The injurious reports concerning Louis and Valentine were diligently circulated by the Burgundian party. She was said, and by many believed, to have bewitched the King. The monk of St. Denis remarks, “Pour moi, je mis loin de partager l’opinion vulgaire au sujet des sortilèges, opinion repandue par les sots, les nécromanciers, et les gens superstitieux; les médecins et les théologiens s’accordent à dire que les maléfices n’ont aucune puissance, et que la maladie du roi provenait des excés de sa jeunesse.”[160]
Things, however, came to a climax at last when Valentine was accused of attempting to poison the Dauphin in order to open the way to the throne for her husband and children. The story was that one day when the children of the King and the Duc d’Orléans were playing together in the apartments of Valentine some one had thrown an apple amongst them close to the Dauphin, who was about to pick it up, but that one of the children of the Duc d’Orléans got it, bit a piece out, was taken ill, and died in a few days, the apple being poisoned. The only thing that is certainly true about this story is that a little son of Louis and Valentine did die about this time; but whether he ate an apple shortly before his death, whether it was thrown among the children when at play, or whether there was any reason for attributing his death to such a cause does not seem to have been shown. It does not appear that there was a shadow of probability about it, but that it was nothing more than a spiteful calumny got up by the Burgundian party and believed by the fierce and credulous Parisian mob. However, there was a great outcry: the Dauphin was not allowed to go to the apartments of the Duchesse d’Orléans, and the Duc d’Orléans and his friends thought Valentine would be safer out of Paris for the present. Therefore she left that city with her children in great pomp for Blois, where she remained for a time till the storm blew over.
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Her father, the Duke of Milan, was furious when he heard of these accusations against his daughter and himself, for he was also said to have bewitched the King, to have asked the French ambassador how he was, and on being told “well,” to have exclaimed, “You tell me a diabolic thing, and one that is impossible.[161] The King cannot be well”—clearly pointing either to sorcery or secret poisoning. He offered to send a champion to fight to the death any man who accused his daughter, and threatened to invade France.
In January, 1396, the Queen gave birth to a son, who was named Louis, and in February the King recovered his senses. It had been arranged that the little Princess Isabella, eldest daughter of Charles and Isabeau, should be married to Richard II., King of England, instead of to the son of the Duc de Bretagne, to whom she had at first been betrothed. Richard was thirty years old and a widower, but it was felt that the splendour and advantages of such an alliance as this, not only for the Princess, but still more for France, were not to be lost. The English ambassadors, therefore, when in 1395 they came to Paris, where the King was at that time living at the Louvre, and the Queen and her children at the hôtel St. Paul, were received with great honour and favour, and having paid their respects to the Queen, they turned to the Princess Isabelle. The Marshal of England knelt before her saying, “Madame, s’il plaît à Dieu, vous serez notre dame et Reine d’Angleterre.” To which the pretty, graceful child, who was only about seven years old, replied, “Sire s’il plaît à Dieu et à monseigneur mon père, je le serai volontiers; car on m’a bien dit que je serais une grande dame.” Then giving him her hand she raised him and led him to her mother.[162]
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The ambassadors were enchanted with the little princess, who was the especial darling of her parents and the whole Court. All the daughters of Charles and Isabeau seem to have been remarkable for good looks and charm, and very superior to their sons. The second one, Jeanne, was promised to the son of the Duc de Bretagne instead, and the marriage of Isabelle took place in October, 1397.
Magnificent preparations were of course made beforehand for the wedding of the eldest daughter of the Valois with the great enemy of her country, by which it was hoped to close the Hundred Years’ War and restore prosperity to France. The King sent for the most skilful jewellers and ordered for her a profusion of rings, bracelets, necklaces, chains, and all kinds of jewels of great price, cloth of gold and other costly stuffs, covered chariots, saddles and bridles covered with gold and silver. He was fortunately quite well, and sane just then, so that he was able to attend his daughter’s wedding. He went with the Queen, princes, and court to meet the King of England between Calais and Ardres, where the French and English camps were pitched near each other, the French one containing a hundred and twenty tents surrounded by a palisade, and in front a large tent like a great hall, more magnificent than the rest, over which floated the lilies of France.
The English camp contained the same number of tents, but the one that stood in front of it, with the standard bearing the leopards of England, was like a vast round tower.
The most stringent regulations were proclaimed in both camps to avoid the slightest danger of any disputes arising to endanger the harmony of the meeting on which hung the peace and welfare of two kingdoms.