KING AND QUEEN IN STONE 236 KING RENÉ AND GUARINI DA VERONA 246 QUEEN MARGUERITE D’ANJOU 254 BEFORE THE “LISTS” 268 KING RENÉ IN HIS STUDY 280 AGRICULTURAL PURSUITS 292 QUEEN JEHANNE DE LAVAL 306 ST. MADELEINE PREACHING 320 “THE BURNING BUSH” 334 KING RENÉ (_circa_ 1470) 348 PREFACE KING RENÉ D’ANJOU AND HIS SEVEN QUEENS--yes, I stand by my title, and offer no apology to the captious and the curious. René was the most remarkable personality in the French Renaissance. How many English readers of the romance of history, I wonder, know anything about him but his name? Of his “seven Queens,” two only are at all familiar to the English public,--Marguerite d’Anjou and Jeanne d’Arc,--and their stories as commonly told are unconvincing. The other five are not known even by name to the majority of people; therefore I have immense pleasure in introducing them to any clientèle: Yolanda d’Arragona, Isabelle de Lorraine, Jehanne de Laval, Giovanna II. da Napoli, Jeanne d’Arc and Marguerite d’Anjou. This galaxy of Queens, fair and frail, will appeal as something entirely new in sentimental biography to those in search of novelty. Turgid facts of history and dryasdust statistics of the past are, of course, within everybody’s ken, or they are supposed to be--this is an age of snobbery! Piquant stories of the persons and foibles of famous men and women are my measure, and such you will have in plenty in my narratives. To get at my facts and fictions I have dug deep into the records of Court chroniclers, and I think I have blended very successfully the spirit of the troubadours and the spirit of the age of chivalry. At the end of the volume I have added a Bibliography, for the benefit of sententious students, and my Index is as full as possible, to assist the casual reader.