Women of Mediaeval France Part 18

Marie and Maximilian were formally married on April 27th, and the people, weary of the state of uncertainty in which they had been kept, seemed content to make the best of the marriage. The prince was a German, did not speak their language or understand their customs; but then he was prepossessing, and would doubtless make as good a defender of their liberties as could be found. With the marriage, Marie practically ceased to appear as a direct partic.i.p.ant in political affairs. Her new husband was devoted to her, and for a time things looked more encouraging for this last scion of a great race. True, Louis sent his barber-surgeon, Olivier, to protest, in the name of the suzerain, against the marriage of his feudal ward without his consent.

But the Flemish n.o.bles and their lady laughed at the barber, who really came more to spy than in the hope that this mediaeval protest would avail aught. Later, in his first battle, Maximilian completely defeated the French army under the traitor Lord Crevecoeur, at Guinegatte, August 7, 1479.

Meanwhile, a son had been born to the young couple, and their domestic happiness was unclouded. Fortune was not to smile on them long, however, for the Flemings were const.i.tutionally rebellious, now refusing to grant Maximilian supplies necessary for defence, till he actually had to p.a.w.n his wife's jewels, now blaming all their misfortunes on this foreigner, now distracting his attention from the still encroaching French king by riots and revolts. In the unequal contest the French were destined to win; and ere Marie had been married five years an accident cost her her life and left Maximilian almost as helpless in the hands of the Flemings as she had been. She had been hunting, a sport of which both she and Maximilian were pa.s.sionately fond, when her horse threw her. The injuries might not have proved fatal if medical aid had been resorted to in time; but Marie, with pitiful false modesty, refused to submit to the examination of the surgeons, and died, after lingering three weeks, March 26, 1482. Her infant son, Philippe le Beau, remained as the nominal heir of Burgundy; but the guarding of the duchy was a hopeless task when a regency must control affairs, and so with Marie pa.s.sed away the last independent ruler of the house of Burgundy, whose greatness was to be transmitted to and surpa.s.sed by the son of this Philippe, the great Emperor Charles V.

The brief and troubled life of Marie de Bourgogne affords but little opportunity for an estimate of her capabilities. She was reared under conditions the most unfavorable to the development of independence, self-reliance, and capacity for practical affairs; for feudalism, even at its best, as we have seen, produced but few women who were capable of ruling a nation, and the spectacular chivalry of the Burgundian court found no place for woman but as an angelic, gracious, beautiful spectator of its great shows, one infinitely removed by every detail of her education and of her social life from the sordid cares of life and of politics. Marie was not of that rare type that might, even under such conditions, rise to power; she was not strong enough of will to mark out a policy of her own and bend men and conditions to serve that policy. In not one of her public acts as d.u.c.h.ess can we find that she was uninfluenced by those around her; she was indeed swayed first by one set of counsellors, then by another, the natural result being inconsistency, duplicity, and inefficiency. But where the mere woman appears, where there is room for the operation of impulses purely personal, as in the case of Hugonet and Humbercourt and in the selection of her husband, Marie displays n.o.bler feelings; and though the cause of civilization was to be advanced by the dismemberment of the heterogeneous Burgundian duchy and the annexation of the greater part of it to France, our sympathy is not with the spider who sat spinning his meshes of intrigue in the den at Plessis-lez-Tours, but with the generous, impulsive young ruler whom we know he will fatally entangle. With Marie in Burgundy, as with the pa.s.sionate and unhappy Marguerite of Anjou in England, we are inclined to forgive the ruler who could not rule, or who resorted to infamous means in her struggles to rule, when we remember that both were women brought face to face with tremendous problems and made the sport of crafty, cruel, unscrupulous foes and faithless friends.

CHAPTER XV

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 princ.i.p.al 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.ble 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 guardians.h.i.+p. 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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 a.s.sure 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 const.i.tutional 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 a.s.sume a more hostile att.i.tude 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 pa.s.sion; and therefore Louis sought to alienate him from Anne by providing him with amus.e.m.e.nts. Jousts and tourneys, b.a.l.l.s, 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 a.s.sumed 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 n.o.bles 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 const.i.tutional right to rule. But though discontent was general among the n.o.bles, 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tioner,--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 t.i.tular 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 n.o.bles 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 n.o.bles, 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 n.o.bles, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 n.o.bles, 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 n.o.bles, 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 a.s.suming her t.i.tle of d.u.c.h.ess until authorized to do so by the king, who claimed not only the feudal wards.h.i.+p 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 n.o.bles, 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 compa.s.sionate and more patriotic, offered her a refuge till the immediate danger was pa.s.sed. 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 amba.s.sador 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 h.o.m.ogeneous 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 a.s.sured. 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 t.i.tles 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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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 pa.s.sion, 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 t.i.tle 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed. 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 pa.s.sed 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 ent.i.tled 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 d.u.c.h.ess; 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 att.i.tude 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 s.e.x 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 const.i.tutional 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 va.s.sals 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 fas.h.i.+onable tales of gallant and amorous gentlemen and ladies.

The age of blood and iron pa.s.ses away, and with it must pa.s.s away the type of woman we have seen in the pages of this book. In our haste we might say that the pa.s.sing 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 s.e.x; 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.