Valentine was twenty years of age when, in 1386, her father consented to her betrothal to the brother of the King of France. The marriage was much desired by the French as, besides Valentine’s enormous fortune, it would bring back to France the county of Vertus, the dowry of Isabelle, and also give her Asti, a whole province of towns, villages, and castles, which would be a footing for the French in Italy.
It was not until the summer of 1389 that Valentine left her father on her journey to France. It was afterwards reported at Paris that the Duke of Milan said to her, “Fair daughter, when I see you again I trust you will be Queen of France;” but this is probably untrue, more especially as Gian Galeazzo, who had kept her as long as he could, rode with her out of the gates of Pavia and then turned, without a word of farewell, and rode silently back, not daring to look once more into her beloved face. In the saddest of her tragic life Valentine remembered with tears that silent parting.[119]
The King, Queen, Duc de Touraine, all the princes and the whole court were waiting at Melun, where the marriage was celebrated with suitable magnificence and much festivity. Valentine fell deeply in love with the Duc de Touraine, although he was five years younger than herself. She was not remarkably handsome, but very attractive, and in spite of the perpetual infidelities of Louis her devotion to him never changed, and she also lived on good terms with the Queen, notwithstanding the disposition of Isabeau to entertain for her a jealousy which might well have been reversed. Isabeau was then eighteen, in the height of her beauty, the idol of the court and people, all the more as she was again _enceinte_, and the hopes of every one were fixed on the birth of a Dauphin.
Valentine was as superior to Isabeau as light to darkness. Ambitious, cultivated, with brilliant intellectual powers, strong both to love and hate, brave and gentle, no shadow of reproach rests on her name.
The King took a great fancy to her and used to call her his beloved sister. She and Louis seem to have got on very harmoniously and affectionately together on the whole, by which one must conclude she must have been a woman of extraordinary tact and patience in some matters.