Queen Yolande had seconded her uncle’s negotiations in a very womanly and sensible way. She communicated directly with good Duchess Margaret. She pointed out to her the mutual advantages of the marriage of the two children, and declared that such a union would heal the breach between the eastern and the western Sovereigns of France. Margaret, loving peace and holy things, was easily persuaded to reason with her husband; she submitted absolutely to the overpowering personality of the Queen. With Charles, Yolande had a stiffer fight, but she gathered up her strength, and in the end, lusty warrior that he was, he yielded up his defence to the tactful diplomacy of the good mother of Anjou. Woman’s wit once more, as it generally does, triumphed over man’s obstinacy. Charles agreed to receive the young Prince, and judge for himself of his prepositions and qualifications. The result was beyond the Cardinal’s expectation, for the Duke declared himself charmed with the boy. He was, he said, ready to rescind the prohibitory clauses of his will, but he made it a condition that he should have the personal and unrestricted guardianship of the boy until he reached the age of fifteen. He desired René to proceed at once to Angers to obtain Queen Yolande’s consent to the matrimonial contract between himself and Princess Isabelle. Everything went merrily, like the marriage-bells which soon enough pealed forth all over Lorraine, Barrois, and Anjou, at the auspicious nuptials. The final arrangements were completed, and René and Isabelle were betrothed at the Castle of St. Mihiel, and on October 20, 1420, married at the Cathedral of Nancy by the Bishop of Toul, Henri de Ville, Duke Charles’s cousin. Immediately before the wedding, Cardinal-Duke Louis caused a herald to proclaim publicly, in the market-place of Nancy, René d’Anjou, Comte de Guise, Hereditary Duke of Bar, with the _ad interim_ title of Marquis of Pont-à-Mousson. The record of the marriage is thus entered in “_Les Chroniques de Lorraine_”: “_Les nopces furent faictes en grant triomphe, et la dicte fille menée à Bar moult honorablement. Le Cardinal fust moult joyeulx._”[A] The contract had been signed on March 20, 1420, by the Duke and the Cardinal at the Château de Tourg, near Toul, Queen Yolande’s signature being provided by her proxy. She granted to her son the right to quarter the arms of Bar and Lorraine with those of Anjou and Guise. [A] “The nuptials were celebrated with great ceremony, and the said Princess was conducted to Bar very honourably. The Cardinal was full of joy.”