Possibly Queen Yolande hardly realized, at the date of that auspicious marriage, how its consummation would affect herself. High-toned as she was, and assertive of Anjou’s prestige, she could not know that Queen Isabeau’s absolute declension from rectitude would, by force of contrast alone, throw her own worthy aims into emphatic prominence. That marriage was the opening of the portals of imperial interest to the personal guidance of the strongest mind and will in France. She became actually the power on the throne, not behind it. Her hand directed the issues of life and death between the rival Powers--France and England. Yolande became at once the ruler of France and the dictator of her foreign policy. What has history to say about all this? Nothing, or next to nothing. Historians,--the most narrow-minded and most easily biassed of writers,--have not cared to trace and teach the ethics of the personality of this ruler of men and States.
The genesis of the paramount influence of women in the public and private life of France was undoubtedly in the reign of Charles VII. He was successively in the hands of Isabeau, his unworthy mother; of Yolande, his noble mother-in-law; of Marie, his much-enduring wife; and of Agnes Sorel, his inspiring mistress. Happily for him, he was withdrawn early from the immediate care of Queen Isabeau, but her intrigues later on brought out the latent bad elements of his character. What saving grace was his, was his through Yolande of Sicily-Anjou. His wife and his chief mistress were given him for two distinct purposes: Marie kept the wolf from the door and emboldened her faint-hearted spouse, whilst Agnes cheered his troubled spirit and impelled his motive-power. There is a quatrain of Francis I. which is interesting from the fact that his versification leaves it doubtful whether Marie or Agnes was actually his good genius: he names _both_ in the first line:
“Gentille Marie (Agnès), plus d’honneur tu mérite, La cause étant de France recouvrer; Que ce que peut dedans un cloître ouvrer-- Close nonain ou bien dévot hermite.”
“Gentle Marie (Agnes), thou hast gained all honour, Of France the new life thou wast inspirer; But thou wast born to adorn the cloister, Encloséd nun or dedicated sister.”