The greatest danger in which he involved the State arose from his constant enmity to France, whose fugitives he protected, and whose enemies he encouraged and assisted on all occasions; and from the credulous weakness which placed him always under the influence of some objectionable person. Antoinette de Maignelais died in 1475, but still more fatal was his infatuation for one Landais, a man of obscure birth and abominable character, whom he made his treasurer, and whose crimes and cruelties so exasperated the Bretons that they rose in rebellion, surrounded the palace with threats and cries, and demanded that he should be given up to them. The Comte de Foix tried to appease them, but returned in haste, exclaiming, “I would rather be Prince over a million wild boars than over such people as your Bretons; you will certainly have to give up your treasurer, or we shall all be murdered.”281 Landais was accordingly tried, condemned, and executed, but the harm he had done and the disastrous state of affairs still remained.

The young English princes having been murdered by their uncle, Richard III., the Vicomte de Rohan wanted to marry the two princesses to his two sons; other suitors also presented themselves, of whom the one specially detested by Anne was Alain, Comte d’Albret, brother of her governess, the Dame de Laval. He was a widower of forty-five, rough, ugly, disagreeable, ill-tempered, and the father of eight legitimate and four illegitimate children. A more preposterous husband for the young princess could not have been thought of; notwithstanding which, the Dame de Laval used all her influence in his favour. But her persuasions were useless. Anne could not bear the sight of him, and would not listen. Besides her personal dislike to him, she said his position was far beneath her. She wanted to marry a King, or the son of a King, not a mere Breton noble who was her father’s subject and would be her own.

There was, however, a strong party who, desiring that their future duchess should marry a Breton and stay in her own country, supported the pretensions of Albret, and so harassed the Duke, her father, that in order to gain allies and help in his difficulties, he consented to this monstrous sacrifice, and desired her to accept him. Anne resisted, but she was then a child of eleven or twelve years of age, and when her father, whom she loved, used reproaches, commands, entreaties, and assured her that the marriage was necessary to the welfare of the country she adored, he succeeded in wringing a reluctant consent from her.

But shortly afterwards he was beaten by the French at St. Aubin, and after signing a treaty giving up Dol, St. Malo, and other important towns, and promising not to marry either of his daughters without permission of Charles VIII., he fell ill and died in September, 1488.

The Princess Anne, now Duchess de Bretagne, was not quite thirteen years old, but in capacity and character far beyond her age. She was well educated, understood Latin and Greek, and wrote very good letters. One to Maximilian of Austria, with an account of the war, the troubles in Bretagne, and the battle of St. Aubin is quoted as a surprising production for one so young. But Anne was full of talent and high spirit, her faults and good qualities were those of a noble nature. Brave, proud, impetuous, imperious, passionately attached to her own country, loving her friends and hating her enemies with all her heart, always to be relied on, yielding only to the commands of the Church, or the good of her own Bretagne, a woman to be loved, admired, sometimes feared, but never despised or distrusted.

The Duke left his daughters under the guardianship of the MarÉchal de Rieux and the Comte de Comminges, who were also to consult Dunois, son of the famous Bastard of OrlÉans, and Madame de Laval was to remain their governess.282 She must have been fond of them and good to them in spite of her reprehensible partisanship of her unsuitable brother, for Anne always showed her much affection.

The princesses were taken immediately from Coiron, where the Duke died, to GuÉrande, which was considered safer. The Breton nobles had sworn allegiance to Anne in her father’s lifetime, among others her natural brother, FranÇois Baron d’Avaugour, son of Antoinette de Maignelais. He and Anne were very fond of each other.

An embassy was sent to the King of France and the States hastily summoned. Anne sat at the head of the Council, and her ministers soon discovered that she was no weak, timid girl of whom they could dispose at their pleasure, but a high-spirited princess who knew very well that she was their sovereign.

When Rieux brought forward again the project of marrying her to the detested Albret as the best way out of the present difficulties, she immediately, with an eloquence and decision that astonished them, rejected the proposal. An historian remarks, “And the high heart that she had! girl as she was!”283

She said that Albret had not even fulfilled the conditions which alone had induced her to consent to such an engagement, in giving assistance to her father, who had never desired nor approved of the marriage, but had been tormented into consenting when in weak health by Madame de Laval, that she had always protested against it, and that Albret knew he was repugnant to her, and that she never meant to carry it out. That she was the Duchesse de Bretagne and the greatest heiress in Christendom, that the idea of trying to force her to marry against her will was contrary to all propriety, and that sooner than make such a marriage as this she would retire into a convent and take the veil.

She hated Albret all the more, because as she grew older and increased in beauty, he had conceived a violent passion for her, but her courage and firmness put a stop to the tyrannical meddling of her ministers and filled them with respect and admiration.

She then sent a messenger to England claiming the protection of Henry VII.

Her chancellor, Montauban, supported her, considering the match far beneath her, and told Albret plainly of the aversion and indignation of the Duchess and the preposterous nature of his claims. The Comte d’Albret flew into a furious rage, but was of course powerless in the matter. And just then Charles VIII. sent to claim the wardship of the Duchess and her sister, saying that he would marry them to the two sons of the Vicomte de Rohan and resign all his claims to the duchy.

But the Bretons, who hated the Rohans because they were considered friends to France and traitors to Bretagne, would not hear of this; Louis d’OrlÉans was in prison at Bourges, help did not come from England, and the friends of the Duchess, including the MarÉchal de Rieux, who saw that it was hopeless to think of the Comte d’Albret, proposed the eldest son of the Emperor Maximilian, King of the Romans, who had been already suggested as a possible husband for her during the lifetime of her father, and to whom she had no objection. For, although Maximilian was also a widower and a great deal older than herself, he was a handsome, courteous, pleasant man in the prime of life, and could give her the most splendid position in Europe.

The duchy was by this time in a condition equally deplorable and dangerous. Charles VIII., exasperated at the English and other foreign troops being called in, made vigorous war upon Bretagne, town after town was besieged and taken by his army. Alain d’Albret continued to put forth his claims on the young Duchess, declaring that he had her father’s promise and her own consent, but ignoring the fact that this consent had been wrung from a weak and almost dying man, and a child of ten years old, who directly she was free had made a public protest against this arbitrary act. Madame de Laval for a long time continued her advocacy of her brother’s cause, while Anne steadily persisted that she would take the veil sooner than marry him.

Meanwhile she waited anxiously for help from England, but Henry VII., unwilling to make war on France, lost a great deal of time in correspondence with the French King, hoping to arrange matters by this means. But the war went on, and the young Duchess fled from one town to another, and at length, finding herself in an unsafe position in the unfortified town of RhÉdon, with her sister, where there was a great chance of being taken by the French, sent to her guardians, Rieux and Comminges, to come up with the troops and escort them to Nantes. There was no time to lose, for the French were in the neighbourhood, and the place could not be defended.

The princesses were waiting in great anxiety when they were told that Rieux and Comminges had both gone to Nantes, where they had joined Albret. Anne was very angry, all the more as she suspected that they would try to influence the people against her and her friends by making them believe that Dunois intended to deliver up both her and the town to the King of France. She set off from RhÉdon on horseback with Isabelle and the Chancellor Montauban, with a bodyguard of ten Bretons as an escort, and rode to La Pasquelay, about three leagues from Nantes, where she was joined by Dunois at the head of some troops. She sent a message to Nantes ordering the gates to be opened for her entry, but the reply was that she was welcome to enter with her household and private guards, but not with Montauban, Dunois, or the troops; and seeing that the plan was to throw her into the power of Rieux and Albret, she angrily refused, upon which they marched out of the town with a large force to compel her to enter as they proposed. With undaunted courage Anne mounted on horseback behind Montauban and rode forward, while Dunois and the troops prepared for battle. But the townspeople no sooner saw her than they forbade any force to be used against her, but obliged the nobles to go back into the town. For some days negotiations went on, but Anne sent word that she would only enter Nantes as its sovereign, and turning away after a perilous journey took refuge at Rennes, where the people had begged her to come, and where they received her with bursts of enthusiastic loyalty and abuse of the traitors of Nantes.284

Her cousin, Jean de ChÂlons, who was taken prisoner with the Duc d’OrlÉans, but had been released,285 was Anne’s great friend and supporter against Albret; and in March, 1490, it was decided to place her under the protection of the Emperor, by marrying her to his son, the King of the Romans. Negotiations were accordingly carried on with profound secrecy. Madame de Laval, seeing that her efforts were vain, abandoned the cause of her brother; Maximilian, King of the Romans, sent the Baron Volfan de Polhaim, with several other nobles, to Bretagne, and a few days after the ceremony of betrothal was gone through, and the marriage celebrated without any one knowing the day on which it took place. According to the old German custom in such cases, the young princess was placed in her bed into which Polhaim, as proxy for Maximilian, put his bare leg up to the knee in presence of the three other envoys, Madame de Laval and some members of the household of the Duchess, and declared the marriage to be consummated.

It was not likely that so important an event could be long concealed. The Chancellor de Montauban was one of the first to let it out by giving Anne, in several official acts, the title of Queen of the Romans. This disclosure caused an outburst of anger and commotion. The French pushed on the war with more activity than ever, Alain d’Albret betrayed Nantes into their hands, and Charles VIII. refused to acknowledge the legality of the marriage, contracted without his consent.

Anne, who was in desperate straits for want of money, sold her plate and jewels, and struck a coinage of leather with a small piece of silver in the centre. She gave the command of her army to Rieux, who had left Albret, returned to his allegiance, and for the sake of the country, been pardoned. He drove the French out of Lower Bretagne; Brest, St. Malo, and some other towns held out for her; she had English archers and German and Spanish troops from Maximilian, but was too weak to withstand the French, who, late in the autumn, laid siege to Rennes.

Anne made her Chancellor, Montauban, promise not to leave her for a day; she trusted also in Jean de ChÂlons and Dunois, who was as brave as his renowned father though his enormous size interfered with his activity.