MARGUERITE D’ANJOU
From a Miniature by King René, in “Le Livre des Heures”
To face page 254
At Vienne, where the French Court was at the time, having gone south from Reims and the coronation, the King gave his brother-in-law’s consort a very hearty greeting, but he hesitated to commit himself to action which might ferment once more evil blood between his people and the Burgundians. Isabelle held by their hands, as she pleaded for her dear husband, her two baby girls, and Charles’s indecision was overcome by little Margaret, then a dauntless infant, who ran up to him and insisted upon being nursed upon his knee and kissed. A child’s instinctive disingenuousness is affected by magnetic natures regardless of conventions and proprieties; how often and often again is this proved to be axiomatic! That interview was memorable for the meeting of Charles with a woman—to be sure, then a girl—who would in after-years affect him and his considerably. Agnes Sorel was in attendance upon the Duchess Isabelle. Charles beheld her for the first time, and her face and figure haunted him for good and ill many a long day.
Not content with winning over the King of France to intercede for the liberation of her consort, the Duchess returned to Lorraine, and went off at once to Vaudémont to plead with Count Antoine, the Duke of Burgundy’s brother, in the same cause. Vaudémont agreed to assist his kinswoman, but upon one chief condition, among others—that she would consent to Yolande, her eldest daughter, being betrothed to his eldest son Ferri. There was, of course, method in this extraordinary proposal,—for the child was only three years of age,—and it was this: He, the Count, claimed Lorraine, by the Salic Law, as first heir male against Isabelle. Whatever might eventuate, his son married to René’s daughter would be an additional lien upon the duchy. This policy also commended itself to Isabelle’s prudential mind, and she gave a qualitative consent dependent upon confirmation by Duke René later on. The Count added a rider to the stipulation, and that was the committal of the girl to the care of his wife, the Countess, for education and training. This, too, the Duchess accepted, although it cost her sore to part with her dear child. Margaret and Nicholas alone remained to solace her; but Isabelle was far too strong a character to spend much time in comforting or being comforted. Whilst René was in durance vile she could not remain idle; so off she went, taking Margaret and Nicholas with her, to the Castle of Tarascon, in order to enlist the sympathies and services of René’s devoted Provençals.
Isabelle’s coming into Provence provoked remarkable demonstrations on the part of the warm-hearted and loyal subjects of the county. Troubadours and glee maidens flocked to the Rhone shore; they sang, they danced, they ate, they drank, and laid floral offerings and votive crowns at the feet of their Countess and her tender children. Bonfires blazed from shore to shore, and echoes of the rejoicings might have been carried by the warm south wind right into the dungeoned ears of their beloved Count. Whilst Duchess Isabelle was in residence at Tarascon negotiations were already on foot for the betrothal of little Margaret. An eligible suitor arrived, the young Pierre de Luxembourg, eldest son of the Count of St. Pol, whose esquire, by a singular coincidence, happened to be the recipient at Bulgneville of Duke René’s sword. Arrangements for the ceremony of espousal were, however, rudely interrupted by a serious outbreak of plague, and Isabelle and her children fled to Marseilles, where they remained till René joined them, released upon a year’s parole.
When René was proclaimed King of Sicily, Naples, and Jerusalem, Duke of Anjou, and Count of Provence, upon the premature death of his elder brother, Louis III., at Cosenza, Isabelle was again at Marseilles, on her way to take possession of her husband’s rights in Naples. Such pageants and spectacles at those exhibited in her honour by the exuberant Marseillais that city had never seen. She rode through ranks on ranks of cheering citizens, in a great state chariot covered with crimson and gold, and wearing a queenly crown upon her head, and with her were Jean, her eldest son, and Margaret and Nicholas. The little Princess captivated everybody by her naïveté and the graceful kissing of her little hand. Margaret sent kisses flying through every street, winning all men’s loyalty and the love of all the boys.
Queen Isabelle and her children took up their residence at the Palace of Capua. Queen Giovanna offered her the new royal palace in Naples, but Isabelle’s instinct was not in error when she chose to dwell a little distance from the royal hussy. There King René joined his family, bringing with him both Louis, his second son, and Yolande. The reunion was the happiest that could be. Upon the King devolved, of course, the onus of government, with the co-operation of Queen Giovanna. Queen Isabelle, relieved from the trammels of the executive, had now a much-longed-for respite in which to give attention to the neglected education of her children. She constituted herself their teacher-in-chief, but called to her assistance the very noted writer of French romance, Antoine de Salle. Alas! it was a brief interlude indeed, for the studies had hardly had time to affect the young pupils when the King of Aragon resumed his hostile demonstration against the Angevine dynasty, and René and his were locked in the grip of war. Very unwillingly Queen Isabelle agreed to return to France with her children, Naples being an armed camp and the whole country in a turmoil. They wended their way leisurely to Anjou, and not to Lorraine. Two reasons dictated this course. Angers was the capital par excellence of the dominions of the King of Sicily-Anjou, the ancestral seat of his house, and Anjou was more favourably conditioned than Lorraine or Bar for the completion of the training of the royal children. Queen Yolande was only too delighted to welcome her brave daughter-in-law and to caress her beloved grandchildren. She went off to the Castle of Saumur, her favourite residence, and the walls of the grim Castle of Angers once more resounded to the merry laughter of childish games. Sadly enough those joyous sounds yielded place to saddest dirges when Prince Nicholas, not yet ten years old, died suddenly of poison. This was the first break by Death into that home circle.