If Louis’s matrimonial prospects were somewhat clouded by the extreme youth of his child-bride, the Queen was by no means discouraged in her policy of influential alliances. Her second son, René, who had won all hearts in Barrois, was actually married to Princess Isabelle of Lorraine in 1420, although she was no more than nine years old, and he but twelve. This match was, however, not wholly the work of Queen Yolande; her ideas, however, were those which impelled her uncle, Cardinal Louis de Bar, directly to ask the hand of the juvenile Princess.
The year before this precocious marriage the Cardinal had formally proclaimed René his heir to the duchy of Bar, and created him Marquis of Pont-à-Mousson. This action greatly displeased Arnould, Duke of Berg, whose wife was Marie de Bar, a sister of the Cardinal. She preferred claims to the succession as next of kin to her brother, and when she was refused, the Duke took up arms and advanced upon Bar-le-Duc. The movement failed, and young René saw the Duke’s dead body taken away for burial without emotion. The young Prince had been for nearly two years residing at his great-uncle’s castle, under his immediate care and instruction. Among the tutors chosen for his training were Maestre Jehan de Proviesey, a grammarian and Latinist, and Maestre Antoine de la Salle, poet and musician. Such instructors were _de rigueur_, of course, for the true development of a perfect gentleman and courtier. The latter master wrote a treatise entitled “_Les quinze joyes de la mariage: instructions addressés aux jeunes hommes_.” This he dedicated to his pupil, Prince René. Among the quaint aphorisms it contains, this must have caused more than a smile on the part of the young knight:
“Bon cheval, mauvais cheval, veut l’esperon; Bonne femme, mauvaise femme, veut le baston!”
Perhaps the pith of the treatise is expressed in the neat quintet:
“Quattuor sunt que mulieres summe cupiunt, A formis amari juvenibus, Pottere fillis pluribus Ornari preciosis vestibus Et dominari pre ceteris in domibus.”
René’s time was, however, not wholly absorbed by his studies in school and Court, for he bestrode his warhorse like a man, and rode forth by his great-uncle’s side on punitive expeditions against recalcitrant vassals and against the incursions of freebooters, who under the designation of “_Soudoyers_” were devastating the duchy. It was said of the Cardinal: “_Il savait au besoin porter ung bassinet pour mitre et pour croix d’or un tache d’acier_!”