It was a perilous position for the vigorous and gallant stripling Prince, but the counsels of his virtuous mother were not thrown away. The young King refused the amorous royal overtures successfully, and having kissed the Queen’s hand, he offered a plausible excuse, and speedily took his departure for Rome. The Supreme Pontiff extended to the youthful hero his paternal benediction, and detained him at the Vatican just long enough to invest him with the title of King of Naples, in place, as His Holiness wished, of the worthless and abandoned Queen. Thence Louis travelled on to Florence and Milan, and obtained promises of substantial assistance from their rulers against the pretensions of the King of Aragon.
But to return to Anjou and the “good mother” there, the anxious and busy Queen Yolande.
The _Revue Numismatique du Maine_ contains many paragraphs recounting the Queen’s prudence and activity in military matters. Under date June 10, 1418, for example, she issued an order to the Seneschal and Treasurer of Provence “to reimburse one Jehan Crepin, keeper of the Castle of Forcalquier, whence one of the sovereign titles are taken, the advance made by him for the reparation of the said castle.” On February 18, 1419, the States of Provence assembled at Aix besought the Queen, as head of the State, “to suppress the tax which had been levied upon the circulation of foreign money, with a view to greater facilities being accorded for the payment of sums required for the defence of the country.” A few years later,--in 1427,--the authorities of the city of Marseilles prayed the Queen, then at Tarascon, to authorize them to impose a poll-tax upon all foreign merchants in the port, “so that the funds at their command might be enlarged, for the express purpose of fitting out vessels of war.” The inhabitants of Martignes, which county Yolande had brought, on her marriage, to the possessions of her husband,--on December 20, 1419,--sought for their Queen-Countess, as ruler and administrator, the right to retain certain dues on the production of salt for the defence of their coast-line. There are very many such entries in the State papers of the reign; indeed, both before and after the departure of Louis III. for Naples, Queen Yolande was recognized as responsible ruler for her son.