II.
One glorious autumn morning in the good year 1399,—“good” because “the next before a brand-new century,” as said the gossips of the time,—a gallant cavalcade deployed down the battlemented approach to the grim old castle of Angers. At its head, mounted upon a prancing white Anjou charger, rode as comely a young knight as ever hoisted pennoned lance to stirrup-lock. He was dressed in semi-armour,—the armour of the “Lists.” His errand was not warlike, for knotted in his harness were Cupid’s love-ribbons: he was a royal bridegroom-elect speeding off to bring gaily home from distant Aragon his fair betrothed. He had been knighted ten years before by his uncle, Charles VI., at his coronation in Nôtre Dame in Paris, at which solemnity he had,—a slim lad of twelve,—held proudly the stirrup of the Sovereign.
Louis II. d’Anjou, born at the Castle of Toulouse on October 7, 1377, succeeded his father, Louis I., in 1389, and, like him, bore many titles of sovereignty: King of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem; Duke of Anjou, Calabria, Touraine, and Pouille; Grand Peer of France; Prince of Capua; Count of Provence, Maine, Forcalquier, and Piemont; Lord of Montpellier; and Governor of Languedoc and Guienne. His grandfather was the brave but unfortunate King John “the Good” of France; his grandmother, the beautiful but sorrowful Queen Bonne of Luxembourg and Bohemia.
The boy-King carrouselled through the lumbering gates of Angers that brilliant October morning between two trusty knights of his household,—loyal lieges of their late King now devoted to the service of the son. As valiant in deeds of war as discreet in affairs of State were Raymond d’Agout and Jehan de Morien. All three bore the proud cognizance of Sicily-Anjou,—the golden flying eagle,—and their silken bannerets were sewn with the white lilies of the royal house of France. A goodly retinue of mounted men followed the young King, guarding the person and the costly bridal gifts which accompanied the royal lover’s cortège.
Queen-Duchess Marie, his mother, had kept as Regent unweariedly her long ten years’ watch, not only over the business of the State, but also over the passions and the actions of her lusty, well-grown son. Many a maid,—royal, noble, and simple,—had attracted the comely youth’s regard, and had flushed her face and his. Women and girls of his time were, as an appreciative chronicler has noted, “franches, désintéressés, capable d’amours, épidémentés, elles restent naïve très longtemps, parceque les vices étrangères n’ont point pénetrés dans les familles.”[A] Louis had responded affectionately and loyally to his mother’s solicitude; he was famed as the St. Sebastian of his time, whose chastity and good report had no sharp shaft of scandal pierced.
[A] “Natural, open-hearted, amorous, and accessible, they are always unspoiled because odious foreign manners have never marred their home.”
The royal cavalcade pranced its way warily over the wide-rolling plains and across the gently cresting hill-country of Central France, making for the Spanish frontier. The whole of that smiling land was ravaged by foreign foes and overrun by native ne’er-do-wells, but, happily, no thrilling adventures have been recorded of that lengthy progress. Near upon the eve of St. Luke, King Louis II. and his suite were cordially welcomed in his royal castle of Montpellier, which the two mother-Queens, Marie and Yolanda, had indicated as the trysting-place. There the royal Court was established, whilst d’Agout and de Morien were despatched, with a lordly following, to Perpignan and across the frontier of Aragon to greet, at the Castle of Gerona, the two Yolandas—who were already on their way from Barcelona—and thence escort them to their Sovereign’s presence.
The young “Queen” was quite as anxious to meet her affianced husband as he was to embrace her, and no undue delay hindered the resumption of the queenly progress. It was a notable cortège, for Queen Yolanda, holding as she did tenaciously that her daughter was, at least, titular Queen of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, travelled in extravagant royal state. Besides the great chariot, with its tapestries and furniture of richest Hispano-Moorish origin, were others almost as sumptuous for the lords and ladies of the suite. All these had their guards of honour—trusty veterans of King Juan’s time, and devoted to their “Queen.” Great tumbrils, laden with costly products of Zaragoza, Barcelona, and Valencia,—the royal trousseau and magnificent offerings for King Louis and his widowed mother,—accompanied by well-mounted cavalry, rolled heavily along the ancient Roman road to France.
The whole of Languedoc agreed to pay honour to the royal travellers, and they revelled in the floral games and fêtes galants offered by every town and castle by the way. From Toulouse, the birthplace of the bridegroom-elect, came quite appropriately a phalanx of maintaineurs to Montpellier to recite and sing poems and melodies of the “Gaya Ciencia.” The green rolling hills of Languedoc gave back in sweetly echoing refrains the tuneful music of the shell-sown shores of the rolling sea, the sun-kissed Mediterranean: all sang the “Loves of Louis and Yolanda.”
There is a quaint and suggestive story anent the meeting of the august young couple which calls to mind the adventures of King Juan at the Court of Bar-le-Duc. The young King had timely warning of the approach of his royal bride-elect, and, hastily donning the guise of a simple knight, he mingled in the throng of enthusiastic citizens, unrecognized, at the entrance of the town. Both Queens leaned forward in their chariot to acknowledge the loyal greetings; and the bride,—arrayed in golden tissue of Zaragoza, and wearing Anjou lilies in her hair,—smiled and laughed and clapped her hands in ecstasy, the animation adding immensely to her charms of face and figure. King Louis was enraptured, and, falling head over ears in love, approached the royal carriage; and kneeling on his berretta, he seized the youthful Queen’s white, shapely hand, and implanted thereupon one ardent kiss. The impact sent the hot blood coursing through his veins, and it was as much as his esquire could do to drag his master back and hurry him to the palace in time to change his costume and receive his royal guests with courtly etiquette. The young Queen was conscious of this outburst of love; she, too, coloured, and tried in vain to penetrate the disguise of her impassioned lover. The mother-Queen instinctively guessed who he was, and quietly remarked: “You will meet your gallant knight again, and soon—and no mistake.”
Montpellier was all too small to accommodate such a numerous and such a distinguished company, so King Louis gave his royal visitors barely time to recover from the fatigues of the long coach-ride out of Spain when he hurried on the royal train to Arles, in Provence. Queen-Duchess Marie was already waiting at the great Archiepiscopal Palace to give the royal visitors a cordial greeting. After having waved her son adieu from the boudoir-balcony of the Castle of Angers, she, too, set out for the south. She had chosen Arles for the royal nuptials, as being the capital of the third great kingdom of Europe and the most considerable city in her son’s dominions.
No better choice could have been made from a psychological point of view, for have not the Arlésiennes been noted for all time for their perfect figures,—Venus di Milo was one of them,—their graceful carriage, and surpassingly good looks? They, with their menfolk, animated and merry, have always eaten well and well drunk. The delicious pink St. Peray is a more generous wine than all the vintages of Champagne. Physical charms and fin bouquets were ever incentives to love and pleasure, and Mars of Aragon yielded up his arms to Venus of Arles. Arles—la belle Grecque aux yeux Sarrazines! Perhaps the becoming, close-fitting black velvet chapelles, or bonnets, and the diaphanous white gauze veils, did much to express la grâce fière aux femmes!
It was indeed a gorgeous function at which the royal couple were united in the bonds of matrimony, that morrow of All Saints, 1399. The ancient basilica of St. Trophimus was one vast nave, no choir,—that the royal brothers Louis and René built a generation later,—but it was too circumscribed for the marriage ritual; consequently, under a gold and crimson awning, slung on ships’ masts beyond the deeply recessed chief portal, with its weird sculptures, the clergy took up their station to await the bridal pageant. The Cardinal-Archbishop, Nicholas de Brancas, joined the two young hands in wedlock, and Cardinal Adreano Savernelli, the Papal Legate, gave the blessing of Peter, whilst the two mother-Queens looked on approvingly.
The royal bride,—in white, of course,—had an over-kirtle, or train, of gemmed silver tissue—a thing of wonderment and beauty worn by her royal mother, and her mother, Marie de France, before her, and coming from the Greco-Flemish trousseau of the famous Countess Iolande. Her abundant brown-black hair was plaited in two thick ropes, with pearls and silver lace reaching far below the jewelled golden cincture that encompassed her well-formed bust. Upon her thinly covered bosom reposed the kingly medallion of her father, King Juan, with its massive golden chain of Estate, the emblem of her sovereign rank. Upon her finger she wore the simple ruby ring of betrothal, now to be exchanged for the plain golden hoop of marriage.
“Yolande is one of the most lovely creatures anybody could imagine.” So wrote grim old Juvenal des Ursins, the chatty chronicler of Courts. She brought to her royal spouse a rich dowry—much of the private wealth of her father and many art treasures, among them great lustred dishes and vases of Hispano-Moorish potters’ work, with the royal arms and cipher thereon. Four baronies, too, passed to the Sicily-Anjou crown: Lunel in Languedoc—famed for vintages of sweet muscatel wines—Berre, Martignes, and Istres, all bordering the salt Étang de Berre, in Provence, each a Venice in miniature, and rich in salt, salt-dues, and works. The royal bride’s splendid marriage-chests were packed full of costly products of King Juan’s kingdoms: table services in gold from Zaragoza and finely-cut gems; delicate glass arruxiados, or scent-sprinklers, and crystal tazzas from Barcelona—more famous than Murano; great brazen vessels from Valencia and richly-woven textiles.
The same veracious historian has painted a picture in words of the youthful Yolande. “Tall,” he says, “slim, erect, well proportioned in her frame, her features of a Spanish cast, dark lustrous hair, the Queen-Duchess has an intrepid heart and an elevated spirit, which give animation and distinction to her charming personality. She is remarkable for decision, and commands obedience by her authoritative manner.”
The Court did not tarry long at Arles, for, in spite of the beauty of the women and the gallantry of the men and its other notable attractions, it was, after all, somewhat of a dull, unhealthy place. A move was accordingly made,—before, indeed, the festivities were quite exhausted,—to the comfortable and roomy manoir of Tarascon, a very favourite country residence of all the Provence Princes. The gardens were famous, and laid out in the Italian manner, and the extensive park and fresh-water lakes were well stocked with game and fish. The fêtes galants of Louis XV. and “La Pompadour” here had their model. The bridal couple, with their guests and retainers,—often as not in the guise of shepherds and shepherdesses,—thus kept there state for three merry months, until the warmer spring weather hurried them off to Angers, in the north.
FAVOURITE RECREATIONS
1. A DIGNIFIED MUSIC PARTY.
2. HAND-BALL AND CHESS
Both from Miniatures in MS., Fourteenth Century, “Valeur Maxime”
British Museum
To face page 50
The pretty legend of St. Martha of Bethany appealed to the young Queen-Duchess. In the crypt of the principal church of Tarascon is the tomb of the saint, and on the walls is her story sculptured. Once upon a time a deadly dragon,—called by the fearful country-folk “Tarasque,”—dwelt in a hollow cave by the Rhone shore, and fed on human flesh. News of the devastation wrought by the monster reached the ears of Lazarus and his sisters at Marseilles, and St. Martha took upon herself to subdue the beast. With nothing in her hand but a piece of the true Cross of Christ and her silken girdle of many ells in length, she sought out the deadly dragon in his lair. Casting around his loathsome body her light cincture, she enabled her companions to slay him. The girdle of St. Martha became the mascot of all the Tarasconnais, and everybody wore a goodly belt or bodice à la Marthe. Such a girdle, in cloth of gold and tasselled, was offered to the young bride by the loyal townsfolk.
The state entry of the Sovereigns into Angers,—the major capital of the King-Duke’s dominions,—was just such another pageant as that which greeted Queen Isabeau of Bavaria in Paris in the summer of 1385. From ancient days Angers had been a place of note—the Andegavi of Gallo-Roman times, a municipium and a castrum combined. In the Carlovingian era the Counts—then Dukes—of the Angevines,—founders of the great Capet family,—and their vigorous consorts nursed stalwart sons, who were the superiors of their neighbour rulers in Frankland. From Geoffrey Plantagenet, titular King of Jerusalem, sprang our English Kings. Louis IX.,—St. Louis of blessed memory,—bestowed the duchy of Anjou upon his brother John with the title of King of the Two Sicilies; hence came the sovereign titles of Louis II. and Yolande.
The Castle of Angers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was one of the most imposing in France. Flanked by eighteen great donjon towers, shaped like dice-boxes, it had the aspect of a prison rather than of a palace. The royal apartments were between two great bastions, Le Tour du Moulin and Le Tour du Diable. The drawbridge spanned the deep, wide moat to the esplanade called Le Pont du Monde; beneath were dark dungeons and odious oubliettes. To honour their King and Queen, the castle household hung great swaying lengths of scarlet “noble cloth,”—newly purchased from the Florentine merchants of the “Calimala,”—to cover up the black slate-stone courses of the masonry of Le Diable, whilst they concealed the rough masonry of Le Moulin by strips of gorgeous yellow canvas of Cholet d’Anjou. These were the heraldic colours of Aragon. All the gloomy slate-fronted houses of the city,—“Black Angers” it was called,—were decorated similarly, and gay Flemish carpets and showy skins of beasts were flaunted from the windows. The citizens kept holiday with bunches of greenery and early spring flowers in their hands to cast at their new liege Lady.
Queen Yolande waved her gloved hand,—a novelty in demure Angers,—in friendly response to the plaudits of the throngs, and refused no kiss of bearded mouth or cherry lips thereon as she rode on happily by the side of her royal spouse. At St. Maurice,—the noble cathedral, with its new and glorious coloured windows,—the royal cortège halted whilst Te Deum was sung, and the bridal pair were sprinkled with holy water and censed. Another “Station” was made where the ascent to the castle began, for there pious loyal folk had prepared the mystery-spectacles of the “Resurrection of Christ” with “His Appearance to His Virgin Mother.” The Saviour’s features, by a typical but strange conceit, were those of the King-Duke, St. Mary’s those of the royal bride!
The banquetings and junketings were scenes of deep amazement to the new Queen. In Aragon and Barcelona people ate and drank delicately,—their menus were à la Grecque,—but in cold and phlegmatic Anjou great hunks of beef and great mugs of sack,—quite à la Romain,—were de rigueur. An old kitchen reporter of Angers records the daily fare at the castle: “One whole ox, two calves, three sheep, three pigs, twelve fowls.” The only artistic confection was “hippocras, seasoned with cloves and cinnamon.” Pepper, ginger, rosemary, mint, and thyme, were served as “delicacies.” Another harsh note on the fitness of things which struck the royal bride as extraordinary was the loud laughter indulged in by the gentlemen of the Court and their coarse jests; le rire français had nothing of the mellowed merriment of the “Gaya Ciencia.”
Alas! the rejoicings and the feastings of the Angevines and their guests were suddenly arrested, and the enthusiastic shouts of welcome were drowned by harsh hammerings of armourers and raucous military commands. The King-Duke was summoned to take his position among the captains of France, in battle order, in face of the foreign foe, and the Queen-Duchess, young and inexperienced as she was, assumed the government of Angers and the care of the citizens. All France was ravaged by the English, and State after State fell before their onslaught. Yolande addressed herself to the strengthening of the defences of the castle and the city. Imitating the tact and prudence of Silvestro and Giovanni de’ Medici at Florence, she ordered the levying of a poll-tax, rated upon the variations of land-tenure and the varying incomes of the craftsmen: a tenth of all rateable property,—shrewdly spread over three years, with a credit for immediate needs,—was cordially yielded by the Angevines.
Probably this impost was made upon the advice of worthy councillors, but, all the same, the manner in which the young châtelaine Lieutenant-General in person superintended its operation was an eloquent testimony to her force of character and her true patriotism. She disposed of many personal belongings, and submitted to many acts of self-denial, an example quickly followed by great and small. She sent also to Zaragoza for master-armourers to refurbish old and temper new weapons of various sorts. Some of these craftsmen she ordered to give instruction to native workers; so very shortly her armoury was efficient, not alone for home defence, but for the rearming of the King’s forces in the field.
Not content with these warlike preparations, Queen Yolande gave time and money for the distraction and amusement of her people in their time of stress. Castle fêtes, town sports, and church mystery plays, were bravely carried through. The Queen herself was everywhere—now mounted for the chase, now tending sick folks, now at public prayers. Born daughter of a grand race, and full of dignity, she had inherited her mother’s happy disposition. She charmed everyone in town and country, and endeared herself to her loving subjects by many a homely trait.
A pretty tale has been preserved about her whilst King Louis was standing shoulder to shoulder with Charles VI. and his other peers of France. One afternoon,—according to her wont when not hindered by affairs of State or claims of charity,—she sallied forth to the royal park of L’Vien, her dogs in leash. Let loose, they put up a rabbit, which made directly for their royal mistress, and sought refuge in the skirt of her green velvet hunting-kirtle. Reaching down her hand, she fondled the little trembling creature, when, to her immense surprise, she discovered upon its neck a faded ribbon, with a medallion bearing an image of the Virgin. The incident occurred in a woody dell within the ruins of a half-buried hermit’s cell. Yolande did not for a moment hesitate in her interpretation of the incident. She noted the date,—February 2, the Feast of the Purification,—and she set to work to restore the holy house in honour of St. Mary. Upon the portal, by her command, was sculptured the charming episode, with the legend: “Nôtre Dame de Sousterre, l’amie et la protectrice des âmes en danger.”[A]
[A] “Our Lady of the Deep Cell, the friend and protectress of souls in danger.”
The same year, 1401, found Louis d’Anjou and Yolande upon their way to Paris, where she, as Queen of Jerusalem, Naples, Sicily, and Aragon, made her state entry at the Court of Charles VI. and Isabeau. Doubtless the young Queen was struck with Isabeau’s extraordinary freedom of manner. Her own training, both at Zaragoza and Barcelona, in the rigid conventions of a semi-Moorish Court, had taught her restraint and aloofness. The dress of the French Queen astonished her, for in Aragon and Catalonia physical charms were enhanced by semi-concealment, whereas Isabeau exposed her painted arms, shoulders, and her breast, right down to her cincture; whilst her low waist at the back was pinched by a cotte hardie, so that the bust was enlarged to the degree of distortion: une taille de guêpe—“wasp-like” indeed! The etiquette of the Court of her father, as well as that of Anjou, kept men out of the bedchambers of the fair, but Isabeau, décolletée and en déshabillée, was the centre of a crowd of flatterers and fawners at her daily se lever. The dressing-room of Isabeau was the factory of gossip and intrigue. Perhaps she gave utterance to the aphorism:
“Ostez 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 the twenty-seventh of June, 1409, Messire Yovunet Coyrant, Superintendent of the Castle of Angers, paid a visit of inspection, and he complained that on Sunday, June 23rd of this month, being within the said castle, where a merry company was occupied with games and drolleries before Queen Yolande and the Court, he stood for a time to watch the fun. Quite unknown to him, the tails of his new long coat, which had cost him ten solz [half a livre], were cut off by some miscreant or other, whereby he became an object of derision! For this insult he claimed satisfaction, and named as his go-betweens Guye Buyneart and Jehan Guoynie.” Whether these practical jokers were inspired by the Queen we know not, but this trifling record shows that she was not entirely absorbed by the heavy responsibilities of her rank as Lieutenant-General of her consort, but found time to indulge in some of the gaieties which had been the joy of her mother and herself in Aragon, and which had graced her own nuptials and entry into Anjou and Provence.
Again the mirthful pursuits of the Court and country were stayed by the stringency of the times. Sedition spread its baneful influence all over Provence and Languedoc what time King Louis was still far away fighting in Italy. With courage, fraught with love and assurance, she set off to the distant province, taking with her, not only an escort of doughty war-lords, but also her own tender nurslings—Louis, Marie, and René. With her children was also the young Princess Catherine, daughter of Jean “sans Peur,” the Duke of Burgundy, whose betrothal to her eldest son Louis was imminent. Through his children her appeal would first be made to her husband’s disaffected subjects. Should that fail, then she could don cuirass and casque and head her royal troops to worst them. With little Vicomte d’Aix upon her saddle-lap, she passed through village, town, and city, receiving enthusiastic plaudits everywhere; she was “Madame la Nostre Royne!” The head of the rebellion was scotched, and from Aix the intrepid Queen despatched messengers to the King to tell of her success, and to say that she was ready to embark at once to his assistance.
This heroic offer was made possible by the death of King Martin of Aragon in 1410, who bequeathed to his niece the whole of his private fortune. This event, however, added to the Queen’s anxieties, for she was not the sort of woman to allow the royal succession to pass for ever unchallenged. La Justicia Mayor of the State of Aragon assembled at the ancient royal castle of Alcañiz to receive the names and to adjudicate the claims of candidates for the vacant throne. Yolande, still styling herself “Queen of Aragon,” was represented by Louis, Duke of Bourbon, and Antoine, Count of Vendôme. Her claim was not immediately for herself, but for her son Louis. Two years were spent in acrimonious deliberations, but the provisions of the Salic Law penalized the female descent, and consequently the next male heir, Prince Ferdinand of Castile, placed the crown of Aragon upon his head as well as that of Castile. Queen Yolande had to be content with her protest and her titular sovereignty.
Back at Angers in 1413, the Queen conceived a notable future for her nine-years-old daughter, Marie. Of the six sons of Charles VI. of France and Isabeau, only one survived, the fifth-born, Charles. The imperious Bavarian Queen had little or none of Queen Yolande’s fondness for her offspring; they were born, alas! put out to nurse, forgotten, and neglected—so they died. Upon the little Prince—the cherished jewel of his father—Queen Yolande fixed her motherly regard. He was a year older than her Marie, and a piteous little object bereft of a mother’s love and solicitude. Yolande’s warm heart yearned towards the lonely child; she would mother him, she would train him, and then she would marry him to Marie—this was the Queen’s dream.
With that promptitude which marked all her well-considered actions, Queen Yolande set about the realization of her castle in the air. She again packed up herself, her children, and her Court, and took up her abode in the Château de Mehun-sur-Yèvre, near Bourges, a favourite residence of the French Court. Among her little ones was a baby-girl, no more than six months old—Yolande, her own name-child. She gave as her reason for so strange a line of conduct her wish for greater facilities in the education of her children. Charles VI. offered no objection to the residence of such a worthy mother and heroine wife in his own neighbourhood; indeed, he regarded her advent with considerable pleasure and satisfaction. Yolande’s influence for good would outweigh Isabeau’s for evil; besides, she would be a trusty counsellor.
Queen Yolande had not been very long established at Mehun before she put in a plea on behalf of the poor little heir to the throne of France. Charles was thankful, he was delighted, and at once gave into her sole charge, untrammelled in any way, his dear little son, to share the home care and the studies of his two young cousins, Louis and René d’Anjou. Having obtained the charge of the little Count de Ponthieu, Queen Yolande once more went home to Angers, by no means embarrassed by the fact that she had assumed the training of two Kings, Louis and Charles, with René a possible King of Aragon besides.
For two years Charles passed for Yolande’s son, the playmate and boy-lover of her sweet Marie. All his inspirations and his examples he took from her and them—at last a happy boy, with a hopeful future. The Queen allowed that future no halting steps; Charles and Marie should be betrothed, and Mary should be Queen of France! Yolande broached the subject to King Charles, and at once gained his cordial consent, but tactfully she left to him the furthering of the project. Upon December 18, 1415, Charles of France and Marie of Sicily-Anjou were privately affianced in the Royal Chapel of the Castle of Bourges. France was in the throes of revolution and dissolution; the terrible defeat at Azincourt, on October 24 that same year, had paralyzed the military power of the French States, and was the ultimate cause of King Charles’s insanity. For seven years he became a fugitive, not only bereft of reason, but of all resources. Queen Isabeau did nothing to relieve the tension, but maintained her irreconcilable position, and continued her ill-living. The King’s only brother, the lamented Duke of Orléans, had been assassinated eight years before, and there appeared to be no one capable of steering the ship of State into a calm haven.
This was Queen Yolande’s opportunity, and she rose to its height majestically. She was already guardian of the Dauphin, who after his espousal returned with his child-bride to Angers. Now she assumed the general direction of affairs, and became virtually Regent of France and the arbiter of her destiny. She personally approached the English King, and obtained from him favourable terms of peace, which assured tranquillity and regeneration for France. She it was who proposed to Henry his alliance with her young goddaughter, Catherine, the youngest child of Charles VI. and Isabeau, then fourteen years of age. He was twenty-eight, and the marriage was consummated five years later, although Henry’s terms included the payment of the arrears of the ransom of King John the “Good,” the prisoner of Poitiers, a sum of 2,000,000 crowns.
The Queen’s judgment and resourcefulness eminently merited the grudging encomium of the wife of her husband’s fiercest rival, the Duchess of Burgundy. “I am always glad,” she said, “when it is a good woman who governs, for then all good men follow her!”
All this time,—a time fraught with infinite issues,—King Louis II. of Sicily-Anjou was in Italy, meeting in his campaign with varied fortune. He had all he could do to hold his own, but his presence at the head of his army was essential to ultimate success. Three times he entered Naples acclaimed as King, for Queen Giovanna II. had named him so. Three times he fled discomfited after victory, which he failed to follow up. He rarely returned to his French dominions, and really he had no necessity so to do on the score of administration, for his beloved and capable Lieutenant-General was perfectly able to keep everything in order and uphold his authority. At last the King of Sicily-Anjou and Naples returned to Angers a broken and an ailing man, to spend what time Providence would still grant him with his devoted noble wife.
Queen Yolande’s first great grief came to her in 1417, when her faithful husband was taken from her. Happily for them both, they were united at the deathbed—consoling and consoled. He was young to die—barely forty years of age—but ripe enough for the greedy grasp of Death. Louis II.’s fame was that of a “loyal Sovereign, a righteous man, a true spouse, and an affectionate father.”