It was in their favourite hôtel de St. Paul, or as it is called in old writings, St. Pol, that Charles and Jeanne principally lived, and here were born the Dauphin and all their younger children.
The birth of the Princess Marie took place on the 27th of February, 1370, and her godmothers were Jeanne, daughter of Philippe VI. and Queen Blanche, and the Dame d’Albret, sister of the Queen.
With the exception of Blanche, whom she never met again after her disastrous marriage with the King of Spain, Jeanne saw a great deal of her family, especially of her three youngest sisters, the Comtesse de Harcourt, the Dame d’Albret, and the Prieure de Poissy. Bonne, Comtesse de Savoie, was farther away in her beautiful southern home, and being the wife of a greater prince, had more of the occupations and cares of a government upon her hands. Bonne was brave, clever, sensible, and universally admired. Things went prosperously enough with her until, after she had been married about thirty years, in 1385 her husband, the Green Count, died of plague in Italy, where he had gone on some warlike expedition. She governed Savoy for her son Amadeo VII., the Red Count, whom she married to a daughter of the Duc de Berry. But the Red Count was killed out hunting in 1391. He left the guardianship of his son and the regency of Savoy to his mother, in whom he might well have the greatest reliance, instead of to his young widow who had neither the talents nor experience to fit her for such a trust, and who, he was quite sure would marry again, as she did. In spite of her opposition the Countess Bonne assumed the guardianship of her grandson Amadeo VIII. and the State. After he came of age she could not get her dowry properly paid, so she sent for her brother Louis, Duc de Bourbon, who came at once with a troop of soldiers and threatened to make war upon the Savoyards. Thereupon the dowry was paid without any further trouble. Bonne died at the Château de Mâcon, 1402. In 1372 the Duchess-dowager de Bourbon, mother of the Queen, was at the castle of Belle Perche, in the Bourbonnais, when one night it was surprised by three captains of brigands or free companies, who got in by scaling the walls. Louis de Bourbon assembled his vassals and friends and laid siege to the place where his mother was a prisoner. The Duchess managed to let him know that she was afraid of the things the engines threw in and the damage they caused, and that she wished him to blockade the castle. He did so accordingly, but the Earls of Cambridge and Pembroke arrived with a large force and carried off the Duchess and her ladies to a château in Limousin. She was soon afterwards exchanged for Simon Burke, a favourite of the Black Prince. She went to Clermont, a hunting château of her son, and in the forest close by she met her daughters coming to see her.[73] In a miniature representing their meeting the Queen advances wearing a dress covered with fleurs-de-lis and emblazoned with the arms of France and Bourbon, holding a bird, the sign of high rank and led by Jean de Bourbon, Comte de la Marche. Her little daughter Marie, bearing the same arms accompanies her, then come the young Duchess, wife of Louis, and the Queen’s sisters, Comtesses de Savoie and Harcourt, and Dame d’Albret. Each leads a dog with a long leash, two ladies follow, one carrying the train of the Duchesse de Bourbon. All the princesses have the arms of their husbands and of Bourbon emblazoned on their dresses, including the Duchess-dowager, Isabelle de Valois, who also wears a long widow’s veil.[74]
MEETING OF THE QUEEN AND HER MOTHER.
{1373}
Parti-coloured dresses were much worn then. The Queen’s second son, Louis, was born March, 1371. Bertrand du Guesclin was his godfather, and put a sword into his hand, praying God and Our Lady to make him a good knight. In July, 1373, was born her daughter Isabelle. The little Dauphin was her godfather and held her at the font; her grandmother, the Duchess Isabelle, was her godmother.
Louis de Bourbon had married in 1371 Anne, daughter of the Comte de Clermont et d’Auvergne. He was a good soldier, just, generous, and religious; his court was as magnificent as those of the Dukes of Burgundy and Orléans. When he returned from being a hostage in England he instituted an order of chivalry called the Ecu d’or. During the fête, after the ceremony, his Procureur-Général, Chavreau, presented to him a register of depredations committed on his lands during his captivity by divers lords, his vassals, most of whom were present, and were seized with consternation; but the Duke replied, “Chavreau, have you also the register of the services they have rendered me?” and without looking at it, threw it into the fire. It is said that when, after the capture of his mother, Anne, Duchesse de Bretagne, fell into his hands and exclaimed, “Ah, beau cousin! am I a prisoner?” he replied, “No, madame, we do not make war on ladies.” His subjects adored him, and when, many years afterwards, he died and his body was brought to Moulins to be buried, clergy and people thronged to accompany it wherever the funeral passed, with tears and lamentations.