Plot Summary:To bring an end the enmity which has existed between King René, who ruled in Provence in the fifteenth century, and Count Vaudemont, the later gentlemen agreed with the former through their mediator, the Duke of Burgundy, to betroth his new-born daughter, Iolanthe, to Tristan, the nine-year-old son of the count. Not long after this agreement was made the palace was partly destroyed by fire, and in being rescued by a soldier the baby girl became blind. The king sent to Cordova for a famous physician named Ebu Jahia, who told the father that his daughter should be kept in ignorance of her affliction until she attained the age of sixteen, at which time she would regain the use of her eyes. Acting upon this advice the king built in a secluded spot in his dominion a cottage, where the childhood days of Iolanthe were spent in the company of nobody but her nurse, Martha, and the former's husband, Bertrand, a forester. She was not permitted to receive anybody and even when the king paid her ...