most passionate of princesses was ill suited to dwell with the
gayest and best humoured of sovereigns, whose pursuits she contemned,
and whose lightness of temper, for finding comfort in such trifles,
she could not forgive. The discomfort attached to her presence, and
vindictive recollections, embarrassed the good-humoured old monarch,
though it was unable to drive him beyond his equanimity.

Another distress pressed him more sorely.--Yolande, a daughter of his
first wife, Isabella, had succeeded to his claims upon the Duchy
of Lorraine, and transmitted them to her son, Ferrand, Count of
Vaudemont, a young man of courage and spirit, engaged at this time
in the apparently desperate undertaking of making his title good against
the Duke of Burgundy, who, with little right, but great power, was
seizing upon and overrunning this rich Duchy, which he laid claim to
as a male fief. And to conclude, while the aged king on one side
beheld his dethroned daughter in hopeless despair, and on the other
his disinherited grandson, in vain attempting to recover a part of
their rights, he had the additional misfortune to know, that his
nephew, Louis of France, and his cousin, the Duke of Burgundy, were
secretly contending which should succeed him in that portion of
Provence which he still continued to possess, and that it was only
jealousy of each other which prevented his being despoiled of this
last remnant of his territory. Yet amid all this distress, Rene
feasted and received guests, danced, sang, composed poetry, used the
pencil or brush with no small skill, devised and conducted festivals
and processions, and studying to promote, as far as possible, the
immediate mirth and good humour of his subjects, if he could not
materially enlarge their more permanent prosperity, was never
mentioned by them, excepting as _Le bon Roi Rene_, a distinction
conferred on him down to the present day, and due to him certainly by
the qualities of his heart if not by those of his head.

Whilst Arthur was receiving from his guide a full account of the
peculiarities of King Rene, they entered the territories of that merry
monarch. It was late in the autumn, and about the period when the
south-eastern counties of France rather show to least advantage. The
foliage of the olive tree is then decayed and withered, and as it
predominates in the landscape, and resembles the scorched complexion
of the soil itself, an ashen and arid hue is given to the whole.