peculiarly lovable, though almost as ugly as Charles himself. He had a
low forehead, prominent ruminating eyes, a sensual, affectionate
mouth, high cheek-bones, and a flabby skin. It was the face of a man
who liked life as it was, and people as they were; there appeared in
it no desire for illusions of any kind. He had in his own nature all
the sympathetic weaknesses, and his expression conveyed the easy
tolerance of a nature which had at least used experience as a school
of understanding. A Venetian ambassador once called him "a child of
nature," and he was essentially natural, with an almost childlike
trustfulness, not so much of manner as of opinion. He ruled--save for
his unfortunate passion to possess a piece of Italy--like a man
preoccupied with the happiness of his children. The people adored him.
If money had to be raised, he made personal sacrifices rather than
burden the poor with additional taxation, while his home policy was
persistently humane and sensible. Historians rarely do him justice.
Because he failed to prove a great diplomatist, they ignore his
possession of a delightful personality. In regard to Italy, he was
plainly foolish; but then Italy stood for the romance of life--the
adventure that drew the commonplace out of existence. Even specialized
astuteness could have blundered easily in the cunning complications of
international politics at that crisis, and Louis went to Italy, not
out of policy, but literally because he could not keep himself away
from it.
Though in private life his interests were largely intellectual, he had
always a certain strain of cordial earthliness. The "pastime of
ladies" he is said to have given up entirely after his second
marriage, but good dinners and good wine he liked to the end of life.
When Ferdinand of Aragon was told that Louis complained of being twice
cheated by him, he exclaimed exultantly, "He lies, the _drunkard_; I
have cheated him more than ten times."
Anne stood for his antithesis. She was regrettably without small
weaknesses, and she forgave nobody. When Louis came to the throne he
remarked, "It would ill become the King of France to avenge the wrongs
of the Duke of Orleans." But if any one hurt Anne, she could not rest
until a greater hurt had been flung back upon the offender. Once a
grown woman, and married to Louis, she was, except from the point of
view of housewifery, almost completely a failure. She might have had
more flagrant vices and aroused compassionate affection. But she was
pre-eminently respectable, pious, hedged in by sedate rules of
conduct. And all the time one of the most corroding sins possible
flourished in her to offend posterity. Anne's revengefulness is like a
blight, destroying the grace of her femininity.
Happily she was generous, and generosity is a sweet redemption of much
crookedness. She loved to give presents. After her second marriage
she kept a gallery full of jewellery and precious stones, which she
gave from time to time to the "wives of the captains or others who had
distinguished themselves in the wars, or faithfully served her husband
Louis." Also, she never denied the tragic clamour of the poor. Mezerai
wrote: "You saw thousands of poor waiting for her alms, whenever she
left the palace."
Of the private life led by Anne and Louis an unusual amount is known.
They got up at six in summer and seven in winter. They had their
dinner at eight or nine in the morning. At two o'clock they took some
light refreshments. By five or six supper was served, and either at
eight or nine o'clock they went to bed, after having a glass of wine
and some spiced cakes. An old rhyme of the period might have been
written for them--
"To rise at five, and dine at nine,
Sup at five, and sleep at nine,
Keeps one alive until ninety-nine."
Louis passed the larger part of the day occupied with state matters.
To quicken recognition of the gravity of a ruler's efforts, he read
fragmentarily but constantly Cicero's "Treatise on Duties;" it was to
him like a spring of stimulating waters. When he had nothing else to
do, he made love to his "Bretonne"--the name, for intimate use, given
by him to Anne. She could have stirred no poetic imaginings, but she
was comfortable to his nature. Domesticity and the hearthside
securities were expressed by her.
Meanwhile, Anne ruled her household after the manner of an austere
schoolmistress. Like all unimaginative people, she shrank from any
form of waywardness, and none was permitted near her person. Her court
grew to be spoken of as a school of good conduct for girls of the
upper classes. Whether because she took so many or not, the beds for
the rooms of the maids of honour were six feet long by six feet wide,
so that several girls slept in the same bed--a little row of heads on
one long pillow. No maids of honour were allowed to address a man save
with an audience in the room. When the king went hunting, Anne sat
surrounded by intimidated ladies, all sedately at work upon huge
pieces of tapestry.
Even their recreations had to be of a sober and cautious nature.
Françoise D'Alençon, the sister-in-law of Margaret D'Angoulême, is
reported to have kept intact the traditions of Anne's court, and the
following quotation is a description of how her household was
managed. "She made all her ladies also come into the room, and after
having looked at them one by one, she called back any whose bearing
struck her as plebeian or wanting in propriety. She scolded any whose
dress was not as it should be. Then she examined each one's work, and
if there was a fault, righted it, and if the little progress made
showed negligence and laziness, scolded the worker pretty sharply. As
to their morals, she allowed none of them to have any conversation
alone with any man, nor suffered any conversation before them not
strictly proper and honourable.... As to their pastimes and festivals,
this prudent princess did not keep them so strictly but that they were
allowed to walk about, and play in the gardens or in some honourable
house; or that they '_balassent_,' or played the guitar,
_d'espinettes_, or other musical instruments, recommended by the
nobility and other honourable minds; or that they should sing modestly
and religiously in their room, which she often made them do in her
presence, and while she herself joined them. But she never allowed
them to sing other songs than the Psalms of David, or the songs of the
dead Queen of Navarre. She did as much for their literature, for as
she herself only read the Scriptures, or some historical biography
which contained no false doctrine, so she would not allow her ladies
to read anything else either."
With insignificant alterations the picture conveys as accurately
Anne's method of management as that of the inflexible Françoise
D'Alençon. Perhaps of the two Anne's control permitted more brightness
to stray through its severity. There were occasional dances at the
court, as well as journeys from one town to another. But it was not
Anne's destiny to retain either of her husbands comfortably at her
elbow. Though Louis loved both his wife and his people, the desire for
adventure fretted the surface of his domestic life. Before Anne gave
birth to their first baby, he had already gone to struggle for a piece
of the country which perpetually ensnared him with abnormal and
inexplicable longings.
During the first expedition Ludovico Sforza was taken prisoner. In
this one matter Louis's conduct freezes one's blood. He brought Il
Moro to France, and imprisoned him underground at the castle of
Loches, while to increase safety he was placed every night in an iron
cage. For ten years Ludovico endured this extreme limit of mental and
physical privation, his magnificent physique refusing to admit Death
sooner. But even at this distance of time it is not possible to think
without unhappiness of the destroying agony of such imprisonment.
While Louis was in Italy, Anne wrote to him daily. A little letter
from her proving that Louis was both affectionate and in love is still
in existence. It commenced, "A loving and beloved wife writes to her
husband, still more beloved, the object both of her regrets and her
pride, led by the desire of glory far from his own country. For her,
poor _amante_, every moment is full of terrors. To be robbed of a
prince more lover than husband, what a terrible anguish it is!" The
words "more lover than husband" reveal the practice of constant minor
and endearing attentions.
A miniature painting of the period discloses Anne writing one of these
daily letters. She sits in her bedroom, clearly used as a sitting-room
as well. Her black gown trails consequentially upon the floor, but her
table and seat are both perfectly unpretentious. Round her, on the
ground, sit her ladies-in-waiting, intensely docile and industrious.
Besides being disciplined in an outward meekness, they were, it would
seem, obliged to adopt a court uniform, since in all the pictures they
are dressed absolutely alike. Anne's inkstand and pen are both gold,
and a little handkerchief is set conveniently near to wipe the seemly
tears that should blur her eyes as she writes. At the back is a
charming four-poster, rich and radiant with opulent gold hangings.
When Louis returned to France, society flung its eager frivolity into
a series of organized rejoicings. But already to Anne life was
beginning to imply unrestfulness. Louise de Savoie had a son Francis;
and unless Anne gave birth to one later, this child became heir to the
throne of France. The two women hated each other with an almost
equally tortured intensity; certainly from this time forward Louise
spoiled the peace of Anne's existence. Even without the poignant
person of Francis, Duc D'Angoulême, some friction would still have
been unavoidable. Anne clung to sober and steadfast if uninspired
propriety; Louise de Savoie in conduct had no morals, no restraint,
and no delicate prejudices whatsoever. Her brain teemed with
complexities, exaggerations, and superlatives. She saw everything
through a falsifying excitement, while to weave a lie was one degree
more comfortable to her than to speak veraciously. In appearance also
the advantages were on her side, and possessing an intuitive gift for
understanding the worst of men, her society was dangerously
flattering and easy to them.
Anne flinched, both at the other's conduct and at her possession of an
heir to the French throne. Fleurange, who knew Anne well, said that
there was never an hour but these two houses were not quarrelling.
Both women, as the years passed, grew to have a constant piercing
apprehension that killed all abiding buoyancy of feeling. In Anne's
case the anguish was far the sharper and the more pitiful. Again and
again she throbbed at the expectation of motherhood, and after nine
overwrought months, when to both women the suspense had grown almost
more than they could suffer, a girl, or a boy born dead, came to crush
the vitality out of Anne's brave spirit.
After the birth of Claude a still keener edge was given to
disquietude. Almost immediately arose the question of a marriage
between the girl and Francis. For years, with all the passionate
fierceness of her nature, Anne fought to ward off this triumph for her
adversary and to marry the child to a different husband. In 1501 a
temporary victory expanded her heart. The baby became promised to the
Duke of Luxembourg, afterwards Charles V., son of the Archduke Philip
of Austria. This engagement continued for several years. Then Louis
realized that the probability of his having a son had grown very
small, and that under these conditions the Austrian marriage would be
in the last degree impolitic. For some reason not stated, he and Anne
stumbled at this period into a serious breach of tenderness. His
attitude to the question of Claude's marriage may have roused her to a
despairing fury. To surrender the little plain girl she delighted in,
to the son of the woman she abominated, was a hard thing to do--too
hard for a heart already contracted with useless yearnings. Louis met
her strenuous obstinacy with an implacable conclusiveness. The pulse
of the nation beat, he knew, for the young D'Angoulême, who was "all
French;" and his own opinion could be summed up in one sentence--that
"he preferred to marry his mice to rats of his own barn."
A chill, destroying discord rose between the married lovers, who had
once known such warmth in each other's presence. Louis, stung out of
placidity, even commenced to snub the proud and suffering woman
struggling against his wishes. During one of the recurring discussions
upon the same subject, he informed her that "at the creation of the
world horns were given to the doe as well as to the stag, but the doe
venturing to use these defences against her mate, they were taken
from her." If he had whipped Anne, the sense of stinging humiliation
could hardly, one imagines, have been sharper. For no woman bore
herself with a more unyielding dignity before witnesses, and the
remark was not made beyond the reach of auditors.
In 1505, Anne, fretted, sore of heart, beaten and discouraged, went to
Brittany. The actual reason of her going is not given, but having gone
she stayed there, and more, wrote no longer daily letters to "her
loving and beloved." Outwardly she was happy--held magnificent
receptions, and went interesting journeys from one town to another.
Clearly it was rest of heart to be away. Home had become a place of
piercing bitterness, of rending and exhausting antagonisms. On a vital
question she and Louis pulled different ways. Here in Brittany
friction and sorrow lulled a little. Her nerves took rest, and her
heart forgot at intervals.
[Illustration: ST. HELENA
FROM ANNE'S "BOOK OF HOURS"]
That she flinched from return as from a renewal of intolerable
provocation is unmistakable. In the September of 1505 she was at
Rennes; and while she was there, Louis's friend, the Cardinal
D'Amboise--upon whose death Pope Julius II. "thanked God he was now
Pope alone"--wrote with a hint of distraction concerning the
gravity of her prolonged absence from France. He said, "The king sent
for me this afternoon, madame. I have never seen him so put out, as
also I understand from Gaspar, to whom he spoke in my presence." The
letter concluded with an urgent appeal that she should return and "so
satisfy the king and also stop strangers from gossiping."
Four days afterwards he wrote again: "Although wonderfully pleased at
the assurance you send me of making all possible haste to return to
court, I am deeply distressed that you do not mention any date. I do
not know what to answer the king, who is in the greatest
perplexity.... I wish to God I was with you.... I can only say that I
grieve with all my heart that you and the king no longer speak frankly
to one another." Still she lingered, like a person bathing weary limbs
in warm and soothing waters. Amboise, seeing the oncoming of permanent
alienation, wrote again, "For God's sake don't fall, you and the king,
into these moods of mutual distrust, for if it lasts neither
confidence nor love can hold out, not to speak of the harm that can
come of it, and the contempt of the whole Christian world."
In the end Anne drew upon her tired courage and came back. Once
together again, moreover, she and Louis must have yielded to gentler
feelings, for two children were born afterwards. But from this time to
the end Anne never again felt the glow of life really stream upon
her--a chill loneliness sapped capacity for pleasure. Once Louis
exchanged the lover for the husband, they possessed no mental
companionableness to fall back upon. They saw few things with the same
emotion, and for successful marriage this is the primal necessity. Anne
was intuitively religious, and Louis had been excommunicated--without
visible disturbance--for his exploits in the second Italian campaign.
To increase a marked sense of the difference between their views,
Brittany had been excluded from the excommunication.
Everything for Anne had grown a little out of gear--a little hurtful
and antagonistic. Claude was lame and not pretty--Louise's handsome
son and daughter were adored by everybody.
Moreover, she had been coerced and disregarded; for all her excessive
stateliness men knew her as a humiliated and beaten woman. Before
Louis left for the third Italian campaign, the betrothal of Claude to
Francis had been ratified. Deputies from the different departments
had visited Louis at Plessis-les-Tours. They called him "Father of his
people;" then upon bent knees begged that he would "give madame your
only daughter to Monsieur François here present, who is a thorough
Frenchman." Both Louis and the kneeling deputies shed tears, but
though a sentimental emotion fluttered them in passing, the scene was
essentially an organized drama, gone through in order to cut the last
possible ground of resistance from under Anne's feet. Two days later
Francis, aged eleven, and Claude, aged six, were formally promised to
one another.
There is one more outstanding incident in Anne's life--her bitter
warfare with the great Marechale de Gie. It has been called the
inexcusable stain upon her reputation. The story certainly leaves her
nakedly crude, fiercely elemental, but at least upon this occasion a
glaring provocation roused her to fury. Louis fell ill. He had enjoyed
his youth too coarsely, and paid heavily in after years for the
absence of more delicate cravings. Anne nursed him with an affection
made quick through terror. "She never left his room all day, and did
everything she was able herself." But Louis failed to get better. Each
day he drew nearer the purlieus of finality; his doctors perceived no
possibility even of return. Then Anne, sitting wearily by the bedside
of the sick man, did undoubtedly think of practical matters. She
remembered Louise and their mutual hatred. Historians express disgust
at what followed, but in reality there is nothing to be deeply
disgusted about. The brain in times of tense, overwrought excitement
is assailed by many discordant and trumpery remembrances. Anne, alert
and nervous both, gazed at the sinking patient, and recalled the
valuable furniture, jewellery, and plate, whose possession might be
contested later. Had she been a woman of momentous feeling, the
knowledge could equally have flashed through her kindled intelligence,
but would have left it bitterly indifferent. Anne was not strung with
overwhelming affections, and her predominating common sense saw that
after this man's death she had still a future to organize. Without
relaxing one personal nursing labour, she gave rapid orders to the
household, until all the articles stated as hers in the marriage
contract were despatched by ship to Brittany.
Gie had long ago placed his interests upon the side of the power to
follow. Being informed of the queen's arrangements, he stopped her
vessels, definitely refusing to allow them to leave the country.
There was a certain reckless temerity in the action; but Louis, it was
understood, could not live more than a few hours, and the new king
would know how to reward such strenuous adroitness in his interests.
But in this matter Gie was unlucky.
Louis suddenly--and apparently unreasonably--abandoned the notion of
dying. From extreme collapse he rapidly recovered, and immediately
afterwards banished Gie from court. There are slight variations in the
story--in one account Anne was labouring to remove Claude to Brittany
as well--but the above is the account given by the greatest number.
For a short time Gie remained thankfully at his magnificent place in
the country, clutching at the fact that his punishment went very
comfortably with his instincts. But Anne's heart was too primitive for
trivial retaliations. Mezerai did not say for nothing, "She was
terrible to those who offended her." Presently Gie received a summons
to answer to the charges of _lèse-majesté_ and peculation, was
arrested, and after being treated with a shameless brutality, received
a verdict of guilty, with a loss of all honours and five years'
banishment from court. The ugliest part of a story--in which from the
beginning everybody behaved with a rather ignoble sagacity--is the
report that Anne openly stated that she did not desire the Marechale's
death, since death gave relief from suffering, and she chafed for him
to live and feel all the misery of being low when he had been high; in
other words, that she craved a long and cankering duration to his
discomfiture.
After the birth of another daughter--the child Renée, subsequently to
be Duchess of Ferrara--Anne's last fragment of happiness died in her.
Jean Marot, father of the famous Clement Marot, referred to her in
some verses with a singular realism and comprehension. He wrote--
"At this time was in Lyons
The uneasy queen. Always in grief
For the regrets her tired heart
Bore incessantly."
She was, in truth, tired to death of the involved labour of life.
Thoughts of the complacent, unprincipled, mendacious Louise de Savoie,
whose son was heir to the throne of France, fermented in her blood,
and kept her heart from beating contentedly. From the time of Renée's
birth she surrendered to an uncontested weakliness. Though she became
_enceinte_ again shortly afterwards, hope scarcely fluttered, and her
physical condition bore witness to a mind past any salutary optimism.
She had already given birth to three sons, not one of whom had lived,
and throughout the household it was recognized that she lacked good
fortune in motherhood.
In 1512, some one wrote: "The queen is in great pain, and her baby is
expected at the end of this month or the beginning of next. But there
is not the fuss and excitement here that was made over the others."
The child came, but the triumphant Louise records the event in her
diary with cynical cheerfulness: "... His birth will not hinder the
exaltation of my Cæsar, for the infant was born dead."
Anne, worn and heartbroken in her second best bed--always used for
_accouchements_--becomes at last entirely touching. She was by this
time ultimately and irremediably beaten. The child had been a son, but
was dead. "She took pleasure in nothing afterwards," said D'Argentre,
while she continued so ill that most of the time she had to stay in
bed. Louis, back from renewed disasters in Italy, found her there on
his return. Shortly afterwards--on the 9th of February, 1514--she
died.
Louis grieved considerably. The flaring heat of latter quarrels had
burnt up much original tenderness, but De Seyssel's statement that
Louis "loved her so that in her he had placed all his pleasure and
delight," was an approximate interpretation of their position until
vital antagonisms sharpened the tongues of both.
Anne was given a sumptuous funeral. The arrangements for it, could she
have known them, would have caused her exquisite pleasure. For six
days she lay in her own room, prayed for unceasingly. Then she was
placed upon a _Lit de Parade_, and covered with a pall of gold cloth
bordered with ermine, the fur represented by the coat-of-arms of
Brittany. She lay underneath this, with white gloves upon her hands,
and a crown upon her head; her dress was of purple velvet, and on each
side were cushions holding the Sceptre and the Hand of Justice.
After the funeral Louis sent her heart in a golden case to be entombed
in Brittany. On the casket was written--
"In this small vessel
Of pure, fine gold
Rests the greatest heart
Of any woman in the world."
But as a matter of fact, the one great drawback to Anne was that she
had not heart enough. Her presence inspired neither tenderness nor
laughter, her society neither encouraged nor comforted. And the
consequence was that nobody could have been missed less. On the whole
she had been a good woman; except in times of tumultuous temper, she
had endeavoured to live conscientiously and reasonably. Only she
possessed no deep-dwelling sympathies; consequently when she died she
was dead immediately. It is the people who kindle perpetually at the
needs of others who live for years in the hearts of those they have
penetrated.
LUCREZIA BORGIA
1480-1519