Ludovico Sforza—Shipbuilding—Queen’s gardens—Library—Treasures—Dress—Betrothal of Claude de France—Archduke and Archduchess—Illness of King—MarÉchal de GiÉ—Second illness of King—Queen in Bretagne—Second betrothal of Princess Claude.

Ludovico Sforza was imprisoned at Loches, at first rigorously, but afterwards with indulgence, being allowed books, paper, ink, cards, paume, &c. He died in captivity.

Louis had a project for the conquest of Naples, which displeased the Queen, by whom he was in most matters greatly influenced, and whom he called “Ma Bretonne.” She saw that these expeditions always caused disasters to France, and had much more sympathy with his desire for a crusade against the Turks, who had invaded Greece. Out of her own revenues she raised soldiers and sailors and had twelve large ships built in the seaports of Bretagne. The largest, Marie la CordeliÈre, of 2,000 tons, carried 100 guns.317 Anne took the deepest interest in the navy, upon which she spent large sums, but managed her affairs so well that in spite of her princely generosity she had no debts but always plenty of money.

This crusade was unsuccessful, the ships being damaged by a tempest.

Anne filled her household with her faithful Bretons. Her guard of gentlemen assembled always on the terrace at Blois, called “la Perche aux Bretons.” She never kept them waiting, but would rise and hasten towards them saying, “There are my Bretons on their perch expecting me.”318 To her the French queens owed the right to have their especial guard, also the right to receive separately all foreign ambassadors. She delighted in flowers and gardening, her favourite gardens being those of Amboise, given her by Charles VIII., and of Blois by Louis XII. She was also extremely fond of books, and had a splendid library, for, besides all she inherited from her father and the French kings, Charles VIII. brought her eleven hundred and forty from Naples and Louis XII. a thousand manuscripts from the library of the Visconti at Milan. She employed a colony of painters, sculptors, scribes, and architects brought from Italy and established at Tours by Charles VIII., and consequently possessed numbers of artistic treasures, including that wonderful illuminated book containing the psalms, prayers, and offices of the Church richly adorned with flowers, animals, landscapes, portraits and scenes in miniature well known as the “Livre d’Heures d’Anne de Bretagne,” and one of the most perfect examples of French art of that day.319

She had a little room with boxes and drawers full of costly jewels to give as presents. For dress personally she cared little, although especially on state occasions she was always magnificent in her toilette. The fashions in her reign were exceedingly graceful and artistic. Fine linen, velvet or satin shoes, long trailing dresses open in front, made of cloth of gold and crimson silk or velvet, with a golden girdle and chaplet of pearls, chains and jewels round the neck, headdress of white silk embroidered with gold and pearls, hoods of cloth, satin, or velvet, scarlet for bourgeoises, black for nobles. Sometimes long dresses of black velvet. These were purely French till late in this reign when Italian and Flemish costumes began to be copied.320 Charles VIII., being short and ill-made, re-introduced the long robes of former times, but Louis XII., who was tall and graceful, usually wore short clothes. The Queen created an order for the ladies of the court, called the CordeliÈre, from the cords that bound Christ: the badge was a jewelled necklace in the form of a cord.

Before the Princess Claude was two years old proposals came from the Emperor Maximilian to marry her to his grandson, the Duke of Luxemburg, son of the Archduke Philip of Austria. In France the general desire was that she should become the wife of the Comte d’AngoulÊme, heir-presumptive to the throne of that country, but the Queen strongly favoured the Austrian alliance. In November, 1501, the Archduke and Archduchess arrived on a visit. They were mounted on mules covered with trappings of crimson velvet, next rode a long train of ladies, and six hundred horses carried litters and drew waggons after them. The procession entered Blois at night; as it wound up the steep street torches blazed on every house, and the grand staircase of the castle was lined with hundreds of archers of the guard in gilded armour. The King, sitting in a great carved chair by the fire, welcomed them, and asked the Archduchess if it was her pleasure to bestow a kiss upon him, which she did, after asking permission of the Bishop of Cordova. Louis then saying that he knew the ladies would like to be alone together, she was taken to the Queen’s rooms, where Anne sat by the fire surrounded by her ladies, who, it may here be remarked generally sat on the floor or on cushions, not many chairs being usual in the rooms. Later, she retired to her bedchamber, where, escorted by six pages in red and yellow with wax candles in gold candlesticks, quantities of all kinds of sweetmeats were carried to her by ladies and gentlemen, with gold and silver boxes of knives, forks, serviettes, &c., which were all placed on buffets and on the bed. The Queen’s apothecary followed, and afterwards came silver warming-pans and washing basins, velvet coffers of brushes, combs, sponges, mirrors, and fine linen.321

The Princess Claude had been brought down, but directly she saw her proposed mother-in-law she cried so loud that she had to be removed by her governess.322

The Archduke had supper downstairs, but the King did not join him as he was keeping the fast of Notre Dame des Avents on bread and water. They stayed five days, and the betrothal of the Princess was concluded.

January 21, 1503, was born a Dauphin, who, however, died immediately, to the general grief and disappointment.

Next came news of reverses in Italy and the loss of two battles, soon after which the King became very ill. The Queen nursed him untiringly, scarcely ever leaving his room; every one was in consternation, and the doctors gave up all hope of his recovery. Anne was in despair. Added to her grief for him was the dread of what would be the position of herself and her daughter in the event of his death and the triumph of Louise de Savoie and the hostile party, at the head of which was Pierre de Rohan, MarÉchal de GiÉ, a Breton who had taken the side of France against Bretagne.

She therefore ordered the officers of her household to load two or three great barges on the Loire with all her treasure and take them down to Nantes. Then, if the King died, she could retreat with her child to Bretagne, where they would be safe among their own subjects.

But GiÉ, thinking the King’s death at hand, had the insolence to stop the Queen’s barges, placing 10,000 archers to watch the Loire and prevent the Princess Claude being carried out of France.323 This attempt of one of her own subjects to take from her guardianship her daughter, the heiress of Bretagne, not of France, and to seize the property settled on her by two kings, was not likely to be forgiven by the Queen. GiÉ had overreached himself, for Louis suddenly recovered, and on hearing of his conduct, ordered his arrest. The judges who tried him hated him, and condemned him to death, but this sentence was quashed by the King, and GiÉ was heavily fined, deprived of his post, and banished from court for five years. Some French historians, who seem to think any means justifiable to gain a province for France, approve his conduct, and call Anne vindictive for insisting on its punishment; others will probably consider that he got what he deserved.

GiÉ retired to his magnificent chÂteau of Verger, and the clercs de la Basoche gave a play called “Trop chauffer cuit, trop parler nuit” alluding to him. In another they said, “Un MarÉchal avait voulu ferrer une Anne (Âne), mais elle lui avait donnÉ un si grand coup de pied qu’elle l’avait jetÉ hors de la cour, pardessus les murailles jusque dedans le verger.”324

They were very witty, often impertinent. When the King was told that they had ventured to represent him, because of some necessary retrenchment, as Avarice, he said that the people might laugh, and he would rather be called avaricious than extravagant; but when they attempted any ridicule of the Queen he sternly forbade it, saying he would suffer no disrespect to his wife, nor for that matter to any woman in his kingdom.

The Queen’s second coronation at St. Denis and entry into Paris took place when the King was convalescent—with the same splendour as the first. It was by torchlight, and after the usual fÊtes and banquet at the Palais they returned to Touraine, and spent the rest of the summer at Blois, Loches, and Amboise with the Princess Claude.

The year 1505 opened with an unsatisfactory state of affairs in Italy,325 where many of the best French officers, amongst them the Chevalier Bayard, were still engaged. The King became depressed and out of spirits, all the more because of the dispute about his daughter, whose marriage the Emperor kept urging him to celebrate immediately with the Duke of Luxemburg, while the French were so vehemently in favour of FranÇois, whom he had created Duc de Valois, that he felt both he and the Queen were for the first time becoming unpopular. These matters so preyed upon his mind as to bring on an illness more serious than the last. He was seized with fever and delirium, and all the country was plunged into grief and alarm. Again the Queen nursed him night and day, the people thronged the churches,326 masses were chanted, long lines of cowled figures carried holy relics, with banners, crosses, and swinging censers through the streets, peasants left their work and multitudes with bare feet, tears and lamentations flocked after the processions. The Queen vowed that if he recovered she would make a pilgrimage to Notre Dame du Foll-Coat in Bretagne before the year was out.327

A romantic incident caused by this calamity was the death of Tommasina Spinola, a beautiful Genoese who had fallen in love with Louis in Italy. It was a platonic, chivalrous romance, to which neither her husband nor the Queen objected, and after the shock of hearing that Louis was dead had been fatal to her, he, having by this time recovered, desired Jean d’Auton to write a record of her, which was presented to him and the Queen at Tours.328

In the summer the Queen set off for Bretagne to fulfil her vow about the pilgrimage, leaving the King at Blois with their child.

When once Anne was in Bretagne it was no easy matter to get her away again, although Louis was now left with Louise de Savoie, and all those who were anxious for the French instead of the Austrian marriage of the Princess Claude.

She took her ladies and a large suite of French nobles, and was joined by numbers of Bretons, her progress through her own dominions being one continual triumph. She visited many of the towns, which were richly decorated, and gave splendid joustes and other fÊtes in her honour, and having made her neuvaine and offerings at Foll-Coat, she summoned the States, transacted a great deal of business, and went to Brest to see her favourite ship, Marie-la-CordeliÈre.

The King, however, got very tired of being without her, and sent her a message to come and join him at Angers. She was then at Morlaix suffering from inflammation in the eye, and sent for a relic supposed to be the finger of St. John Baptist, to cure her. It was kept in a church at Plougarnon, not far off, but she was presently told that it had disappeared on the way, and been found in the church again. Then Anne with all her suite went to Plougarnon, slept in the village, and attended mass at the dawn of day in the ancient church with massive square tower and quaint leaden steeple, standing in a green valley by a brook flowing down to the sea.329 The Bishop of Nantes touched the Queen’s eye with the relic when she had received the Communion; she made her offerings, and the pilgrimage was finished.330

The King kept writing to her to come back, and began to get very angry at her delay. The Cardinal d’Amboise, who was very much in the confidence of them both, wrote three sensible and urgent letters,331 assuring her that he had never seen the King so displeased, and begging her to return; saying what a pity it would be if any dissension should arise between them; also that the King was going back to Blois and thence by water to Amboise, taking Princess Claude and the Countess d’AngoulÊme with him. The Queen therefore brought her Breton tour to an end, and returned to Blois in September.

Her arrival dispelled the King’s vexation, but to her dismay she found him bent upon breaking off the Austrian engagement of their daughter, for many were murmuring against the Queen for allowing her dislike of Louise de Savoie to influence her to the detriment of France. Even the Bretons preferred the future King of France to the grandson of the Emperor, and although the prediction of Anne that FranÇois would not care about Claude, who was neither pretty, clever, nor attractive, was certainly verified, there seems no reason to suppose she would have been happier with the Duke of Luxemburg, afterwards Charles V. Louis said he was resolved “de n’allier ses souris qu’aux rats de son grenier;” and when Anne impatiently remarked, “To hear you one would think mothers conspired to injure their daughters,” he asked if she thought it was the same thing to rule Bretagne as to wear the crown of France, saying, “Voulez-vous prÉferer le bÂt d’un ane (Anne) À la selle d’un cheval?” and as she still seemed unconvinced, he told her that at the Creation God gave horns to hinds as well as stags, but finding they wanted to govern everybody, He took them away as a punishment.332

But not wishing to act in defiance of the Queen, Louis agreed that at the meeting of the States at Tours, in May, 1506, the deputies should implore him on their knees to consent to the marriage of the Princess Claude to FranÇois, Duc de Valois. As he had foreseen, the Queen could not then oppose it; and on Ascension Day the children were betrothed in the great hall of the Castle of Plessis les Tours, she being six and he twelve years old.333