On the death of King René, his eldest daughter, Yolande, Countess of Vaudémont, claimed and assumed the title of Queen of Sicily, Jerusalem, Naples, and Aragon, but took no steps to enforce her claim upon that vulture monarch, Louis XI., who at once seized upon the lands of his uncle, and styled himself Duke of Anjou and Count of Provence. Countess Yolande was her father’s child, tender and retiring. She craved the charms of the quiet life, and consequently, at the convocation of the Estates of Anjou and Provence, she renounced her title, and made it over to her son René. He had already taken up the gauntlet of his grandfather, and given proof of the sterling qualities of his ancestry. The duchy of Lorraine and that of Bar were his through his mother also, and as Duke of Lorraine René II. is known to historians. Countess Yolande died at Nancy February 21, 1483. René II. was the Prince whom his father, Ferri de Vaudémont, insisted should make a pilgrimage from Vezelay,--famous in the history of Thomas à Becket,--the capital of Le Morvan, to Jerusalem with one foot booted, the other bare, and, as he went, to distribute to every poor person he met 12 _livres_ by way of satisfaction for small sums he himself had borrowed and had not paid back--surely a wide stretch of fatherly authority and the law of substitution! The widowed Queen lost little time in settling her affairs in Provence, for she was minded to go to Anjou with her precious dead; indeed, René had expressed a wish to that effect. She carefully surveyed the names of all the people René loved and of those who loved him most nearly too. To each and all some token was sent or given; she spared few things for herself. Churches, institutions, schools, guilds, and all public bodies, received mementoes of the dead monarch. To Jehanne came many pangs at parting. She had learned to love the gentle Provençals, and they had not failed to return her regard most warmly. At last her preparations were completed, and she spent a day and night in the cathedral by the casket of her dear dead, and then sorrowfully she took her journey to distant Anjou, home to her kith and kin. [Illustration: RENÉ D’ANJOU (_Circa 1470_) Painted by himself on wood. Aix Library _To face page 348_]