In the midst of these troubles Joanna was delivered of her first-born child at the castle of Nantes,-a daughter, who was baptized by the bishop of Vannes, and received the name of Joanna.1 The infant only survived a few months. The grief of the youthful duchess for this bereavement was at length mitigated by a prospect of her bringing an heir to her childless lord's dominions; but the anticipations of this joyful event were clouded by the gloomy aspect of the affairs of Bretagne. The council of the duke strongly urged the necessity of peace with France. Among other arguments, they represented the situation of the duchess, saying, "Your lady is now far advanced in her pregnancy, and you should pay attention that she be not alarmed; and as to her brother, he can give you but little support, for he has enough to do himself." The duke was much struck on hearing this reasoning, and remained some time leaning over a window that opened into a court. His council were standing behind him. After some musing, he turned round and said, "How can I ever love Oliver de Clisson, when the thing I most repent of in this world is, not putting him to death when I had him in my castle of Ermine?"?

The fear of agitating his young consort decided the duke at last to yield an ungracious submission to his suzerain. Accordingly he went to Paris, and performed his long withheld homage to Charles VI., and the feudal service of pouring water into a golden basin, and holding the napkin for the king to wash.3 All this was done with evident ill-will; but the French monarch and princes overlooked the manner of the duke out of consideration for their kinswoman, the duchess Joanna, who, without taking any very decided part in politics, appears always to have used her influence for the purposes of conciliation. Few princesses could have been placed in a situation of greater difficulty than Joanna, while presiding over a court so torn with contending factions as that of Bretagne, as the consort of a prince old enough to have been her grandfather, and of so violent and irascible a temper Actes de Bretagne. Dom Morice. MS. Ecclesiastical Chron. of Nantes.

2 Froissart.

3 Ibid. Chronicles of Bretagne.

that, from the time of their marriage, he was always involving himself and his dominions in some trouble or other. Yet the combative disposition of John the Valiant need scarcely excite our wonder, when we reflect on the history of his early life, and the stormy scenes in which his infancy and childhood were passed. He might have said, with truth,—

"I was rocked in a buckler, and fed from a blade."

More than once was he brought forth in his nurse's arms, amidst the tumult of battle, to encourage the partisans of his father's title to the dukedom of Bretagne, or placed in his cradle on the ramparts of Hennebon during the memorable defence of that place by his mother, Margaret of Flanders.

The violent temper of the duke appears to have been chiefly exercised on men, for though he had three wives, he was tenderly beloved by them all. In person this prince was a model of manly beauty. His portrait by the friar Jean Chaperon, in the church of the Cordeliers at Rennes, painted immediately after the decisive battle of Auray, which established his long-disputed claim to the throne of Bretagne, reminds us of the head of a youthful Apollo, so graceful and exquisitely proportioned are the features. He wears the crown and ermine mantle of Bretagne, with a small ruff, supported by a collar ornamented with gems, and clasped before with a jewel forming the centre of a rose. His favourite dog (perhaps the faithless hound of oracular celebrity, which forsook the luckless Charles de Blois on the eve of the battle of Auray to fawn on him) is represented in the act of licking his shoulder.'

In the year 1388, Joanna brought an heir to Bretagne, who was baptized Pierre, but the duke afterwards changed his name to John. This much-desired event was soon followed by the birth of the princess Marie. The duchess, whose children were born in very quick succession, was on the eve of her third confinement, when her lord's secret treaties with his old friend and brother-in-law, Richard of England, drew from the regents of France very stern remonstrances. An embassy extraordinary, headed by no less a person than the duc de Berri, was sent by the council to complain of his 2 Dom Morice, Chron. de Bretagne.

1 Froissart.

intelligence with the enemies of France, and to require him to renew his oath of allegiance as a vassal peer of that realm. The duke of Bretagne, suspecting that these illustrious envoys intended to appeal to his nobles against his present line of conduct, determined, in violation of those considerations which in all ages have rendered the persons of ambassadors sacred, to arrest them all, and keep them as hostages till he had made his own terms with France.1 Le Moine de St. Denis, a contemporary historian, declares "he heard this from the ambassadors themselves, who related to him the peril from which they escaped through the prudence of Joanna.” Fortunately for all parties, it happened that her younger brother, Pierre of Navarre, was at the court of Nantes, and being apprized of the duke's design, hastened to Joanna, whom he found at her toilet, and confided to her the alarming project then in agitation. Joanna, who was then in hourly expectation of the birth of her fourth child, immediately perceived the dreadful consequences that would result from such an unheard-of outrage. She took her infants in her arms, flew to the duke's apartment, half-dressed as she was, with her hair loose and dishevelled, and throwing herself at his feet, bathed in tears, conjured him, for the sake of those tender pledges of their mutual love, to abandon the rash design that passion had inspired, which, if persisted in, must involve himself and all belonging to him in utter ruin. The duke, who had kept his design a secret from his wife, was surprised at the manner of her address. After an agitated pause, he said, "Lady, how vou came by your information, I know not; but rather than be the cause of such distress to you, I will revoke my order." Joanna then prevailed on him to meet the ambassadors in the cathedral the next day, and afterwards to accompany them to Tours, where the king of France gave him a gracious reception, and induced him to renew his homage by promising to unite his second daughter Joanna of France with the heir of Bretagne. High feasts and rejoicings celebrated the reconciliation of

1 Dom Morice. Mezerai.

2 Le Moine de St. Denis, p. 257. Actes de Bretagne. Mezerai. Dom Morice. 3 Argentre. Chronicles of Bretagne. Mezerai.

the duke of Bretagne with the king of France, and the treaty for the marriage between their children. On this occasion the choleric duke condescended, at the table of the king of France, to dine in company with his rival, John of Bretagne; but not even there would he meet sir Oliver Clisson,' so true is it that the aggressor is more difficult to conciliate than the injured party. This vindictive spirit on the part of the duke next betrayed him into the dishonourable proceeding of extending his protection to sir Peter Craon, after a base attempt to assassinate the constable in the Place de St. Katherine. The king of France was much exasperated when he heard that Craon was sheltered by the duke of Bretagne, and wrote a peremptory demand for him to be given up to justice. The royal messengers found the duke at his castle of Ermine with his duchess, and were civilly entertained. The duke positively denied any knowledge of Craon; but the king, being persuaded to the contrary, once more prepared to invade the duchy, with the avowed intention of deposing John the Valiant, and making himself the guardian of the young heir of Bretagne, Joanna's eldest son. The duke was preserved from the ruin that threatened him, by the alarming access of frenzy with which the king was seized in the scorching plains of Mans.2

Meantime, sir Oliver Clisson raised a civil war in Bretagne, which greatly harassed the court. The duke lost all his ill-acquired gains, was forced to shut himself up in Vannes, with the duchess and their children, without venturing beyond the walls, as the warfare was of the most murderous nature, and quarter was given by neither party. Clisson had greatly the advantage in the contest, and, besides many important successes not necessary to record here, he twice captured all the gold and silver plate belonging to the duke and duchess, and many of their jewels and other precious effects, which enabled him to carry on the war against them; and though the duke was the sovereign of the country, there was not a Breton knight or squire who would bear arms against Clisson. Matters would have gone much worse with the ducal party if

Joanna, who was, in her quiet way, a much sounder politician than her lord, had not contrived to establish a sort of amicable understanding with some of the Breton nobles in the interest of Clisson. The viscount Rohan, her agent in this negotiation, was at the same time the son of her aunt, Jane of Navarre,' and Clisson's son-in-law.

As

The duke of Bretagne was at last convinced of the difficulties that surrounded him. He felt that he was growing old, and that his children were very young, and, excepting the duke and duchess of Burgundy, there was not a friend in the world who would take care of his wife and her infants. to the branch of Navarre from which the duchess sprang, the wicked acts of her father had made that family remarkably unpopular in France; and if the hatred of sir Oliver de Clisson and the count of Penthièvres continued to be united against his house, his children and their mother would, in case of his decease, be left with many enemies. Having pondered these things in his mind, the duke, without asking advice from his council, called a secretary, to whom, on entering his chamber, he gave a large sheet of paper, and said, "Write down what I shall dictate." The secretary having made himself ready, the duke repeated every word that he was to write, and indited a letter in the most friendly terms to Clisson, desiring him to devise some means for them to meet, when every thing should be settled most amicably. The letter was folded up the presence alone of the duke and his secretary, and the duke having sealed it with his own signet, called his most trusty valet into the apartment, saying, "Hasten to castle Joscelin, and say boldly that I have sent thee to speak to my cousin sir Oliver, the lord of Clisson. Thou wilt be introduced to him. Salute him from me. If he return the salute, give him this letter, and bring me back his answer, but on thy life tell no man." On the arrival of the valet at castle Joscelin, the lord de Clisson examined the private signet of the duke, which he knew well, opened the letter, and read it two or three times over, and was much astonished at the friendly and affectionate terms in which it was compounded. After

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