At Vienne, where the French Court was at the time, having gone south from Reims and the coronation, the King gave his brother-in-law’s consort a very hearty greeting, but he hesitated to commit himself to action which might ferment once more evil blood between his people and the Burgundians. Isabelle held by their hands, as she pleaded for her dear husband, her two baby girls, and Charles’s indecision was overcome by little Margaret, then a dauntless infant, who ran up to him and insisted upon being nursed upon his knee and kissed. A child’s instinctive disingenuousness is affected by magnetic natures regardless of conventions and proprieties; how often and often again is this proved to be axiomatic! That interview was memorable for the meeting of Charles with a woman--to be sure, then a girl--who would in after-years affect him and his considerably. Agnes Sorel was in attendance upon the Duchess Isabelle. Charles beheld her for the first time, and her face and figure haunted him for good and ill many a long day. Not content with winning over the King of France to intercede for the liberation of her consort, the Duchess returned to Lorraine, and went off at once to Vaudémont to plead with Count Antoine, the Duke of Burgundy’s brother, in the same cause. Vaudémont agreed to assist his kinswoman, but upon one chief condition, among others--that she would consent to Yolande, her eldest daughter, being betrothed to his eldest son Ferri. There was, of course, method in this extraordinary proposal,--for the child was only three years of age,--and it was this: He, the Count, claimed Lorraine, by the Salic Law, as first heir male against Isabelle. Whatever might eventuate, his son married to René’s daughter would be an additional lien upon the duchy. This policy also commended itself to Isabelle’s prudential mind, and she gave a qualitative consent dependent upon confirmation by Duke René later on. The Count added a rider to the stipulation, and that was the committal of the girl to the care of his wife, the Countess, for education and training. This, too, the Duchess accepted, although it cost her sore to part with her dear child. Margaret and Nicholas alone remained to solace her; but Isabelle was far too strong a character to spend much time in comforting or being comforted. Whilst René was in durance vile she could not remain idle; so off she went, taking Margaret and Nicholas with her, to the Castle of Tarascon, in order to enlist the sympathies and services of René’s devoted Provençals.