SHE was daughter of king Louis XI. and Charlotte of Savoy, born to 1464.
Her low stature and deformed body rendered her the object of her
father's aversion, who, notwithstanding, married her to Louis duke of
Orleans, his cousin-german, in 1476. She obtained his life of her
brother, Charles VIII., who had resolved to put him to death for
rebellion. Yet {354} nothing could conquer his antipathy against her,
from which she suffered every thing with patience, making exercises of
piety her chief occupation and comfort. Her husband coming to the crown
of France in 1498, under the name of Louis XII., having in view an
advantageous match with Anne, the heiress of Brittany, and the late
king's widow, alleging also the nullity of his marriage with Jane,
chiefly on account of his being forced to it by Louis XI., applied to
pope Alexander VI. for commissaries to examine the matter according to
law. These having taken cognizance of the affair, declared the marriage
void; nor did Jane make any opposition to the divorce, but rejoiced to
see herself at liberty, and in a condition to serve God in a state of
greater perfection, and attended with fewer impediments in his service.
She therefore meekly acquiesced in the sentence, and the king, pleased
at her submission, gave her the duchy of Berry, besides Pontoise and
other townships. She resided at Bourges, wore only sackcloth, and
addicted herself entirely to the exercises of mortification and prayer,
and to works of charity, in which she employed all her great revenues.
By the assistance of her confessarius, a virtuous Franciscan friar,
called Gabriel Maria, as he always signed his name, she instituted, in
1500, the Order of nuns of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin.[1] It
was approved by Julius II., Leo X., Paul V., and Gregory XV. The nuns
wear a black veil, a white cloak, a red scapular, and a brown habit with
a cross, and a cord for a girdle. The superioress is only called
Ancelle, or servant, for humility. St. Jane took the habit herself in
1504, but died on the 4th of February, 1505. The Huguenots burned her
remains at Bourges, in 1562.[2] She was canonized by Clement XII. in
1738, but had been venerated at Bourges from the time of her death. See
the brief of Benedict XIV., concerning her immemorial veneration, t. 2,
de Canoniz. l. 2, c. 24, p. 296. Bullarii, t. 16, p. 104, and Helyot,
Hist. des Ord. Rel. t. 7, p. 339. Also, Henschenius, p. 575. Chatelain's
Notes on the Mart. Her life, compiled by Andrew Fremiot, archbishop of
Bourges; by Hilarion de Coste, of the Order of Minims, among his
illustrious ladies; another printed by the order of Doni d'Attichi,
bishop of Autun, in 1656, (who had from his youth professed the same
Order of the Minims, of which he wrote the Annals, and a History of the
French Cardinals.) See also, on St. Jane, Godeau, Eloges des Princesses,
&c.
Footnotes:
1. The imitation of the ten principal virtues, of which the mysteries
of the Blessed Virgin, honored by the Church in her yearly
festivals, furnish perfect models, is the peculiar end of this
religious institute, which takes its name from the first and
principal of the joyful mysteries of the mother of God. These nuns
wear a gray habit with a red scapular, with a gold cross (or of
silver gilt) hanging before their breast, and a gold ring on one of
their fingers. A noble Genoese widow, called Mary Victoria Fornaro,
instituted in 1604 another Order of the same title, called of the
Celestial Annunciades, Annuntiatae Coelestinae. As an emblem of
heaven, their habit is white, with a blue mantle to represent the
azure of the heavens. The most rigorous poverty, and a total
separation from the world, are prescribed. The religious are only
allowed to speak to externs six times in a year, and then only to
near relations, the men to those of the first, the women to those of
the first and second degree. See the life of ven. Mary Victoria
Fornaro, by F. Ambrose Spinola, Jesuit; and Hist. des Ordres Relig.
t. 4, p. 297.
2. See Henschenius, p. 578.