In the early autumn Valentine left Paris. Life was over for her. “Rien ne m’est plus. Plus ne m’est rien,” ran her melancholy motto. Anger and bereavement and hopeless sorrow had worn her to a shadow. She took the little Dunois with her children to the Castle of Blois. There were four of them, Charles, the Poet, who should be the father of King Louis XII.; and little John, the grandfather of Francis I.; Philip, Count of Vertus; and Margaret, in later years the grandmother of Anne of Brittany. These children, three of whom should be the grandparents or great-grandparents of Henri II., Valentine ceaselessly instructed. All her contemporaries bear witness to her untiring vigilance over them. “They are marvellously good, and well-instructed for their years,” says Monstrelet: “Moult notablement conduits et indoctrinés.” But there was one lesson, dearer than the others, that Valentine perpetually taught her sons. “Avenge your father,” she continually cried.
These children, so different in character and destiny, were the dearer to their mother that she felt she had not long to love them. Valentine was dying of a broken heart, “of anger and mourning,” writes Juvenal; “of anger and impotent vengeance,” says Monstrelet. Her eyes were quite dim with useless tears, and still she resented the very grief that drained her life; for she did not want to leave her little children and her unaccomplished task. “It was pitiful,” says Juvenal, “before she died to hearken to her regrets and her complaints, so piteously she regretted her children, and a bastard, called John, whom she could not suffer out of her sight, saying none of her children was fitter to avenge their father.”... “Since the tragic end of her husband,” says the Monk, “this Duchess spent her days in tears, and many say the bitterness of her heart induced that unhealthy languor of which she died.”
This was in November. Upon St. Clement’s day, upon that heart-sickening anniversary of her husband’s murder, Jean-sans-Peur rode into Paris. It was a triumph. As he passed the people, and their little children cried, “Noel, noel au bon Duc.”
It was near a week before the news came down to Blois. When she heard it, Valentine felt that all was over. No vengeance was possible. On the 4th of December the unhappy woman died, with her last breath entreating her little children never to forget their father’s murder. But these children were only children, and they were orphans. The death of Valentine seemed to secure the triumph of her enemy. Jean-sans-Peur did not seek to hide his rejoicing: “Car icelle Duchesse continuoit moult asprement et diligemment sa poursuitte.“ But already Retribution at her grindstone was sharpening the fatal battle-axe of Montereau.
[11]. At the same time there dwelt in Milan another little Valentine Visconti, daughter of Bernabò, in after years the widowed Queen of Cyprus, and herself an interesting and pathetic figure.
[12]. Corio on different pages puts the date of the birth of Giangaleazzo as 1352 and 1343. The first date, 1352, agrees with the account of Galeotto del Caretto and the Deed of Majority in Corio.
[13]. Tu, spectabilisque Azo, natus tuus ... auctoritate, bayliâ, nec non Regiæ Potestatis plenitudine, tam ordinariâ quam absolutâ, &c., Feb., 1380. Luenig. De Ducatu Mediolanense, in the “Codex Italiæ Diplomaticus,” No. xxvii. See also Investiture of Asti, 1383, to Giangaleazzo (vos et heredes vestri) in the Archives Nationales, K. 53, dossier 22.
[14]. “L’Apparicion de Maistre Jehan de Meun,” Fr. ii., 7203. MSS. Bib. Nat.
[15]. This was the estimate of Giangaleazzo. The actual revenues proved to be a little less, and an arrangement à l’amiable was made between him and his son-in-law (Arch. Nat., K. 554, dossier 6).