With scant reverence for the sacred edifice, and with much discourtesy to the Emperor and the dignitaries who sat with him as assessors,--the Papal Legate and the Patriarch of Constantinople,--Vaudémont indignantly refused to accept the imperial ruling, and demanded the immediate payment of the 20,000 _saluts d’or_ or the prompt return of Duke René to Bracon. Duchess Isabelle, who had courageously accompanied her husband, fell upon her knees before their stern, irreconcilable enemy, and pleaded with him to extend knightly magnanimity towards his prisoner. No! Vaudémont would have the duchy or René’s money or his person. René, gently raising his loving spouse, led her from the scene, and then, tenderly embracing her, he returned to where he had left Vaudémont scowling. “See,” said he, “here I am: take me at once to Dijon.” Before leaving the Imperial Court the Emperor beckoned to him, and, directing him to kneel, formally invested him with the temporalities of the duchy of Lorraine, and upon Isabelle he bestowed with the Papal benediction the honour of the “Golden Rose.”
Torn from the bosom of his family once more, René bore his misfortune like a man, and Isabelle rose superior to her trouble. Their noble bearing gained further the respect and good-will of all the Sovereigns and peoples of Europe, whilst the spleen and meanness of Vaudémont rendered him odious everywhere. René submitted obediently to the newly-imposed discipline. He beguiled his time by adorning the walls and windows of his chamber with sketches and paintings. What a thousand pities it is that none of those treasures have been preserved! Alas! France has suffered more than any other land from the suicidal tendencies of her people. Over and over again national passion has swept away works of art and historical memorials. King René’s frescoes have, with the fortress of Bracon, wholly disappeared. Music, too, and poetry, formed for him consolations. He composed _ballades_, he sang songs, sacred and profane. He played the viol and zither, and so whiled away some of the tedium of his captivity. “_Les Chroniques de Lorraine_,” note that “_il a sçu la musique, et marier la voix aulx doulx accents d’un luth, gémissant sous ses doigts_.”[A]