One of the most admirable works of the King and Queen,—for Jehanne was not only the amanuensis of her husband, but his inspirer also,—was the conception and the elaboration of the procession of the “Fête Dieu” and “Les Jeux de la Tarasque.” This pageant originated in the mind of René when, as a youth, he witnessed with emotion in 1427, at Bar-le-Duc, “La Mystère de la Passion,” under the direction of Conrad Bayer, Bishop of Metz. Thirty years of war and travel did not banish the impression the young Christian warrior gained, and from time to time in Anjou and elsewhere he composed rondeaux, ballades, and chansons, in a masque or mystery which he called “Le Roy Avenir.” In 1474 the King and Queen assisted at Aix at the first rendition of “Les Jeux de la Fête Dieu.” This was preceded by “La Procession du Sacré”—the Procession of the Sacred Host. All the clergy, nobles, troubadours, pretty women, and gallant knights, of Provence assisted, and all the trade corporations took part. Everybody in the procession carried upon the tip of a white wand a piece of pain béni. Each section of the cortège was a moving spectacle or pageant. The first section, by acclamation, exhibited “Lon Grand Juée deis Diables”—the Grand Play of the Devils. The devils were black and red and green, and every youth’s ambition was to figure as a Prince of Darkness; indeed, in later times a young fellow based his claim to be a devil on the fact that his father and all his ancestors had been devils, so “c’est pourquoi ne le serrais je pas!”
To “the Devils” succeeded “the Magi,” “the Innocents of Bethlehem,” “the Apostles,” “the Queen of Sheba and Solomon,” and other tableaux movants from Scriptural sources. Most amusing were “The Play of the Jews,” represented by human cats—a reference to the features characteristic of the race; “Les Chevaux fringants,” hobby-horses played by four-and-twenty children, dressed as knights of the “Lists”; a masque of morris-dancers. The two last spectacles were lugubrious: “The Company of Lepers” and “The March of Death.”
The revels filled five whole days in and out of church, through and through the streets and squares, and out into the open pleasure-grounds. Prizes were awarded, honours bestowed, and profits made, and everybody was the better for the prodigality of “le bon Roy” and the graciousness of “la bonne Royne.”
René had been in early life remarkable for his simple tastes and abstemiousness in food and drink, and Queen Isabelle was equally careful in personal matters. Their lives were passed in strenuous times when self-denial required great sacrifices of individual indulgences. Isabelle was a soldier’s wife, Jehanne the consort of a statesman when life’s battle had given way to the ease of peace. Both were attractive women, few their superiors, but Isabelle’s hand was upon the hilt of the sword and the snaffle of the charger. Jehanne’s held the mirror of fashion and the goblet of pleasure. After René and Jehanne had arranged their domestic settlement in Provence, at once their Court became noted for its magnificent hospitality. René employed the first master-cook of the day, Maestro Guillaume Real, as his Master of the Household. People nicknamed him “Courçon,” as marshal of the courses of a banquet, rather than “Soupçon,” the secret of each! The royal repasts were arranged as spectacles; at the cross high table were placed the hosts and guests of honour, and at tables down the hall other guests were accommodated. The walls were hung with silver and crystal sconces full of torches or tapers, and the trophies of war and the chase belonging to the house were there displayed. The covers and the service were as rich and costly as could be. Gold, enamels, crystals, rare faience, and other art treasures, were used with lavish taste.
Each course was proclaimed heraldically by blasts of horns and motets from the music gallery. The high table was served by knights and men of rank, who bore the splendid bowls and dishes upon napery of cloth of gold. The richer viands were enclosed in golden caskets, and the keys offered to the guests, who in turn unlocked them and took or refused their contents. Some of the confections have not their parallel to-day. One table, for example, was made to represent a stag-hunt, another a village revel, one a castle with a moat of rare vintage, another an abbey church with bells pealing and hidden children singing. Small animals and birds, and actually growing trees and flowers, were used. The roast and the dessert were the pièces de résistance; each was carried up the hall in gay procession with much ceremonious bowing, and guarded by archers of the guard in gorgeous liveries. At the sight of any very splendid and appealing course the whole lordly company were wont to burst out into song—a well-known and lengthy chanson; it was called “Le Sauve-garde de ma Vie.”
Over the anticlimax of the feast the kindly chroniclers usually draw a discreet veil, for warriors in the field were vanquished in the hall, and beauties beloved in the boudoir were forgotten in the debauch. We may suppose rightfully, however, that the hospitalities of René and Jehanne never caused a flush of shame or a prick of scorn. They aimed at and happily succeeded in proving that “il n’y pas au monde de royauté comparable au bonheur d’être aimé d’elle,” as the King prettily termed it.
For twenty-five years the simple delights of a useful domestic life were serenely enjoyed by the happy King and Queen. Their spirit of contentedness hallowed the homes of their people, and Provence became a paradise of peace. Certainly the want of children caused Jehanne many a pang, but the devotion of a good husband, one so accomplished, so unselfish, and so universally beloved, was a real compensation, and she had learned the lesson of mingled weal and woe. She found congenial occupation in furthering the good intentions of the King and in ministering to all in need around her. She had, nevertheless, quasi-maternal cares, for in the palace at Aix and in other royal residences were several children and young people of both sexes, besides the three acknowledged bastards by convention, who could lay claim to royal parentage. Some of these are mentioned in Les Comptes as receiving alimony and gifts from René. An entry on July 8, 1466, records the gift to Demoiselle Odille of a pelisse of marten fur. She was then somewhere about twenty years of age, but had charge of the King’s rings and jewellery under the eye of Sieur Guillaume de Remerville, the Treasurer of the Household. René had married her, in 1460, to Gaspare Spinola, a Genoese attendant in his train, who died in 1465, leaving his child-widow to the care of her father. Another child is also named, Hélène,—“la petite Hélène,” as René called her,—an attractive little creature, “singing like a lark and dancing like a gazelle,” who died on her fifteenth birthday, in the year 1469. The King liked to have her near him at meal-times, when he fondled her affectionately, “comme ma vraie fille.”
Besides these family cares, Queen Jehanne devoted much of her time to feminine industries. In the convents, in the workshops, in the fields, were poor girls and women needing assistance and encouragement. The example of “good Queen Yolande” was ever before her eyes, and she strove to make herself not only mistress of their hearts, but of their occupations. Spinning, weaving, embroidering, and generally all needlework, found her an accomplished executant. She, too, could use her brush and palette, in miniature and in large, and her chisel and mallet both in wood and stone, and she was a very excellent artificer in gold and silver work. Her benefactions were on the most liberal and most catholic scale; no good cause was overlooked, and when she came to make her will, paragraph after paragraph was taken up by bequests to charitable institutions and to cherished needy individuals. If less devout than her sister-in-law, Queen Marie, and less religiously exercised, Queen Jehanne was a model daughter of the Church, and none recognized this more completely than His Holiness the Pope, who bestowed upon her the precious decoration of the Golden Rose, “for virtue as a spouse and benevolence as a Queen.”
Approaching her jubilee,—an anxious period for many women,—the good Queen fell away in health, and appeared to be sickening for her end. Poison was hinted at, but in all probability she suffered, not from poison designedly administered, but from the poison of the atmosphere, laden time out of mind, in those low-lying lands near the mouths of the Rhine, with the seeds of disease—the dreaded plague and black-death.
Happily, Jehanne was able, through her robust constitution and abstemious way of life, to throw off the evil effects of her malady; but no sooner had she regained her accustomed vigour than a crushing sorrow came to her—the mortal illness of her cherished spouse, King René. His was a green old age, with his venerable but erect figure and his winning if somewhat melancholy expression. His blue eyes and gracious aspect drew forth confidence all round, and his gentle voice and genial manners excited true affection. Dressed almost with monkish severity in a great long coat of black silk or velvet, with a heavy collar and revers of brown squirrel fur, and wearing a girdle with a crucifix and beads, his long white hair was capped by a simple velvet berretta, and he displayed neither jewels nor decorations, only his Sovereign’s badge and chain of gold. He was a typical father of his people.