heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

WALLER. 205
overwhelming sense of misery and despair. On the black hangings of her
chamber she had embroidered the words, " Rien ne m'est plus
; plus ne
" m'est rien" ("nought have I more; more hold I :
nought") and then on
the following December she died of a broken heart.*
The unfortunate Duke Louis and his Duchess Valentine had been veryextravagant,
and the young Duke Charles found himself encumbered with
enormous debts. In order to discharge these honourably, he pledged or
sold a quantity of jewels, and refused to take advantage of any pretext,
however legally valid, that would lessen the amount.
In memory of his father's death he caused two rings to be made, on
one of which was engraven the words, "Dieu le scait" ("God knows it"),
and on the other, "Souvenez vous de" ("Remember").
Two years afterwards a reconciliation took place, by the King's
command, in the church of Our Lady at Chartres, and Charles and his
brother forgave their father's murderer, and swore peace upon the missal,
though it was done under protest, and " pour ne pas d6sobeir au Roi."
But the shadows again gathered, and after a union of only three
years, Isabella died a few hours after the birth of her little daughter,
eventually Duchess d'Alenson, in 1410.
The tender attachment of the duke for his young wife is touchingly
expressed by a poem which he wrote, entitled J'ai fait I' Obseques de Madame,
" i.e. Madame of France," her title as eldest daughter of the King and
wife of the second Prince of France. The following
is a translation
thereof :
" To make my lady's obsequies
My love a Minster wrought,
And, in the chantry, service there
Was sung in doleful thought.
The tapers were of burning sighs
That light and odour gave;
And grief, illumined by tears,
Irradiate her grave.
And round about, in
Was carved, 'Within this
quaintest guise,
tomb there lies
The fairest thing to mortal eyes.'
"Above her lieth
spread a tomb
Of gold and sapphires blue ;
The gold doth shew her blessedness,
The sapphires mark her true.
For blessedness and truth in her
Were livelily portrayed,
When gracious God, with both His hands,
Her wondrous beauty made.
She was, to speak without disguise,
The fairest thing to mortal eyes.
* Guizot's History of France, p. 176.
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