King René d'Anjou and His Seven Queens. Staley Edgcumbe
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.
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