QUEENS AND JUDGES INSPECT KNIGHTS BEFORE THE “LISTS,” SAUMUR TOURNAMENT, 1446
Painted by King René. From “Le Livre des Tournois”
To face page 204
Her death came about most unexpectedly, for she was discovered poisoned,—rumour had it by her spouse,—in her boudoir at Sarry-le-Château, on August 16, 1444, an ill-used wife of no more than twenty years of age. Princess Margaret’s fate was as sad as sad could be—too young to die. Her last words,—the most pathetic ever uttered by an unhappy woman,—were addressed to her faithful chaperon: “A curse on life! don’t speak to me about it!” No child, perhaps happily, was born of that ill-starred marriage.
No one wept more bitterly at this mischance than tender-hearted Queen Marie. She loved her son to distraction, and he loved her as greatly in return; and she had learned to love Margaret too, but nothing that she could say moved Louis to love, honour, and comfort, his young wife. Calm, crafty, and selfish, like his father, and vindictive, Louis’s character may be succinctly stated as he himself wrote it: “The King knows not how to rule who knows not how to dissemble.… If my cap should know my thoughts, I would burn it!”
Queen Marie’s other son, Charles, Duc de Berry, the last of all her surviving children, born December 28, 1446, was a Prince of no strength of character. Easily led by others, he became involved in endless imbroglios, and aided and abetted his elder brother the Dauphin, in his unfilial conduct towards their father. Created Duke of Guienne and Duke of Normandy in 1469,—after the expulsion of the English,—he was a source of constant anxiety and trouble to his mother. The Queen of Sicily-Anjou, Isabelle de Lorraine, his godmother, with King René, took the young Prince in hand, but he did not well repay their solicitude. Immoral, dissipated, and in debt, Charles de Berry spent his time in debauches and intrigues; he was own grandson of Isabeau the Infamous. Among his many mistresses, Derouillée de Montereau, widow of Louis d’Amboise, exercised the greatest influence. She, too, was the cause of his death, for at lunch one day she placed a peach in his wineglass, and she challenged Charles to bite the fruit with her. Her half she swallowed, and she fell dead in a few minutes, whilst her royal paramour lingered in acute suffering for three whole days, and at last succumbed to the poison on May 28, 1472. Whether she caused the fruit to be poisoned we know not; most likely she knew all about it, and only followed in the steps of those whose immorality turns love to hate and sanctity to madness. This was a characteristic of society in the Renaissance, the cloven hoof of the old Adam showing beneath the sumptuous garments of the new man.
As might very well have been expected at a Court of self-seekers and sycophants, the integrity and unselfishness of the Queen were goads to slander and aids to hypocrisy. She was assailed on account of her absolute faithfulness to the marriage bond and for her want of personal ambition. Roués could not understand her; mondaines would not tolerate her; the King’s favourites and mistresses,—not Agnes Sorel, be it said,—strove all they could to poison his mind against his consort. The names of many prominent Princes and courtiers were linked scandalously with the Queen’s. Arthur de Richemont, son of Duke Jehan VI. of Brittany, the Constable of France; Pierre de Giac de la Trémouille, Captain of the King’s Guards; Étienne Louvet, President of the Privy Council; and the Count of Dunois, better known as the “Bastard of Orléans,” were all said to have shared the Queen’s confidences and her favours. The latter was thrown, indeed, very much with Her Majesty, and ranked among the Princes of the Royal House. Son of the assassinated Duke of Orléans by an unknown mother, the Duchess brought him up along with her own children, and she hoped he would live to avenge his father’s death. The “Bastard” was the playmate of the children of King Louis II. of Sicily-Anjou and Queen Yolande, and he and the Princess Marie were much drawn to one another.
The two young people were one day in the gardens of the Hôtel de St. Pol along with the Comte de Ponthieu,—Charles VII.,—and the Princes and Princesses of Sicily-Anjou, when the Count, wearied of his forced attentions to the Princess Marie, sauntered away by himself. Xaintrailles followed him and remonstrated with him for his coolness to his fiancée. Charles replied that they were not fully betrothed, and that he did not admire and did not love Marie. Xaintrailles told Dunois what the Count had said, and Dunois, with a scornful laugh, exclaimed: “One must be dull and blind indeed not to be smitten by her eyes—the most beautiful eyes in the whole world, and quite incapable of seeing the faults of others.” Dunois was very much in love with the Princess, and did not conceal his passion, so much so that when he kissed her hand, as he often did, he also lifted the hem of her skirt and implanted a kiss there, as a lover’s token of humility.
Dunois contrived têtes-à-tête as often as he could with his sweetheart, as he called Marie d’Anjou. One day, it is said, Charles passed down a sheltered path in the gardens, and his companion pointed out to him a couple love-making in a secluded arbour. They chided him with the feebleness of his suit, and told him it would serve him right if Marie married Dunois. He said he did not care a bit if she did or if she did not. They were all mere children—the Count sixteen, Marie fifteen, and Dunois of a like age. The intimacy between the Princess and her lover became embarrassing to the whole Court, but time went on, and developments were awaited by the curious and intriguing. A summer’s day came when some ladies of the Court went wandering about searching for shady shelters. Right away from the palace, near a springing fountain, they came upon a crossing in the path, and there in the sandy dust they read, written by a stick or something: