The Queen-mother’s presence in Anjou was necessary in the interests of her daughter, Queen Marie of France, and she never relaxed her control of the policy of her royal son-in-law. At each accouchement of the French Queen her devoted mother assisted, and it was a long family of grandchildren she nursed upon her knee. Her succour in sickness, her stay in trouble, and her help in poverty, were immeasurably precious to the fugitive Sovereigns. In 1437 Queen Yolande had the felicity also of receiving her son René, after his release from durance vile, in the Castle of Tine, near Saumur, and with him came Queen Isabelle and her children,--Prince Jean, the eldest, being a fine lad of eleven. It was a season of universal rejoicing in Anjou, and the Queen-mother, laying aside her widow’s _chapelle_ and veil, entered whole-heartedly into the festivities. The most cheering feature of the gaiety was due to the magnanimity of the Duke of Burgundy, who quite unexpectedly and unreservedly offered the crown of peace by proposing that Princess Marie, daughter of Charles I., Duke of Bourbon, his niece, should be affianced to the young Duke of Calabria. The ceremony of betrothal was duly celebrated in Angers Cathedral, the little bride being no more than seven years old. This was a great joy to the Queen-mother, and René and Isabelle were very happy, too. Again in 1440 the splendours of the Angevine Court were once more revived by the Queen-mother, when she welcomed right royally King Charles VII. and Queen Marie. It was by way of being a family gathering also, for King René and Queen Isabelle were of the party. It was a reunion remarkable in one way, as the introduction at Angers of the most lovely girl in France, in the suite of Queen Isabelle,--a girl destined to play a very important part in the private life of King Charles VII.,--Agnes Sorel. The Queen-mother was charmed with her lovely young visitor, and never made any opposition to her appointment as Maid of Honour to Queen Marie. These festivities, however, were the last in which Queen Yolande took part. The sorrows she was called upon to bear and the anxieties of the life she lived had their natural effect even upon such an ardent and vigorous constitution as hers. Gradually she retired altogether from public life, and in 1441 she took up her residence at Saumur. The castle was one of the strongest fortresses in France, and was one of the very few which held out successfully all through the Hundred Years’ War. Originally called _La Tour du Tronc_, Count Foulques Nerra, Count of Anjou, in the tenth century gave it the appearance and stability which it subsequently retained. Queen Yolande placed her suite within the castle precincts, but she herself, putting on an oblate’s habit, occupied for some time a house in the Faubourg des Ponts, where her privacy could be less easily disturbed. What remains,--and that, alas! is very little, of this