As might very well have been expected at a Court of self-seekers and sycophants, the integrity and unselfishness of the Queen were goads to slander and aids to hypocrisy. She was assailed on account of her absolute faithfulness to the marriage bond and for her want of personal ambition. Roués could not understand her; mondaines would not tolerate her; the King’s favourites and mistresses,--not Agnes Sorel, be it said,--strove all they could to poison his mind against his consort. The names of many prominent Princes and courtiers were linked scandalously with the Queen’s. Arthur de Richemont, son of Duke Jehan VI. of Brittany, the Constable of France; Pierre de Giac de la Trémouille, Captain of the King’s Guards; Étienne Louvet, President of the Privy Council; and the Count of Dunois, better known as the “Bastard of Orléans,” were all said to have shared the Queen’s confidences and her favours. The latter was thrown, indeed, very much with Her Majesty, and ranked among the Princes of the Royal House. Son of the assassinated Duke of Orléans by an unknown mother, the Duchess brought him up along with her own children, and she hoped he would live to avenge his father’s death. The “Bastard” was the playmate of the children of King Louis II. of Sicily-Anjou and Queen Yolande, and he and the Princess Marie were much drawn to one another.
The two young people were one day in the gardens of the Hôtel de St. Pol along with the Comte de Ponthieu,--Charles VII.,--and the Princes and Princesses of Sicily-Anjou, when the Count, wearied of his forced attentions to the Princess Marie, sauntered away by himself. Xaintrailles followed him and remonstrated with him for his coolness to his fiancée. Charles replied that they were not fully betrothed, and that he did not admire and did not love Marie. Xaintrailles told Dunois what the Count had said, and Dunois, with a scornful laugh, exclaimed: “One must be dull and blind indeed not to be smitten by her eyes--the most beautiful eyes in the whole world, and quite incapable of seeing the faults of others.” Dunois was very much in love with the Princess, and did not conceal his passion, so much so that when he kissed her hand, as he often did, he also lifted the hem of her skirt and implanted a kiss there, as a lover’s token of humility.