Burgundy, to whom René had been a prisoner, held in pledge for his
ransom. In his youth he engaged in more than one military enterprise,
in the hope of attaining some part of the territory of which he was
styled sovereign. His courage is not impeached, but fortune did not
smile on his military adventures; and he seems at last to have become
sensible, that the power of admiring and celebrating warlike merit, is
very different from possessing that quality. In fact, René was a
prince of very moderate parts, endowed with a love of the fine arts,
which he carried to extremity, and a degree of good-humour, which
never permitted him to repine at fortune, but rendered its possessor
happy, when a prince of keener feelings would have died of despair.
This insouciant, light-tempered, gay, and thoughtless disposition,
conducted René, free from all the passions which embitter life, and
often shorten it, to a hale and mirthful old age. Even domestic
losses, which often affect those who are proof against mere reverses
of fortune, made no deep impression on the feelings of this cheerful
old monarch. Most of his children had died young; René took it not to
heart. His daughter Margaret's marriage with the powerful Henry of
England was considered a connexion much above the fortunes of the King
of the Troubadours. But in the issue, instead of René deriving any
splendour from the match, he was involved in the misfortunes of his
daughter, and repeatedly obliged to impoverish himself to supply her
ransom. Perhaps in his private soul the old king did not think these
losses so mollifying, as the necessity of receiving Margaret into his
court and family. On fire when reflecting on the losses she had
sustained, mourning over friends slain and kingdoms lost, the proudest
and most passionate of princesses was ill suited to dwell with the
gayest and best humoured of sovereigns, whose pursuits she contemned,
and whose lightness of temper, for finding comfort in such trifles,
she could not forgive. The discomfort attached to her presence, and