Painted by himself “Le Livre des Heures”
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In all these, and many similar acts of sapient policy, Duchess Isabelle bore her part in counsel and example; her conduct was beyond all praise. The next move was a progress through every part of the two duchies. At each considerable town the royal cortège halted first of all that the Duke and Duchess might make their devotions in the principal church, and endow Masses and ecclesiastical grants. Then, assembling the officials and chief citizens, they inquired into the hardships of the people and encouraged local institutions, at each place leaving largesse for distribution. In strong places with garrisons, the Duke interested himself in redressing injuries and inequalities among the veterans. He offered to pay all the losses of officers in the wars; he allowed eighteen sols for each horse killed in battle or on march; he bestowed on each soldier a surcoat and steel helmet with his royal cognizance, and created many knights. Meanwhile Duchess Isabelle endeared herself to the women-folk by consoling words of sympathy and gracious doles of charity. Widows and orphans she took under her personal patronage, and no worthy claimant for her benevolence lacked favour and assistance.
Thus René and Isabelle won, not only golden opinions, but the sincerest affection of their subjects, rich and poor. But a climax was put to the noble works of the kindly Sovereigns, and never came truer the saying; “Providence ever destroys the good that men do.” An evil genius appeared upon the peaceful scene when Antoine de Vaudémont refused to pay allegiance to the new Duke and Duchess. The moment of his declaration of hostility was as unfortunate as it was cruel. At the public baptism of Prince Jean, the Duke’s eldest son, who had been privately baptized at his birth, in 1426-27, the Count entered the Cathedral of Nancy in full armour, and objected to the Duke of Calabria,—the title of the young boy,—being received by the Church as heir to the throne of Lorraine.
The Duke immediately summoned him to appear before the Council of State, and also before a meeting of principal citizens, and there repeat his protest. By both assembles his pretensions were scouted unanimously. Sieur Jehan d’Haussonville, the Mayor, addressed the Count, and said: “Your uncle has left daughters; the eldest, Isabelle, is Duchess of Lorraine. I salute you. You may go.” Vaudémont left Nancy in a violent rage, crying out as he passed through the gateway of St. George: “I shall be Duke of Lorraine all the same, and soon, and then will I reckon with you dogs!” He posted off to Dijon, and there took counsel with the Duke of Burgundy.
The body of Charles II. had scarcely been consigned to its monumental tomb in the choir of St. Georges de Port at Nancy, when the Comte de Vaudémont revealed himself in his true colours. After his protest against the edict of the Duke which named Duke René of Barrois, the consort of the heiress to the throne, as his successor to the title of Duke of Lorraine, he had remained skulking in his castle, where he welcomed as many malcontents and disturbers of the peace as accepted his pretensions to the crown. The coronation of Duchess Isabelle was the signal for Vaudémont’s attempt to vindicate his claim. He had hardly a sympathizer at Court, for Charles had caused all the principal nobles and citizens to swear allegiance to his daughter and her husband before he died. The Count appeared suddenly before Nancy, and demanded the keys and the custody of the Duchess. Duke René was away besieging Metz, but he at once posted off to Nancy, and assisted with men-at-arms by Charles VII., and aided by the generalship of Barbazan, he defeated Vaudémont in eight battles great and small.
Vaudémont rallied his forces from Burgundy under Antoine de Toulongeon, Duke Philippe’s favourite general, and enlisted foreign mercenaries from Flanders and Germany. René had at his back all the armed men of Lorraine and Bar, and contingents from Anjou and Provence. James, Marquis of Baden, and Louis of Bavaria, joined him with squadrons of cavalry, and his army numbered nearly 20,000 men. Perhaps he was over-confident of his strength, his right, and his intrepidity; and having a very much more numerous following, he advanced upon his enemy disregarding sundry cautions and wise counsels. The two armies met upon the plain of Bulgneville, near Neufchâteau, on July 2. Vaudémont played a waiting game; besides, he had in reserve heavier artillery than his royal foeman. Early in the encounter Barbazan fell mortally wounded, and then René himself received a wound which incapacitated him for a time. The fall of their leaders demoralized the Lorraine army, and Vaudémont, seeing his advantage, made a dash with a column of heavy cavalry. René was smitten to the ground and surrounded. He refused to surrender until an officer of sufficient rank should be allowed to receive his sword. Then Toulongeon galloped up, and the Duke, covered with blood and dust, was lead away to the Burgundian camp.
Taken the same evening to the Château de Talant, near Dijon, the royal prisoner was treated with the deference due to his rank, but, alas! he had fallen into the hands of the enemy of his house—the hated Duke of Burgundy. That evening the curfew sounded not in Nancy, but the gates were shut and barred, and two weeping women, powerless in their woe, never sought their couches in the castle. Mother and daughter, Margaret and Isabelle, were nigh death themselves. No tidings could they gain of the whereabouts or of the condition of the man they loved. Duchess Isabelle cried out: “Alas! I do not know whether my husband is dead or alive or wounded, nor where they have taken him.” None had a consoling answer, for all Nancy was in mourning. Two thousand good men and true lay dead upon the stricken field, and three thousand more shared the imprisonment of their Duke. The wounded in hundreds crawled into city, village, and mansion; not a house in Lorraine but was flooded with women’s tears and men’s blood that desperate day and night. At last splashed and bedraggled heralds brought news of the Duke’s captivity, and that his wounds were not serious: “M’sieur le Duc, madame, estoit en bon santé; les Bourguignons l’avoient pris: il se trouv at Dijon demain.”
Thus assured of her husband’s safety, Isabelle brushed away her tears and roused herself to action. Promptly she called together the Council of State, where she presided in person, and eloquently demanded that strong measures should at once be taken to carry on the war against Vaudémont and Philippe de Bourgogne, raise sufficient funds to make good losses, and secure the liberty of the Duke. The Council responded nobly and patriotically to the call of their Duchess; as the “Chroniques de Lorraine” has it: “They had pity upon her, for she had borne four sturdy children as comely as you might wish to see.” “Elle fust allegrée!” was the universal testimony to Isabelle’s worth as a wife and mother. Duchess Margaret, too, perhaps for the first time in her life of devotion, raised her voice, and called for the temporal sword to be reground to avenge the disaster. She accompanied her daughter, both mounted, to Vézelise, which Isabelle had appointed as the rendezvous of the new army, and personally enrolled companies and squadrons, fastening to each man’s helm a thistle—the cognizance of Lorraine. Then she addressed a protest to the victor of Bulgneville, in which she warned him not to approach Nancy, but to regard herself as his implacable foe until he should deliver up the Duke. Étienne Pasquier, the chronicler, sums up in ten words the courageous character of Duchess Isabelle. “Within the body of a woman,” he says, “the Duchess carries the heart of a man.” After warning Vaudémont, she concluded with him a truce of three months, during which period she went in person to Charles VII., who was then in Dauphiné, and implored his intervention and assistance. In her train was a young Maid of Honour, Agnes Sorel, whose beauty and naïveté rightly affected that unstable monarch; it was an introduction which ripened later on into something more intimate than mere admiration.
Duchess Margaret also greatly bestirred herself. Hearing that her uncle, the Duke of Savoy, and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Berry, were at Lyons awaiting the coming of King Charles, she posted off there, taking with her as advisers the Bishops of Toul and Metz. In company with the King of France was no less a person than Queen Yolande, his mother-in-law—