OF SIX MEDIÆVAL WOMEN
Isabelle, his wife, to act as his substitute, and, as lieutenante générale, she set forth to establish his claim. History is silent on the point as to whether Agnes accompanied her or not. It may be, as some seem to think, that she remained in Anjou with Isabelle's eldest daughter, Marguerite, afterwards Queen of England. We should like to think that it was during this time that she attracted the notice of Charles, for this would lend additional interest to the exquisite miniature in the Musée du Louvre (at one time in the Book of Hours of Etienne Chevalier, now for the most part at Chantilly), which it seems probable represents Agnes Sorel as a youthful shepherdess, with the Castle of Loches in the background and Charles the Seventh riding towards her. As we have already suggested elsewhere,[1] this may have been a poetical rendering of their first meeting. However this may be, it seems probable that it was soon after the year 1435[2] that she first attracted the notice of Charles, and that, later, she took up her residence in Touraine, no doubt gaining her influence over the king at first by her beauty, which all her contemporaries proclaim, and afterwards by that mysterious combination of ability and grace, of intelligence and physical vitality, which held him captive for many years. During this time she, like a true woman, and no ordinary place-
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