Anjou: Pierre, Abbé de St. Aubin; Jean, Seigneur de l’Aigle; Guillaume, Chevalier des Roches; and Mathilde, Abbée de Nôtre Dame d’Angers. The Queen by proxy named her child “René—reconnaissance à Messire St. Renatus.”
The Queen folded her little infant to her breast, but after weaning him she gave him over to the care of a faithful nurse, one Théophaine la Magine of Saumur, who came to love him, and he her, most tenderly.
Among the documens historiques of Anjou are Les Comptes de Roi René—notices of public works carried out in various parts of the royal-ducal dominions. Many of these enterprises were undertaken at the direct instance of Queen Yolande, and they throw a strong light upon her character as a loyal spouse and sapient ruler. For example, on July 26, 1408, a marché, or contract, was made between the Queen’s Council and one Julien Guillot, a master-builder, for reslating the roof of the living apartments and the towers of the Castle of Angers, and also of various public buildings in the city, and the manor-houses of Diex-Aye and de la Roche au Due, at an upset price of fifty-five livres tournois (standard gold coins), “to be paid when the work is complete, with twenty more as deposit.”
A MYSTERY OR MIRACLE PLAY, FIFTEENTH CENTURY
From “L’Album Historique de France”
To face page 60
Again, under date October 25, 1410, another marché was signed, whereby “Jean Dueceux and Jean Butort, master-carpenters of Angers, agree to strengthen the woodwork of the castle chapel and replace worn-out corbels. All to be finished against the Feast of the Magdalen, at a total cost of two hundred livres tournois, according to the order of Queen Yolande and her Council.” King Louis had in 1403 assigned a benefaction of twenty-five gold livres to the ancient chapel of St. John Baptist, to be paid yearly for ever, as a thank-offering for the birth of Princess Marie.
These documens are full of such notices, and they also record events of festive interest. One such incident had a most ludicrous dénouement: “On