Nancy was the scene of the most magnificent gaieties Lorraine had ever beheld. The espousals of the Princess Marguerite and King Henry VI. were solemnized in the ancient Gothic church of St. Martin at Pont-à-Mousson by Louis d’Harcourt, Bishop of Toul. The King was represented by the gallant Earl of Suffolk, one of the most famous Knights in Europe. The ecclesiastical ceremony was rendered all the more auspicious by the joint nuptials of the Princess Yolande and Count Ferri de Vaudémont. All France,--Sovereigns, ladies, nobles, citizens,--thronged around the King and Queen; their congratulations were, however, restrained until the actualities of the Vaudémont marriage were revealed. To marry a dear child to the son of a man’s worst enemy appeared quixotic at the least, and few called to mind that strange clause in René’s charter of release from Bracon. The King was, as Duke Philippe of Burgundy had styled him, a man of his word; and if proof were wanted, then the appointment of the young bridegroom’s mother, the Countess, as _governante_ of René’s daughters furnished it. Besides this, the presence of the Count himself at the marriage of his son exhibited not only the reconciliation of the two rivals for the throne of Lorraine, but emphasized the innate chivalry of both. To be sure, Antoine de Vaudémont was in ill-health, his fighting days were over, and he was searching for comfort and absolution before he faced his end; and, in truth, that end was nearer than he thought, for he died six months after he had given his blessing to Ferri and Yolande.
A pretty and characteristic story is told of the loves of Ferri and Yolande. King René was wishful that his daughter and future son-in-law should attain more mature age before the consummation of Count Antoine’s wishes concerning them. The young knight, “who was,” wrote Martial, “regarded among men and youths much as Helen of Troy was among her companions,”--a very handsome fellow,--chafed at delay, and, emboldened by the vows of his fiancée, one dark, windy night he with two trusty comrades broke into her boudoir, where she, ready for the signal, awaited her lover. Romeo carried his Juliet away to Clermont in Argonne, and held her till her father consented to their marriage. This story is contained in an old manuscript, the handiwork of Louis de Grasse, the Sire of Mas.