The Duchesse de Bourbon being a half-sister of Philippe, and her husband one of his favourite companions, they spent most of their time and money also, at Paris, Vincennes, and the other royal palaces in the gay, brilliant days when first the Valois came to the throne.
Jeanne was born at Vincennes, and passed her childhood at that magnificent court over which she was so early chosen to reign. She was betrothed at six years old to Amadeo VI. (afterwards called the Green Count) of Savoy.[6] With the state and splendour that surrounded her earliest years were mingled those national calamities which had already begun to cast their shadow over the kingdom of France.
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The Hundred Years’ War had broken out soon after her birth. The disastrous sea-fight ending in the total destruction of the French navy, took place in 1338.
Taxes were high; there had been bad harvests, bringing famine and pestilence. France was already less prosperous than she had been under the Capétiens kings.
The terrors and troubles of the English war must have left a deep impression on the imagination of the gentle child, who seems to have been remarkable for her beauty and sweetness of disposition. She was between nine and ten years old at the time when the English host lay encamped near Paris, when gates and walls were strictly guarded and men were arming in haste, while fugitives poured into Paris all day, and the nights were illumined with flames of burning castles and villages. Her father was in the battle of Crécy, but returned in safety, and not long afterwards her little sister Bonne was married to the younger son of the Duc de Brabant. The Princess Joan, eldest daughter of the Duc de Normandie, was married on the same day to the elder son of the Duc de Brabant, by the desire of the King, who wrote orders that his granddaughter and niece should be ready on a certain day to meet the two boys who were to be their husbands. The ceremony took place, but both the boys died a little later of the plague. Joan afterwards became Queen of Navarre, and Bonne Countess of Savoy.
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The Duchesse de Bourbon and her children must have left Paris and returned to their home in the Bourbonnais, for the Duke wrote there from Paris on July 22, 1348, to announce to his eldest daughter, whose engagement to the Comte de Savoie had been broken off, that her uncle, Gui, Comte de Forez, had brought proposals of marriage for her from Humbert, Dauphin du Viennois, which he had accepted. But the plague was then raging all over the Lyonnais, so that it was out of the question to run the risk of travelling at that time. The Duke therefore induced the Dauphin to consent to the marriage being deferred for the present. Humbert was scarcely a suitable husband for Jeanne, who was then eleven years old, while he was a widower, whose only son had lost his life by falling from his arms out of a balcony, as he was playing with him. The shock of this accident and the loss of his heir had cast a gloom over the life of the Dauphin, and when a second time the Duc de Bourbon sought to delay the arrangements for the marriage, he replied that in that case he considered himself free from all engagements. The Duc de Bourbon, on hearing this, went to meet the Dauphin, and after an interview between the two princes the negotiations were resumed, in January, 1349, and the middle of February following was fixed upon for their fulfilment. But whether the desire to quit the world and seek the consolations of religion in the retirement of the cloister had already taken strong hold upon his mind, or whether the secret ambition and intrigues of the French court had any influence on the matter, it was suddenly given out that the Dauphin had decided to renounce the world and enter the order of St. Dominic, and had arranged for the immediate cession of his estates to the King’s grandson, Charles, eldest son of the Duke of Normandy. Humbert, the last prince of the house of La Tour du Pin, had already, by treaties passed in 1343 and 1344, promised the Viennois, afterwards known as Dauphiné, to Philippe, younger son of Philippe VI. Then the young Philippe had been made Duc d’Orléans instead, and the province was to go to Jean, but at last it was given to the heir of the Duke of Normandy, and from this time forth that province, with the title of Dauphin, was the inheritance of the eldest sons of France. To the Duc de Bourbon the King offered, instead of Humbert de la Tour du Pin, his own grandson, for a son-in-law; an exchange with which it is needless to say the Duke was well content. The treaty was signed at Lyon in July, 1349.
Jeanne de Bourbon