The heir to the childless Nicholas was his aunt Yolande of Anjou, daughter of old King Rene of Anjou, sister to the unfortunate Margaret, late Queen of England, and widow of the Duke of Vaudemont.  The council of Lorraine lost no time in acknowledging Yolande as their duchess.  She hastened to Nancy, the capital, with her son Rene, aged twenty-two, where they were received hospitably, and then Yolande formally abdicated in favour of the young man, who was duly accepted as Duke of Lorraine.

Now there was a large party of Burgundian sympathisers in Nancy, and it was probably owing to their pressure that very strong links were at once forged between Charles and the new sovereign of the duchy.  The apprehension lest the former should protect the land as he had the heritage of his namesake, little Charles of Guelders, was expressed by the timorous, but their counsels were overweighted, and, on October 15th, Rene accepted a treaty whose terms were very favourable to Burgundy.  In exchange for being “protector,”—­an office that the emperor had already been asked to change into suzerainty,—­Rene cemented an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Charles, giving the latter full permission to march his forces across Lorraine.  Further, he pledged himself to appoint as officials in all important places on the route “men bound by oath to the Duke of Burgundy.”  Yes, more, these were discharged from fidelity to Rene in case he abandoned Burgundian interests.

Yolande of Vaudemont endorsed these articles by adding her signature to that of her son.  Charles feared, however, that the provisions might not be adhered to by the Lorrainers—­so humiliating were the terms—­and exacted in addition the signatures of the chief nobles.  On November 18th, seventy-four of these gentlemen attested their approval of an act that practically delivered their land to a stranger,—­evidence that they doubted the ability of their hereditary chief, and preferred Burgundy to France.

There is a story that Charles tried other methods than diplomacy, before he got the better of the young duke in this bargain, that he actually had him stolen away from the castle of Joinville where he was staying with his mother.[6] Louis promptly came forward and arrested a nephew of the emperor, a student in the University of Paris, and kept him as a hostage until the release of Rene.  Rumour, too, asserts that there was a treaty of Joinville, wherein Rene asserted his friendship with Louis, which was intermitted by his relations with Charles, to be resumed later.  That also seems to be improbable.  The formal alliance with Louis did not come then, though the king took immediate care to build up a party in his behalf in Lorraine, and to keep himself informed of the progress of the new regime.