It was said scoffingly of him by those who were bereft of feeling: “_Le Dauphin est un fou, fils d’un insensé et d’une prostituée_.”[A] Jean Juvenal des Ursins perhaps went too far in the opposite direction, for in 1433 he wrote in his “Chronicle” concerning the King: “_Sa vie est plaisante à Dieu; il n’y-a-en aucun vice_.”[B]
[A] “The Dauphin is a poor fool, the son of a madman and a prostitute.”
[B] “His manner of life is pleasant to God; he has no vice.”
The first notice we find of the life of Marie d’Anjou, however, does not refer to her union with Charles VII., but her betrothal, when only five years old, to Jehan de Beaux, Prince of Taranto, her kinsman. He was the son of the Prince of Taranto who accompanied King Louis II., Marie’s father, on his romantic journey to Perpignan, in 1399, to welcome Princess Yolanda d’Arragona. Descended in direct line from Charles, first Duke of Anjou, younger brother of St. Louis IX., his grandfather was Philippe, second son of Charles III. and Marguerite of France. Through the last-named Princess a sad stain besmirched the shield of the silver lilies. Jehanne and Blanche de Luxembourg, daughters of Otto IV., Count of Burgundy, married respectively King Philippe the “Tall” and King Charles the “Fair” of France. Charged with witchcraft, they were imprisoned for life in the Château de Dourdan, where they were tonsured, scourged, and tortured--although they were the most beautiful and most highly cultured women of their day--together with their sister-in-law Marguerite, but she returned to her husband in 1314. Their terrible experiences were made traditional in the family, and, naturally, did not conduce to success in courtship.
No doubt the idea which fixed itself in the minds of Louis II. and Yolande with respect to this betrothal was the strengthening of the claims of Anjou, of the younger line, upon the crown of Naples, by the alliance of the two branches of the house. Why this arrangement was set aside, or when, it is hard to say. Some chroniclers aver that the young Prince was drowned at sea off Taranto; others, that he had different views; and, more likely than all, others attribute the renunciation to the action of Queen Yolande, who, directly she had obtained charge of the person of the young Dauphin Charles, determined a more brilliant match politically, if a less attractive one psychologically.