Jean himself sold his eleven-year-old daughter Isabelle in marriage to the nine-year-old son of the rich and rampant Visconti family of Milan for 600,000 gold florins. The alliance of the King of France with an upstart Italian tyrant was almost as great a wonder as the defeat of Poitiers. To obtain the princess, Galeazzo Visconti, the bridegroom’s father, offered half the money cash down and half in return for a territorial dowry. The marriage was to take place in July, immediately following betrothal as was customary, but had to be postponed when the princess fell ill of a fever. What anxiety
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Jean himself sold his eleven-year-old daughter Isabelle in marriage to the nine-year-old son of the rich and rampant Visconti family of Milan for 600,000 gold florins. The alliance of the King of France with an upstart Italian tyrant was almost as great a wonder as the defeat of Poitiers. To obtain the princess, Galeazzo Visconti, the bridegroom’s father, offered half the money cash down and half in return for a territorial dowry. The marriage was to take place in July, immediately following betrothal as was customary, but had to be postponed when the princess fell ill of a fever. What anxiety must have hovered over a daughter’s sickbed, on which so much gold depended! At that time the plague had re-appeared
