It was at the Castle of Angers, in a kind of little manor-house flanked by four turrets, that René first saw the light on the 16th of January, 1409. The Maugine was his nurse in the citadel, the Maugine, Tiphaine, to whom in after years he erected a tomb, the touching inscription upon which is from his hand. Married at the age of twelve to Isabelle de Lorraine, René d’Anjou, fighting everywhere for twenty-five years, made only rare appearances at the Castle of Angers; but soon comes the death of Isabelle and upon it quickly follows the second marriage of the prince with Jeanne de Laval, upon which he establishes his residence at Angers. Farewell war, diplomacy, treaties and conquests! René yields himself up to the charm of his young wife. To her the poet consecrates his loving stanzas of _Regnault and Jeanneton_, a kind of autobiography of the husband and wife. _The Shepherd and the Shepherdess_, a delicate pastorale composed in honour of Jeanne de Laval, will be put into its final form under the skies of Provence, at Tarascon; but it is in the Angevin country that the poet finds all his ideas as he strolls at the side of the beautiful Jeanne. The writers of the time show us René going out of the Castle without escort, accompanied solely by his royal spouse, and taking the _chemin de la Baumette_. After passing through the field-gate, the illustrious personages got into a fisherman’s boat below the _Basse-Chaîne_, and descended the Maine to that solitary hermitage, where Rabelais will presently come to study at the Cordeliers. It is also from this Castle that René d’Anjou issues to cross his “beautiful city” on foot to his dear hermitage, where he loved to consort “with the citizens of Angers, the artists and the men of learning of his Court.”