The widowed Queen lost little time in settling her affairs in Provence, for she was minded to go to Anjou with her precious dead; indeed, René had expressed a wish to that effect. She carefully surveyed the names of all the people René loved and of those who loved him most nearly too. To each and all some token was sent or given; she spared few things for herself. Churches, institutions, schools, guilds, and all public bodies, received mementoes of the dead monarch. To Jehanne came many pangs at parting. She had learned to love the gentle Provençals, and they had not failed to return her regard most warmly. At last her preparations were completed, and she spent a day and night in the cathedral by the casket of her dear dead, and then sorrowfully she took her journey to distant Anjou, home to her kith and kin.
RENÉ D’ANJOU
(Circa 1470)
Painted by himself on wood. Aix Library
To face page 348
King René in his will speaks thus of his beloved Queen: “Because Jehanne has loved me, so I do and shall love her as my dearest wife till death. Her virtues and her goodness to me I cannot forget, nor her loving services which she has rendered me for so long a time. I will that she shall have unrestricted liberty of action to settle, when I am dead, where she will.… I give to her the county of Beaufort; the castle and estate of Mirabeau; the town of Aubagne; the castles of San Remy, Pertuis, and Les Baux, with my bastides in and about Aix and at Marseilles, with all their furniture and appurtenances.” King René also specially bequeathed to Jehanne his most valuable jewels: collars of diamonds; “le grand et le petit bulay,” rubies, with sprays of gold and gems;[A] his diamonds “à la cesse,” uncut and strung (?); his plates and caskets of gold; his great bowls of gold; his great trays of silver; and his precious goblet and ewer of gold encrusted with jewels; and many other splendid precious objects.
[A] “Le grand bulay” was a famous ruby, richly mounted, which he had bought for 18,000 florins (= £7,000).
With respect to the body of King René, it has been chronicled that the Queen before leaving Aix made secret arrangements for its translation to Angers. She feared a hostile demonstration if open measures were taken. She took into her confidence a priest belonging to the cathedral chapter, and they together worked out a plan which was put into operation after Queen Jehanne had arrived at Angers. She sent two of her most trusty attendants, Jehan de Pastis and Jacquemain de Mahiers, with an imposing suite, conveying a letter to the Archbishop of Aix asking for the heart of René. The priestly confidant was at the service of the envoys, and they very cleverly contrived to secrete the casket with the King’s body in a royal chariot which the Queen had commanded to be laden with certain dresses and properties she had left behind, and in particular the pall she had worked with her own hand, and which was still covering the dead King’s coffin. The precious burden was driven to a secluded backwater of the Rhone, and there embarked upon a great royal barge; and so King René’s body passed through France once more, as he had so often done in life. The disembarkment of the royal corpse was effected at Ponts-de-Cé, across the Loire, a few miles out of Angers, and thence the second obsequies were conducted with splendid ceremonies and amid universal tokens of joy and sorrow of his Angevine subjects. The heart was with the body, but the entrails were left at Aix in the cathedral.