Puzzling over the meaning of this strange verse, the ladies beheld the Princess hastening to where they stood. With heightened colour she asked them: “What are you doing here? Why are you not with the Queen of Sicily?” Then effacing the writing with her foot, she added: “I cannot think why I did not efface those words; I have committed an indiscretion. But take note I did not name the unhappy person who wrote them.” The romance went on unchecked. Dunois, still under age, very adroitly contrived to remove the suspicions his conduct had aroused in the mind of Queen Yolande, and Marie took dutifully and silently the maternal reproofs. Then came the death of Charles VI., and Princess Marie was proclaimed Queen of France. With more than a sigh,--almost a broken heart,--she set herself to play her part as a virtuous woman and as a loyal spouse. Dunois did not renounce his devotion to the Queen, and she never forgot the love she had borne him--a Prince the very antithesis of her husband, remarkable for personal beauty and mental accomplishment, just the sort of man all women love. Daily she poured out her soul before the altar of her private chapel for strength to be true and faithful, and victory was hers; but it cost her dear. “Car en vertueuse souffrance, Au temps du commun desarroy, Elle a monstre plus de vaillance Que sage prince ou fier roy.” “In point of virtuous suffering, At times of deep alarms, She exhibited more daring Than wise prince or king in arms.” This fascinating story of the loves of Count Dunois d’Orléans and Princess Marie d’Anjou was worked up by fanatics into a culpable liaison of the Queen. It grew in vile misrepresentation, and swelled in garbled facts until it became abhorrent in the ears of all decent-minded people. Some of Charles’s legitimate children were said to have been fathered by the Count. The Queen very wisely refrained from making replies to the evil stories, the only sensible way of dealing with them. “Exempt,” as wrote Varillas, “not only from the faults of the Court, but still more from suspicion that she had any part therein, she had all the same to suffer from the poison of calumny.” On the other hand, Marie suffered in patience the disdain and unfaithfulness of the King, and returned his evil with her good. Her entire life was a scene of sacrifice and an arena of benevolence.