ANNE DE BEAUJEU: THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE KINGDOM
_C'est la moins folle femme du monde, car, de femme sage il n'y en a
point_ (she is the least foolish woman in the world; there are no wise
ones). The cynical old king, Louis XI., sums up for us in this epigram
his estimate of the daughter whom he loved and trusted more than any
other person of his own blood. This daughter, Anne de France, was but a
young woman when her father died, but the tortuous policy and the
sagacious aims of Louis XI. had become familiar to her as a mere girl,
and she lived to continue and in some sort to carry to successful
terminations the principal schemes cherished by her father.
Almost from her very birth, Louis had used her in his intrigues,
proposing her marriage now with this prince, now with that, according as
the needs of the moment suggested. When the chief of his enemies,
Charles le Temeraire, lost his first wife, Louis proposed that he marry
the princess Anne, at that time a child of two years, and offered as her
dowry Champagne, if Charles would agree that Normandy should revert to
the Crown without question. Yet, a year later, 1466, when Louis had
obtained possession of Normandy and had no further immediate need of
Charles, he offered Anne to the son of the Duke of Calabria. Neither
bargain was meant to be kept; but Charles, partly out of anger at the
king's bad faith, married Margaret of York. Seven years later, when
Louis had made up his mind to conciliate the house of Bourbon, Anne was
betrothed to Pierre de Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu; and as no new alliance
presented itself as desirable, Anne de France became Anne de Beaujeu.
Anne was enough like her father in the hardness and crafty resoluteness
of her character to win his confidence. We see her intrusted with the
care of one of the most important of those noble wards whom Louis loved
to bring to his court and keep under tutelage, Marguerite, the little
daughter of Maximilian and Marie de Bourgogne. When the fear of
assassination had driven the king to immure himself in
Plessis-lez-Tours, and to hedge himself about with such fantastic and
intricate defences that none but his favored lowborn servants could
enter with ease and hope of return, he would sometimes admit this
favored daughter. And when, in the imminence of death, he determined
that the silly dauphin, jealously guarded at Amboise, should learn
something and should know that the power of the sceptre was soon to pass
to him, it was Anne de Beaujeu again on whom he relied. He enjoined the
dauphin Charles to keep about him the faithful servants who had made
France; especially did he recommend "Master Oliver," without whom, he
said, "I should have been nothing." But, before all others, the dauphin
was to honor and obey his wise sister, Anne de Beaujeu, the least
foolish woman in the world.
In spite of astrologers; in spite of liberal doses of that expensive
panacea, potable gold, administered by his insolent physician, Jacques
Coictier; in spite of a second anointing from the sacred _ampulla_,
brought from Rheims for that special purpose; in spite of all the silver
saints stuck on the rim of his cap the spirit went out of the body of
Louis XI, and France welcomed his death as a deliverance. In his zeal
for the destruction of feudalism and the upbuilding of a national
government, he had become a tyrant. But the work he had begun must go
on, if France was not to step back fifty or a hundred years in progress.
The new king, Charles VIII, was but a boy of fourteen, and deplorably
immature. He could hardly read and write, nor did natural intelligence
supply the defects of education; for he was weak in mind, weak in body,
and easily influenced for good or for ill. With such a tool ready for
the hand of any ambitious noble who would destroy France, the outlook
was not cheering. But it was the good fortune of France to find a ruler
who could and did control the king till such time as the fruits of the
wise despotism of Louis could be safely gathered; and this ruler was a
woman.
As Charles had already attained the legal majority prescribed for the
heir to the throne, there could be no regency. But Anne de Beaujeu and
her husband had been named by the late king as the tutors of Charles, to
the exclusion of Louis d'Orleans, who, as first prince of the blood
royal, had a prescriptive right to the guardianship. And just as Blanche
de Castille, under different conditions and by different means, had
managed to displace Philippe Hurepel, so Anne now managed to outwit and
supplant Louis d'Orleans.
She had already laid the foundations of her influence by making friends
of the best counsellors and captains of the late king. And her brother,
to whom she was a divinity to be worshipped and feared, was already so
accustomed to submission to her will that it did not occur to him to
resist her authority now. In default of a regent, there was a royal
council, and in this council Anne managed to assure herself of a
powerful following. To be sure, at first there was nothing to fear,
since Louis d' Orleans, young and fond of pleasure, was engaged in
satisfying his tastes after the long and irksome restraint to which he
had been subjected by Louis XI; and so, in place of politics, he took
pleasure, availing himself of every distraction that could help him to
forget the terrible days of the old king, or the ugly face and crooked
body of the king's daughter, who was his wife. Nevertheless, Louis
d'Orleans was the natural leader of the opposition to the control of
Anne de Beaujeu, and the latter lost no time in securing for herself,
through her husband, a majority in the council, a body composed of such
diverse elements, and so uncertain of its own mind, that it was easy for
a determined leader to carry her policies through its divided and
hesitating ranks.
Anne was only twenty-two, but already there was coming to be a special
significance attached to her sobriquet, _Madame la Grande_; for the
imperious will, the boldness and shrewdness combined, the restless
energy, the constant watchfulness of the woman made itself felt
throughout that government in which she had no legal standing. Her
governing was done under constitutional forms, in the name of the king,
in the name of the council; but people knew that she had dictated to the
king what he should do, and had imposed her will upon the council. Until
the States-General had met, voted supplies, been promised reforms, and
then dissolved, Anne was very guarded, very conciliatory in her policy;
the unjust acts of Louis XI were set right--where it did not cost too
much to do so--and certain obnoxious persons, such as Olivier le Daim,
were sacrificed to popular hatred. As soon as the States-General had
been disposed of, however, the two parties in the council began to
assume a more hostile attitude toward each other, and the charge that
Madame la Grande was meddling in things that concerned her not was
raised by the Duke of Orleans. His cousin, Dunois, and other persons
anxious for the restriction of the royal power, persuaded Louis
d'Orleans that it was an outrage that a woman should reduce him to the
second place in the national council, and make herself virtually queen
of France. Incited by these plotters, Louis determined to loosen the
hold of Anne upon the young king.
Violating a solemn oath he had taken, under Louis XI, to abstain from
compromising relations with the enemies of France, he began to seek
allies against the Beaujeu faction, and turned first to Brittany. But a
temporary eclipse of the Breton favorite, Landois, who had ruled his
master almost as Olivier had ruled Louis, made the visit of Orleans a
fruitless one, and he returned to Paris to resort to means more in
conformity with his tastes. The young king was intensely fond of
brilliant festivities; romantic love of the spectacular side of chivalry
was his ruling passion; and therefore Louis sought to alienate him from
Anne by providing him with amusements. Jousts and tourneys, balls,
masquerades, all as brilliant and attractive as Louis could make them,
filled the two months after Charles's royal entry into his "well beloved
city of Paris" (July 5, 1484). Charles was beginning to think that his
"fair cousin of Orleans" was a very delightful companion, and so much
more obliging than that high tempered and dictatorial sister whom he had
been obeying; besides, what right had she to dictate to him: was he not
a king? Before the danger grew acute, before these vague questionings in
the royal head assumed definite shape, Anne picked up her precious
sovereign and carried him away from gay Paris and the temptations of the
fascinating Louis. Then it was that Louis left the court, resolved not
to return until he had overthrown the Beaujeu party.
The great nobles of the land were ready enough to unite in opposition to
the arbitrary rule of a woman, and of a woman who had not the shadow of
a constitutional right to rule. But though discontent was general among
the nobles, they yet lacked energy and direction, while the commons took
but little interest in a mere squabble among their rulers. Perhaps the
general opinion was somewhat like that of the University of Paris, to
which Louis had appealed, namely, that the power was in the hands best
fitted to wield it. Undoubtedly, the Parliament of Paris was of this
opinion; for when Louis presented a long petition reciting his
grievances and protesting against the usurpation of Madame de Beaujeu,
who held in unlawful subjection the person of the king, who intended to
keep the said king in tutelage until his twenty-first year, who had
unlawfully levied taxes, and who meditated the destruction of the
petitioner,--when Louis presented these charges, and besought the
Parliament to command that the king be brought back to Paris, the
president very prudently gave answer that the court of Parliament was a
court of law, and had nothing to do with administrative matters, and
that no one had a right thus to appear before the court to remonstrate
against the administrative acts of the sovereign. There was little
comfort in all this for Louis; and while he was still hesitating in
Paris, Anne sent a troop of men-at-arms to arrest him. A hasty flight
alone saved him, and he at once repaired to Alencon, where the duke
received him as a friend in distress; while Anne, hastening back to
Paris, deprived Orleans and his accomplices of their honors and military
commands.
The forces of the discontented princes would have been superior to those
at the disposal of Anne, if they could have been brought together; but
their domains were scattered, and they themselves were vacillating,
jealous of each other, reluctant to resort at once to foreign aid. With
her usual promptness, Anne intercepted their communications, seized and
executed summarily their spies, and herself negotiated with Brittany and
with the Flemish towns; while Dunois and Orleans were surprised and
captured in Beaugency by La Tremoille, commanding for Anne. For the
moment, the rebellion had been put down without serious loss. Dunois was
exiled to Asti, and Louis of Orleans, who had not even been able to win
the support of his own city, came back to court in October, 1485.
A new danger, however, threatened Anne's supremacy during the next
spring, when Maximilian of Austria, now titular King of the Romans,
invaded Artois. Jubilant at the prospect of securing such an ally
against Madame la Grande, a new league of the great nobles signed a
secret treaty with Maximilian in December. With the Dukes of Orleans,
Brittany, Lorraine, and Bourbon, the Counts of Dunois, Nevers,
Angouleme, and a host of others thus leagued against her, the situation
of Madame de Beaujeu was most precarious. Besides actual warfare, she
had to fear continual plots having for their object the capture of the
young king. The great Philippe de Comines, along with Louis d'Orleans,
was implicated in one of these plots, and was seized by the watchful
Anne, while Louis fled to Brittany and urged its duke to invade France.
Anne did not hesitate as to her course, but marched into southern
France, taking the king, the warrant of her authority, with her. This
sudden diversion disconcerted the nobles, and one town after another
opened its gates to Charles VIII., till, in March, 1487, he entered
Bordeaux in triumph, and the old Duke of Bourbon and the Count of
Angouleme made their submission. The Breton nobles, angry at the
interference in their affairs by the rebellious French princes, who had
completely won the confidence of the weak Duke Francois II., resolved to
expel the foreigners, and appealed to Anne to help them. She responded
by despatching a force of twelve thousand men into Brittany and
besieging the duke and Louis d'Orleans in Nantes. But the town having
received reinforcements from Maximilian, the royal army raised the siege
and occupied strategic points in Brittany. While the season forbade
military operations, Anne returned to Paris with her king, and had
resort to law in her contest with the rebels. She issued a summons to
the Dukes of Orleans and Brittany to appear before the court of
Parliament. Upon their failure to appear, however, another summons was
issued; but no sentence was passed, since Anne did not care to push
matters to extremes in the case of these great personages, whom she
hoped to conciliate; but Dunois, Comines, and others of the rebels were
condemned for contumacy, their goods were confiscated, and, if their
persons could be laid hold of, they were imprisoned. Comines, historian
and scholar as he was, and favorite of Louis XI, had a taste of
imprisonment in one of those famous iron cages of which his old master
had been so fond.
In the spring of 1488 the power of the house of Beaujeu was increased by
the death of the Duke of Bourbon, to whose duchy Anne's husband was
heir. Nevertheless, fortune was not favoring Anne in all things; for the
Breton nobles, having repented of their rebellion against their own
duke, and beginning to suspect that Madame Anne meant to keep her troops
in Brittany, now changed sides, and expelled the French garrisons from
some of the towns. In retaliation, Anne's general, Louis de La
Tremoille, began a vigorous campaign in Brittany early in April, which
culminated in the decisive victory of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier (July
27th). The Breton army was completely routed, and the rebel nobles,
including Louis d' Orleans and the Prince of Orange, fell into the power
of Anne. Louis, her most dangerous enemy, was confined in the tower of
Bourges, where he might meditate, without endangering the public peace,
upon the injustice of allowing a woman to govern France. Within a month
after the battle, Francois II., humbly suing for peace to his
"sovereign" Charles VIII., signed a treaty in which he promised to
exclude from his court and dukedom the enemies of France, and to
negotiate no marriage for his daughters without the advice and consent
of Charles. In the name of Charles, as usual, all this was done; but it
was really a signal triumph for Anne de Beaujeu. The pride of her Breton
adversary was broken, and he did not long survive the treaty; some have
declared that he died of chagrin at being no longer able to betroth his
daughters first to one suitor and then to another. Whether of chagrin or
of some more ordinary complaint, he died in September, 1488, and it then
developed that his eldest daughter, Anne, a girl of not quite twelve,
had indeed been promised to three parties simultaneously.
Out of the confused situation in Brittany it was Madame de Beaujeu's
task to make profit for France. The eldest daughter and heiress of the
late duke, Anne de Bretagne, was enjoined by the royal council from
assuming her title of duchess until authorized to do so by the king, who
claimed not only the feudal wardship of the heiress of Brittany, but her
very coronet itself, under the terms of a treaty between the Crown and
certain of the great barons of Brittany, including Marshal de Rieux,
then guardian of Anne de Bretagne. This treaty, dating from 1484, had
recognized the claims of the king as superior to those of the female
heirs in Brittany, as in other fiefs where the court was endeavoring to
enforce the _Loi Salique_. But Marshal de Rieux and his friends had now
changed their views, seeing that the pretensions of the crown would
result in the extinction of Brittany as a distinct and independent
province; they preferred governing the province through the young
duchess to being governed by Madame la Grande.
Madame la Grande was well aware that her claims on behalf of the king
would not be peaceably admitted; she was prepared to encounter armed
resistance, and probably foresaw her opportunity in the quarrels that
would inevitably break out among the Bretons as to who was to control
the heiress, and, above all, as to who was to marry her. The ducal court
of Brittany soon became the hotbed of intrigue, where divided counsel
prevailed, and where alliances were made on all sides and adhered to on
none. With the aid of Maximilian, of the Spaniards, and of the
English,--all of whom were more or less concerned, and more or less
willing to support Brittany against France,--the Bretons could have
offered successful resistance to the French armies. But the jealousies
of the Breton nobles, the craft and ability of Anne de Beaujeu, and the
feminine caprice of Anne de Bretagne, made ineffective the best efforts
of France's enemies. The Sire d'Albret, a man of hideous aspect, of
detestable character, and very nearly four times as old as the bride he
claimed, affirmed that Anne de Bretagne had been promised to him.
Marshal de Rieux, Anne's guardian, upheld the claims of D'Albret, and in
behalf of his protege resorted to fraud, in fabricating proofs of the
alleged betrothal, and to force. Meanwhile, the enterprising Dunois
formed a plot to kidnap the duchess and carry her off to France. Seeking
to escape these two dangers, the poor girl fled to Nantes, where,
however, De Rieux had the gates shut against her. Rennes, more
compassionate and more patriotic, offered her a refuge till the
immediate danger was passed. But there was no rest or safety for her as
long as she remained unmarried. The Sire d'Albret was loathsome to her;
therefore, under the temporary influence of other advisers, she gave her
hand to the ambassador of Maximilian, and was secretly married to this
proxy-husband, with every form and ceremony that could be thought of to
make the strange compact binding.
A secret of such momentous consequence could not, in the nature of
things, remain a secret for any long period. The mock marriage had taken
place in the summer of 1490. Within a few months, the bride, bursting
with the importance of her new dignity, was actually signing decrees as
"Queen of the Romans," and the troubles in Brittany began with renewed
violence on the part of the disappointed aspirants to the control of the
duchy. Anne de Beaujeu, never dismayed, even by complications that might
to others seem hopeless, at once took advantage of the resentment of
D'Albret and De Rieux, secured the alliance of the latter and bought
outright that of the former, and so was soon able to regain military
supremacy in Brittany, and to begin her plans for breaking off the
marriage between Anne de Bretagne and Maximilian. Had the latter been a
native Burgundian, or had he concentrated his resources for the
attainment of one capital object, the whole history of France might have
been changed: we might have seen a second Burgundian power, now
strengthened by the rugged and yet unsubdued Brittany, hemming France in
on the east, on the west, on the north, and utterly stunting the growth
of that national unity which was to make France a great and homogeneous
power. But Maximilian was busy patching up the power of his Austrian
dominions, and trying to keep on reasonably good terms with his Flemish
subjects; meanwhile, he thought his bride might look out for herself,
and was not aware that Anne de Beaujeu was preparing a coup that would
deprive him forever of Brittany.
The influence of Anne de Beaujeu was already showing signs of a decline;
and it therefore behooved her to work while it was yet day, for the time
was fast coming when her boy king would no longer submit to sisterly
tyranny. Charles was in his twentieth year when, in the spring of 1491,
he made his first independent move, with a prospect of still more
dangerous manifestations of independence. One evening he left Plessis,
as if to go hunting, and rode toward Bourges. He had secretly given
orders that Louis d'Orleans should be released, and went to meet and be
reconciled with this dangerous adversary of his sister. Louis, who had
been sobered by his confinement, was overjoyed at his release, and met
the king with every manifestation of loyal devotion and respect.
Fortunately, Louis cherished no feelings of resentment against the house
of Beaujeu, and willingly acceded to the formal reconciliation proposed
by the king, signing, with Pierre de Bourbon, a treaty of amity and
fraternal love, in which all past wrongs and differences were to be
forgotten. Louis was faithful to the spirit of this agreement, and
France had no longer to fear his factious activity. And when Dunois,
always ready to plot, always ready to undo his own plots, also agreed to
a reconciliation, the personal power of Anne in the royal council may
have been weakened, but the ultimate triumph of the principles for which
she had contended was assured. Though no longer dominant in all things,
she could yet shape the policy of the kingdom and contrive the ruin of
Maximilian's ambitious schemes.
To unite France and Brittany had been the dream of the French kings, but
again and again had the dream proved a delusion. Louis XI, always awake
to every possible chance of advantage, had bought the claims of the
heiress of the ancient line of Charles de Blois and Jeanne de
Penthievre; but no opportunity of profiting by these claims had been
vouchsafed his greedy soul. Now the coveted province seemed more
hopelessly alienated than ever. For Anne de Bretagne was married to
Maximilian, and the young King of France was solemnly betrothed to the
daughter of Maximilian, Marguerite, who had actually been reared at the
French court on purpose to fit her for the post of queen, and who had
already received, by courtesy, the titles and honors of her station,
though her youth still precluded the consummation of the marriage. How
to rob Maximilian of his bride and dispose of his daughter was a problem
that might well have seemed hopeless of solution. But Madame de Beaujeu
was not hopeless, nor was she over-scrupulous.
Before Maximilian could bring his Austrian-Hungarian war to a
satisfactory conclusion, the French armies had established almost
complete control of Brittany. The young duchess, none too pleased at the
neglect of this treaty-husband, was easily persuaded that the marriage,
contracted against the will of her feudal lord, and never consummated by
a husband who seemed more absorbed in politics than fired by passion,
was not really a religious compact, but a treaty that could be abrogated
like any other treaty. She consented to break off the match with her
King of the Romans, but, having once borne the title of queen, neither
count nor duke would she have for a husband, only a king. Anne de
Beaujeu promptly suggested that the heiress of Brittany should replace
the daughter of Maximilian, and marry Charles VIII. On November 15th
Charles entered Rennes. To Maximilian and the rest of Europe this seemed
but the honest fulfilment of the terms of the treaty of peace extorted
from unwilling Brittany; no one outside of the trusted friends of the
duchess and of the king had the least suspicion that, three days later,
the pair had had an interview, and that, in the presence of Louis
d'Orleans, of Anne and Pierre de Bourbon, of the chancellor of Brittany,
and of a few others, they were formally betrothed.
Secrecy was essential to the success of the plan. This secret was well
kept, particularly as the time of repression was short, for Anne de
Beaujeu was wise enough to conclude the matter as soon as possible.
Within a month, Charles went to the chateau of Langeais, in Touraine,
whither Anne de Bretagne followed him. Before the world knew what was
intended, they were married and were on their way to Plessis-lez-Tours,
where the gloomy old den of Louis XI was enlivened by brilliant royal
festivities. The ghost of the old king, however unfriendly to mirth and
jollity, must have looked on approvingly and grinned with joy at the
thought of the splendid and long-coveted dowry that his wise daughter
had won for France. He, too, would have taken a malicious pleasure in
the very means Anne had used to hoodwink and cheat Maximilian.
Duplicity, the most boldfaced trickery, had been resorted to, to lead
Maximilian off the true scent. While the marriage articles that would
rob him of his Breton bride were being arranged, Anne de Beaujeu was
keeping him occupied with the details of an arrangement that would grant
free passage to his bride when she saw fit to repair to the husband who
could not find time to come to her. And while he was carrying on this
negotiation, in good faith, came the news that Charles had robbed him of
his bride and was sending back his daughter. It was a double insult, and
one that might have cost France dearly had Maximilian's power equalled
his anger and resentment. Nothing but "diplomacy" could have
accomplished the union of France and Brittany, that sort of diplomacy
which in a private individual would be condemned by every ethical law,
but which often results most advantageously for the state, and hence is
condoned.
With this marriage the great role of Anne de Beaujeu ceases; for though
she continued to advise, she could no longer command, and the government
of France was left to Charles VIII. Anne was one of those counsellors
who raised their voices in unheeded protest against the impolitic
rashness of Charles's campaign in Italy, a campaign whose mad
extravagance and disastrous results fully justified all that Anne had
said to dissuade her brother. But in this, as in other matters of less
moment, it was evident that Anne's day of usefulness had passed. By the
time her old rival, Louis d'Orleans, became Louis XII. she had
completely retired from politics, and continued to govern nothing but
her husband, in spite of the generous confidence shown in her by the new
king. Louis XII. cherished no resentment for the injuries inflicted upon
the young Louis d'Orleans by Madame la Grande, and gratefully
acknowledged how important had been her services to the crown. But
Madame la Grande intervened no more in public affairs, though she lived
on until 1522.
The wisdom and foresight of this great daughter of the hated tyrant of
Plessis may be appreciated more fully if we will but consider for a
moment the history of that Anne de Bretagne whose heritage she had
secured for the crown of France. The early history of this princess has
been already sketched in the preceding pages. She was but fifteen when
Madame la Grande brought about the marriage with Charles VIII. Already,
however, she had manifested traits that accorded but ill with the
character of her royal mate. For she was not only handsome, spirited,
and naturally independent and intelligent, but fond of intellectual
pursuits, almost a scholar, knowing Latin and Greek, that new tongue
that was just becoming the fashion in Europe, the tongue whose rich and
deep literature, so long misunderstood or unknown during the Middle
Ages, was to be most fruitful of inspirations for the Renaissance.
Imagine her yoked with a prince of frivolous disposition, lacking even
in ordinary intelligence, so ignorant that he could scarcely read and
write, and interested chiefly in the idle shows of that chivalry in
whose ranks he could not shine because of his awkward and weak frame.
With admirable appreciation of her duty, Anne sunk the woman in the wife
and queen, subordinating her own personality to that of a man whom she
could not have respected, whom it seems impossible she could have loved.
She resigned into his hands the administration of her own province of
Brittany, and sought no share in the determination of the policy of the
kingdom. Leaving politics to the king and his councillors, she devoted
herself to the petty affairs of her court, regulated its accounts,
decided its points of etiquette, kept its atmosphere pure and healthy,
just as any little Breton housewife would have governed and made
comfortable the home of her husband. Whether she loved Charles or not,
she always treated him with respect.
The seven years of their married life were passed without a sign from
her that the union had proved anything but the happiest in the world. On
April 7, 1498, Charles, walking hurriedly through a dark corridor of the
Chateau d'Amboise, where his father had kept him in confinement little
different from imprisonment, struck his head against a scaffolding
carelessly left in place by the workmen who were repairing the chateau,
and died a few hours later. Anne made becoming show of grief, refused to
be consoled, would not, it is said, touch food for three days, and
insisted on wearing black in token of her grief, though as queen she was
entitled to wear white. Grief, she said, had unfitted her for the life
at court; she must return to her native Brittany and seek in the
administration of its affairs to banish the memory of the lost husband.
The wisdom of Anne de Beaujeu had united Brittany to France; it now
seemed as if the good results of her diplomacy were to be lost. There
had been a stipulation, it is true, in the contract of marriage between
Anne de Bretagne and Charles, that, in case of the death of the king,
his widow could marry none but the successor or the heir presumptive to
the crown of France; but this stipulation now seemed about to prove
unavailing. For the heir presumptive at the time of Anne's widowhood was
the little Count Francois d'Angouleme, a boy not yet out of the nursery,
while the successor of Charles VIII. was already married to Jeanne,
sister of the late king. It was a dilemma as serious as that solved by
Anne de Beaujeu seven years before. But, as has been shown in this case,
"be there a will, and wisdom finds a way," or if not wisdom, the
hocus-pocus of diplomacy. In the present case it was soon apparent that,
on both sides, there was a will; and though the way lay directly over
the bleeding heart of a good woman, that way was found and followed by
Louis XII.
Before the death of Charles, no one had suspected that Louis cherished
any sentiments but those of loyal respect for Anne de Bretagne. When he
saw her go away, taking with her the dowry that had cost so dear, the
court discovered that the new king was hopelessly enamored of the
mourning Breton widow. Anne was, it is true, personally attractive, and
Louis was known to be not only susceptible to feminine charms but
deplorably unhappy with his own wife; nevertheless, one cannot accord
unquestioning faith to the genuineness of an affection that was so
obviously politic, whether genuine or counterfeit. Anne, too, despite
her widow's weeds and her tears, could not help showing that she left
the court with regret. In justice to her, it cannot be said that she had
betrayed her willingness to return Louis's sentiments; yet he must have
felt reasonably sure of his standing in her heart before he undertook to
make room for her by his side.
Almost the first scene of our history has to do with just such an
instance of shameless quibbling about sacred things as that we must now
record. Louis's wife, Jeanne de France, was a good, gentle, loving
woman, who had clung with despairing affection to a husband who despised
her, who was unfaithful to her, who was now to humiliate her. The poor
creature was unfortunately ugly, and deformed, and twenty-two years of
unfailing devotion it was in great part owing to her incessant appeals
that the young Charles VIII. had liberated Louis from Bourges--had not
reconciled the ungrateful husband to the marriage. He now bethought
himself that this marriage had been contracted when he was but a youth,
under threat of death from Louis XI, that Jeanne had borne him no
children, and that they were related within the degrees prohibited by
the Church. He appealed to the head of the Church, the notorious
Alexander VI., to annul an incestuous union that was a burden to his
conscience. Needless to say that, in the corrupt papal court of that
period, the appeal was supported by arguments more weighty than
honorable. Needless to say that, in spite of the heartbroken protests of
Jeanne, Alexander, and his son Caesar Borgia, having received their
price, granted a decree annulling the marriage.
Having disposed of his wife, Louis sought the disconsolate widow in
Brittany. Anne made some show of reluctance, of inconsolable grief, and
of scruples moral and sentimental. As a matter of fact, however, she had
consented to marry Louis before the divorce from Jeanne had been
secured, and within four months from the death of Charles. The decree of
divorce, brought by magnificent Caesar Borgia himself, was published in
December, 1498, and the marriage of Anne and Louis XII. was celebrated
at Nantes in January, 1499.
Anne had profited by her sojourn at the French court; the new contract
of marriage was far from being as favorable to France as that imposed by
Anne de Beaujeu. It was now stipulated that she should retain in her own
hands the administration of Brittany, and that the administrative
offices and the ecclesiastical benefices should be filled by natives of
Brittany only and with the consent of the duchess; that the ancient
rights and privileges so dear to the Bretons should be respected; and
that the province should descend to the second child of the marriage, or
to the second child of her child, if there should be but one born to her
and Louis, or to her own heirs next of kin, in case the marriage should
prove childless. But little hope was left in this contract that the
dearest wish of Anne de Beaujeu should be gratified, and that Brittany
should remain French.
A complete change of character and of policy in a woman of twenty-three
is very remarkable; and we are therefore surprised to find that the Anne
who returned to Paris as the queen of Louis XII. was a very different
person from the meek lady who had submitted to the ignorant and
light-headed Charles. Not only did she insist upon and exercise her
authority in Brittany, but she made the weight of her will felt in the
affairs of the whole kingdom, pursued with ungenerous vindictiveness
those who thwarted or opposed her, was jealous of her husband, of Madame
de Bourbon, and of Louise de Savoie, mother of the young prince who one
day was to be King Francois I. For her second husband, a man infinitely
more worthy of respect than Charles, she appeared to have little
tenderness. He was always considerate and good humored, admiring her and
loving her even when she was domineering and almost insolent in her
attitude toward him and toward his favorites. Her prudence and her
regard for the decencies of life, too apt to be forgotten in the
dissolute life now fostered by increased luxury and culture, were the
only traits of Queen Anne that could be considered admirable. Her
patronage of art, and of letters to a certain extent, her liberality to
her favorite Bretons, had endeared her to a small circle; but neither
France, which she hated, nor the best counsellors of the king, whom she
thwarted and discomfited by her absolute ascendency over the king, had
any cause to regret the early death of the queen, in 1514. It was
fitting that, according to her wish, her heart should be buried in
Brittany, while the body rested in Saint-Denis; for that heart had been
unwaveringly Breton. To Louis she was _ma Bretonne_; and Breton she was
in the most marked traits of her character; a woman of more than usual
intellect and ability, with appreciation for art and literature, with a
high sense of domestic virtue, and yet always hard, cold, shrewd, and
narrow-minded.
The contrast between the two Annes who fill so large a place in the
closing years of the fifteenth century is as complete as it is striking.
Both were so placed by the accident of birth and fortune as to have much
power, for good or for ill, in the destiny of France. But while Anne de
Bretagne showed herself merely a woman, ruled by personal motives,
jealous of power in small things and blind to or unconscious of the
far-reaching results that might spring from the exercise of that power,
Anne de Beaujeu had the broad mind, the far-seeing and calculating
intellect of the statesman. Her intellect, indeed, was essentially
masculine: "Madame de Beaujeu," says a contemporary historian, "would
have been worthy to wear the crown, by her prudence and by her courage,
if nature had not excluded her from the sex in whom the right to rule
was vested." Anne de Bretagne was self-willed and obstinate, seeking the
gratification of mere caprice; Anne de Beaujeu was inflexible and
tenacious of purpose, but that purpose had in view the consolidation of
an empire, not the gratification of some whim or of some petty spite.
One is tempted to compare the daughter of Louis XI. with that other
great woman whose firm hand guided France through a perilous crisis in
the second quarter of the thirteenth century. Blanche de Castille, too,
had to rule and consolidate a kingdom menaced by feudal anarchy during
the minority of the sovereign. But she had constitutional right to
support her regency; Anne de Beaujeu had no such right, and the
difficulties with which she had to contend, though sooner ended, were
more serious in themselves, perhaps, than those domestic intrigues and
rebellions which Blanche could face without having to guard her
frontiers from powerful and hostile neighbors. By her political
achievements Madame la Grande merits comparison with the mother of Saint
Louis. And yet it is in the very success of her tortuous, unscrupulous,
dishonest policy that we find witness against the character of Anne.
Political trickery, political duplicity, however beneficent in its
results, leaves us with a strong aversion to the trickster; even as we
have an unconquerable distrust of and contempt for the spy, howbeit he
has risked life and honor for love of country, even so we grudge our
praise to those who, like Louis XI and his daughter, seek and attain
great ends by despicable means, sacrificing truth, honor, sentiment, to
win for the nation the provinces of a Marie de Bourgogne, who does not
know how to govern them, or the bride of a Maximilian, who does not know
how to keep hold of her.
Great has been the change in France since Constance came from fair
Provence to scandalize the monkish Robert's court; since Eleanor
d'Aquitaine and her romantic troubadour friends taught France how to
love gracefully and sing of love sweetly; since Mahaut d'Artois was a
_paire de France_, with feudal power in her domain not to be questioned
even by the sovereign; since Jeanne de Montfort, at the head of her
knights, charged the mailed hosts. Provence has ceased either to
scandalize or to enliven and instruct, for there is no more Provence
save in name; no more gay and immoral troubadours; peers of France, you
too are gone with "the snows of yesteryear," for when Charles VIII. was
crowned at Rheims, the only lay peer, Philippe de Flandre, was not
represented, the ancient domains of the other five having been annexed
to the crown; and "the knights are dust." The little duchy of France,
hedged about by vassals subject only in name, has grown into a great and
almost unified kingdom, where provincial boundaries will soon be but
imaginary lines on the map, a kingdom so rich and powerful, thanks to
Louis XI. and Anne de Beaujeu, that it can afford to let a childish
Charles VIII. dissipate its forces and its treasure in Italian wars,
bringing back nothing more precious than the memory of the culture, the
art, the restless new learning that make Florence, Venice, Milan
glorious in this day of Renaissance. And France will cherish these
memories of Italy, will kindle with enthusiasm for all these new
_cinque-cento_ marvels, will emulate and eclipse Italy. The monarchy is
now the central power, the unquestioned power, in France, for which
blessed consummation France must thank some of the women whose stories
we have told no less than her kings. For without Blanche de Castille, no
Saint Louis; without Jeanne d'Arc, no Charles VII.; without Madame de
Beaujeu, no Charles VIII. Soon the state will be the king, long before
boastful Louis XIV. thunders forth, _L'etat, c'est moi_ Already the eyes
of all France are drawn to the court. There power resides, there
literature and the arts will flourish, no longer leading a troubled and
precarious existence. At the most brilliant court in Christendom a
Francis I. no longer will indite Latin hymns, like the good Robert, but
a cynical _souvent une femme varie_, while his sister, _La marguerite
des marguerites de Navarre_, will rival Boccaccio with her fashionable
tales of gallant and amorous gentlemen and ladies.
The age of blood and iron passes away, and with it must pass away the
type of woman we have seen in the pages of this book. In our haste we
might say that the passing age had not been one favorable to the
development of feminine character, and that the new age will give the
world women not only more cultivated and morally better, but also
greater and of more potent influence upon the life of the world; and yet
we must not forget that the very conditions of the Middle Ages most
oppressive to women in general did of necessity bring to the fore women
of strong character. A feudal chatelaine, if she were a Mahaut d'Artois,
could rule, could make her mark in history; a queen of France, in an age
when physical strength seemed essential in warfare, could subdue her
enemies and make herself a great queen, if she were a Blanche de
Castille. Under the new order, however, woman's activities and talents
will be directed into channels more appropriate to her sex; in
literature, in art, in social life, in diplomacy, woman will now play
her part, more quietly, perhaps, but not with less far-reaching
influence on the history of France than if she actually controlled the
armies of France. The really great women from this time forth will be
found not on the throne but in the salon. In writing of Catherine de'
Medici we should have to tell a great deal of the history of France, in
writing of Anne d'Autriche, less; in writing of Madame de Maintenon,
still less; but the life of such a woman as Blanche de Castille is the
history of France, and in the life of such a woman as Jeanne d'Arc is
the very spirit and soul of the nation.
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
PREFACE
I. IN THE DAYS OF THE CAPETIAN KINGS.
II. FAMOUS LOVERS.
III. WOMEN IN EARLY PROVENCAL AND FRENCH LITERATURE.
IV. WOMEN IN THE AGE OF SAINT LOUIS.
V. BLANCHE DE CASTILLE AS REGENT OF FRANCE.
VI. THE MOTHER AND THE WIFE OF A SAINT.
VII. THE ROMANCES OF CHIVALRY AND LOVE.
VIII. MARIE DE BRABANT AND MAHAUT D'ARTOIS.
IX. JEANNE DE MONTFORT.
X. AT THE COURT OF THE MAD KING.
XI. CHRISTINE DE PISAN.
XII. THE SAVIOR OF FRANCE.
XIII. THE TRIUMPH AND MARTYRDOM OF JEANNE D'ARC.
XIV. THE RISE OF THE MONARCHY.
XV. ANNE DE BEAUJEU: THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE KINGDOM.
List of Illustrations
Odette de Champdivers and Charles, by Albrecht de Vriendt.
Le droit du seigneur, by Lucien Melingue.
Domestic interior in France, twelfth century, by S. Baron.
Ladies hunting, by Henri Genois.
Blanche of Castille, mother of Saint Louis, by Moreau de Tours.
Jeanne d'Arc, by Jean J. Scherrer.
End of Project Gutenberg's Women of Mediaeval France, by Pierce Butler