“Réné was a prince of very moderate parts, endowed with a love of the fine arts, which he carried to extremity, and a degree of good humour, which never permitted him to repine at fortune, but rendered its possessor happy, when a prince of keener feelings would have died of despair. This insouciant, light-tempered, gay, and thoughtless disposition, conducted Réné, free from all the passions which embitter life, and often shorten it, to a hale and mirthful old age. Even domestic losses, which often affect those who are proof against mere reverses of fortune, made no deep impression on the feelings of this cheerful old monarch. Most of his children had died young; Réné took it not to heart. His daughter Margaret’s marriage with the powerful Henry of England was considered a connexion much above the fortunes of the King of the Troubadours. But in the issue, instead of Réné deriving any splendour from the match, he was involved in the misfortunes of his daughter, and repeatedly obliged to impoverish himself to supply her ransom.” In the Cours Mirabeau at Aix may be seen a statue of him by David of Angers, but it is worthless as a bit of portraiture; which is indefensible, as several genuine portraits of the king exist; one is in the cathedral along with his second wife, in the triptych of the Burning Bush; another in the MS. of Guarini’s translation of Strabo, in the library at Albi; a third, in private hands, has been engraved in the Count de Quatrebarbe’s edition of King Réné’s works. Réné has got into such a backwater of history that probably not many English folk know more about him than that he was the father of the unfortunate Margaret, Queen of Henry VI., sketched for us by Shakespeare in an unfavourable light, and more of him than what Scott is pleased to say in _Anne of Geierstein_. But no man has so taken hold of Provençal affection as has Réné. “If to the present day,” says a local historian, “the thought of this King makes a Provençal heart beat with tender love, it is due to this: that never was there a sovereign who showed greater consideration for his people, was more sparing of their blood and money, more desirous of promoting their happiness. Simple and modest in all his tastes, enjoying less revenue than most of the Seigneurs who were his vassals, he was to be seen every winter sunning himself in the midst of his subjects, who idolised him.”