Volume III Part 9 (1/2)

She began by acts of intelligent discretion. She tried, not to subdue by force the rivals and malcontents, but to put them in the wrong in the eyes of the public, and to cause embarra.s.sment to themselves by treating them with fearless favor. Her brother-in-law, the Duke of Bourbon, was vexed at being only in appearance and name the head of his own house; and she made him constable of France and lieutenant-general of the kingdom.

The friends of Duke Louis of Orleans, amongst others his chief confidant, George of Amboise, Bishop of Montauban, and Count Dunois, son of Charles VII.'s hero, persistently supported the duke's rights to the regency; and _Madame_ (the t.i.tle Anne de Beaujeu had a.s.sumed) made Duke Louis governor of Ile-de-France and of Champagne, and sent Dunois as governor to Dauphiny. She kept those of Louis XI.'s advisers for whom the public had not conceived a perfect hatred like that felt for their master; and Commynes alone was set aside, as having received from the late king too many personal favors, and as having too much inclination towards independent criticism of the new regency. Two of Louis XI.'s subordinate and detested servants, Oliver de Daim and John Doyac, were prosecuted, and one was hanged and the other banished; and his doctor, James Cattier, was condemned to disgorge fifty thousand crowns out of the enormous presents he had received from his patient. At the same time that she thus gave some satisfaction to the cravings of popular wrath, Anne de Beaujeu threw open the prisons, recalled exiles, forgave the people a quarter of the talliage, cut down expenses by dismissing six thousand Swiss whom the late king had taken into his pay, re-established some sort of order in the administration of the domains of the crown, and, in fine, whether in general measures or in respect of persons, displayed impartiality without paying court, and firmness without using severity.

Here was, in fact, a young and gracious woman who gloried solely in signing herself simply Anne of France, whilst respectfully following out the policy of her father, a veteran king, able, mistrustful, and pitiless.

Anne's discretion was soon put to a great trial. A general cry was raised for the convocation of the states-general. The ambitious hoped thus to open a road to power; the public looked forward to it for a return to legalized government. No doubt Anne would have preferred to remain more free and less responsible in the exercise of her authority; for it was still very far from the time when national a.s.semblies could be considered as a permanent power and a regular means of government. But Anne and her advisers did not waver; they were too wise and too weak to oppose a great public wish. The states-general were convoked at Tours for the 5th of January, 1484. On the 15th they met in the great hall of the arch-bishop's palace. Around the king's throne sat two hundred and fifty deputies, whom the successive arrivals of absentees raised to two hundred and eighty-four. ”France in all its entirety,” says M. Picot, ”found itself, for the first time, represented; Flanders alone sent no deputies until the end of the session; but Provence, Roussillon, Burgundy, and Dauphiny were eager to join their commissioners to the delegates from the provinces united from the oldest times to the crown.”

[_Histoire des Etats Generaux_ from 1355 to 1614, by George Picot, t. i. p. 360.]

We have the journal of these states-general drawn up with precision and detail by one of the chief actors, John Ma.s.selin, canon of and deputy for Rouen, ”an eminent speaker,” says a contemporary Norman chronicle, ”who delivered on behalf of the common weal, in the presence of kings and princes, speeches full of elegance.” We may agree that, compared with the pompous pedantry of most speakers of his day, the oratorical style of John Ma.s.selin is not without a certain elegance, but that is not his great and his original distinction; what marks him out and gives him so high a place in the history of the fifteenth century, is the judicious and firm political spirit displayed in his conduct as deputy and in his narrative as historian. [The Journal, written by the author in Latin, was translated into French and published, original and translation, by M. A. Bernier, in 1835, in the _Collection des Doc.u.ments inedits relatifs d l'Histoire de France._] And it is not John Ma.s.selin only, but the very a.s.sembly itself in which he sat, that appears to us, at the end of five centuries, seriously moved by a desire for a free government, and not far from comprehending and following out the essential conditions of it. France had no lack of states-general, full of brilliancy and power, between 1356 and 1789, from the reign of Charles V. to that of Louis XVI.; but in the majority of these a.s.semblies, for all the ambitious soarings of liberty, it was at one time religious party-spirit and at another the spirit of revolution that ruled and determined both acts and events. Nothing of that kind appeared in the states-general a.s.sembled at Tours in 1484; the a.s.sembly was profoundly monarchical, not only on general principles, but in respect of the reigning house and the young king seated on the throne. There was no fierce struggle, either, between the aristocracy and the democracy of the day, between the ecclesiastical body and the secular body; although widely differing and widely separated, the clergy, the n.o.bility, and the third estate were not at war, even in their hearts, between themselves. One and the same idea, one and the same desire, animated the three orders; to such a degree that, as has been well pointed out by M. Picot, ”in the majority of the towns they proceeded in common to the choice of deputies: the clergy, n.o.bles, and commons who arrived at Tours were not the representatives exclusively of the clergy, the n.o.bles, or the third estate: they combined in their persons a triple commission;” and when, after having examined together their different memorials, by the agency of a committee of thirty-six members taken in equal numbers from the three orders, they came to a conclusion to bring their grievances and their wishes before the government of Charles VIII., they decided that a single spokesman should be commissioned to sum up, in a speech delivered in solemn session, the report of the committee of Thirty-six; and it was the canon, Master John Ma.s.selin, who received the commission to speak in the name of all. They all had at heart one and the same idea; they desired to turn the old and undisputed monarchy into a legalized and free government.

Clergy, n.o.bles, and third estate, there was not in any of their minds any revolutionary yearning or any thought of social war. It is the peculiar and the beautiful characteristic of the states-general of 1484 that they had an eye to nothing but a great political reform, a regimen of legality and freedom.

Two men, one a Norman and the other a Burgundian, the canon John Ma.s.selin and Philip Pot, lord of la Roche, a former counsellor of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, were the exponents of this political spirit, at once bold and prudent, conservative and reformative. The nation's sovereignty and the right of the estates not only to vote imposts but to exercise a real influence over the choice and conduct of the officers of the crown, this was what they affirmed in principle, and what, in fact, they labored to get established. ”I should like,” said Philip de la Roche, ”to see you quite convinced that the government of the state is the people's affair; and by the people I mean not only the mult.i.tude of those who are simply subjects of this crown, but indeed all persons of each estate, including the princes also. Since you consider yourselves deputies from all the estates of the kingdom, why are you afraid to conclude that you have been especially summoned to direct by your counsels the commonwealth during its quasi-interregnum caused by the king's minority? Far be it from me to say that the reigning, properly so called, the dominion, in fact, pa.s.ses into any hands but those of the king; it is only the administration, the guardians.h.i.+p of the kingdom, which is conferred for a time upon the people or their elect. Why tremble at the idea of taking in hand the regulation, arrangement, and nomination of the council of the crown? You are here to say and to advise freely that which, by inspiration of G.o.d and your conscience, you believe to be useful for the realm. What is the obstacle that prevents you from accomplis.h.i.+ng so excellent and meritorious a work? I can find none, unless it be your own weakness and the pusillanimity which causes fear in your minds. Come, then, most ill.u.s.trious lords, have great confidence in yourselves, have great hopes, have great manly virtue, and let not this liberty of the estates, that your ancestors were so zealous in defending, be imperilled by reason of your soft-heartedness.” ”This speech,” says Ma.s.selin, ”was listened to by the whole a.s.sembly very attentively and very favorably.”

Ma.s.selin, being called upon to give the king ”in his privy chamber, before the Dukes of Orleans and Lorraine and a numerous company of n.o.bles,” an exact account of the estates' first deliberations, held in his turn language more reserved than, but similar to, that of Lord Philip de la Roche, whose views he shared and whose proud openness he admired.

The question touching the composition of the king's council and the part to be taken in it by the estates was for five weeks the absorbing idea with the government and with the a.s.sembly. There were made, on both sides, concessions which satisfied neither the estates nor the court, for their object was always on the part of the estates to exercise a real influence on the government, and on the part of the court to escape being under any real influence of the estates. Side by side with the question of the king's council was ranged that of the imposts; and here it was no easier to effect an understanding: the crown asked more than the estates thought they ought or were able to vote; and, after a long and obscure controversy about expenses and receipts, Ma.s.selin was again commissioned to set-before the king's council the views of the a.s.sembly and its ultimate resolution. ”When we saw,” said he, ”that the aforesaid accounts or estimates contained elements of extreme difficulty, and that to balance and verify them would subject us to interminable discussions and longer labor than would be to our and the people's advantage, we hastened to adopt by way of expedient, but nevertheless resolutely, the decision I am about to declare to you. . . . Wis.h.i.+ng to meet liberally the king's and your desires, we offer to pay the sum that King Charles VII. used to take for the impost of talliages, provided, however, that this sum be equally and proportionately distributed between the provinces of the kingdom, and that in the shape of an aid. And this contribution be only for two years, after which the estates shall be a.s.sembled as they are to-day to discuss the public needs; and if at that time or previously they see the advantage thereof, the said sum shall be diminished or augmented. Further, the said my lords the deputies do demand that their next meeting be now appointed and declared, and that an irrevocable decision do fix and decree that a.s.sembly.”

This was providing at one and the same time for the wants of the present and the rights of the future. The impost of talliage was, indeed, voted just as it had stood under Charles VII., but it became a temporary aid granted for two years only; at the end of them the estates were to be convoked and the tax augmented or diminished according to the public wants. The great question appeared decided; by means of the vote, necessary and at the same time temporary, in the case of the impost, the states-general entered into real possession of a decisive influence in the government; but the behavior and language of the officers of the crown and of the great lords of the court rendered the situation as difficult as ever. In a long and confused harangue the chancellor, William de Rochefort, did not confine himself to declaring the sum voted, twelve hundred thousand livres, to be insufficient, and demanding three hundred thousand livres more; he pa.s.sed over in complete silence the limitation to two years of the tax voted and the requirement that at the end of that time the states-general should be convoked. ”Whilst the chancellor was thus speaking,” says Ma.s.selin, ”many deputies of a more independent spirit kept groaning, and all the hall resounded with a slight murmuring because it seemed that he was not expressing himself well as to the power and liberty of the people.” The deputies asked leave to deliberate in the afternoon, promising a speedy answer. ”As you wish to deliberate, do so, but briefly,” said the chancellor; ”it would be better for you to hold counsel now so as to answer in the afternoon.”

The deputies took their time; and the discussion was a long and a hot one. ”We see quite well how it is,” said the princes and the majority of the great lords; ”to curtail the king's power, and pare down his nails to the quick, is the object of your efforts; you forbid the subjects to pay their prince as much as the wants of the state require: are they masters, pray, and no longer subjects? You would set up the laws of some fanciful monarchy, and abolish the old ones.” ”I know the rascals,” said one of the great lords [according to one historian, it was the Duke of Bourbon, Anne de Beaujeu's brother-in-law]; ”if they are not kept down by over-weighting them, they will soon become insolent; for my part, I consider this tax the surest curb for holding them in.” ”Strange words,”

says Ma.s.selin, ”unworthy of utterance from the mouth of a man so eminent; but in his soul, as in that of all old men, covetousness had increased with age, and he appeared to fear a diminution of his pension.”

After having deliberated upon it, the states-general persisted in their vote of a tax of twelve hundred thousand livres, at which figure it had stood under King Charles VII., but for two years only, and as a gift or grant, not as a permanent talliage any more, and on condition that at the end of that time the states should be necessarily convoked. At the same time, however, ”and over and above this, the said estates, who do desire the well-being, honor, prosperity, and augmentation of the lord king and of his kingdom, and in order to obey him and please him in all ways possible, do grant him the sum of three hundred thousand livres of Tours, for this once only, and without being a precedent, on account of his late joyful accession to the throne of France, and for to aid and support the outlay which it is suitable to make for his holy consecration, coronation, and entry into Paris.”

On this fresh vote, full of fidelity to the monarchy and at the same time of patriotic independence, negotiations began between the estates and the court; and they lasted from the 28th of February to the 12th of March, but without result. At bottom, the question lay between absolute power and free government, between arbitrariness and legality; and, on this field, both parties were determined not to accept a serious and final defeat. Unmoved by the loyal concessions and a.s.surances they received, the advisers of the crown thought no longer of anything but getting speedily rid of the presence of the estates, so as to be free from the trouble of maintaining the discussion with them. The deputies saw through the device; their speeches were stifled, and the necessity of replying was eluded. ”My lord chancellor,” said they, at an interview on the 2d of March, 1484, ”if we are not to have a hearing, why are we here?

Why have you summoned us? Let us withdraw. If you behave thus, you do not require our presence. We did not at all expect to see the fruits of our vigils, and the decisions adopted after so much trouble by so ill.u.s.trious an a.s.sembly rejected so carelessly.” The complaints were not always so temperate. A theologian, whom Ma.s.selin quotes without giving his name, ”a bold and fiery partisan of the people,” says he, added these almost insulting words: ”As soon as our consent had been obtained for raising the money, there is no doubt but that we have been cajoled, that everything has been treated with contempt, the demands set down in our memorials, our final resolutions, and the limits we fixed. Speak we of the money. On this point, our decisions have been conformed to only so far as to tell us, 'This impost shall no longer be called talliage; it shall be a free grant.' Is it in words, pray, and not in things, that our labor and the well-being of the state consist? Verily, we would rather still call this impost _talliage,_ and even blackmail (_maltote_), or give it a still viler name, if there be any, than see it increasing immeasurably and crus.h.i.+ng the people. The curse of G.o.d and the execration of men upon those whose deeds and plots have caused such woes!

They are the most dangerous foes of the people and of the commonwealth.”

”The theologian burned with a desire to continue,” adds Ma.s.selin; ”but though he had not wandered far from the truth, many deputies chid him and constrained him to be silent. . . . Already lethargy had fallen upon the most notable amongst us; glutted with favors and promises, they no longer possessed that ardor of will which had animated them at first; when we were prosecuting our business, they remained motionless at home; when we spoke before them, they held their peace or added but a few feeble words. We were wasting our time.”

On the 12th of March, 1484, the deputies from Normandy, twenty-five in number, happened to hold a meeting at Montils-les-Tours. The Bishop of Coutances told them that there was no occasion for the estates to hold any more meetings; that it would be enough if each of the six sections appointed three or four delegates to follow the course of affairs; and that, moreover, the compensation granted to all the deputies of the estates would cease on the 14th of March, and after that would be granted only to their delegates. This compensation had already, amongst the estates, been the subject of a long discussion. The clergy and the n.o.bility had attempted to throw the whole burden of it upon the third estate; the third estate had very properly claimed that each of the three orders should, share proportionately in this expense, and the chancellor had with some difficulty got it decided that the matter should stand so.

On the 14th of March, accordingly, the six sections of the estates met and elected three or four deputies apiece. The deputies were a little surprised, on entering their sessions-hall, to find it completely dismantled: carpets, hangings, benches, table, all had been removed, so certainly did the government consider the session over. Some members, in disgust, thought and maintained that the estates ought not to separate without carrying away with them the resolutions set down in their general memorial, formally approved and accompanied by an order to the judges to have them executed. ”But a much larger number,” says Ma.s.selin, ”were afraid of remaining too long, and many of our colleagues, in spite of the zeal which they had once shown, had a burning desire to depart, according to the princes' good pleasure and orders. As for us, we enjoined upon the three deputies of our Norman nationality not to devote themselves solely to certain special affairs which had not yet been terminated, but to use redoubled care and diligence in all that concerned the general memorial and the aggregate of the estates. And having thus left our commissioners at Tours and put matters to rights, we went away well content; and we pray G.o.d that our labors and all that has been done may be useful for the people's welfare.”

Neither Ma.s.selin nor his descendants for more than three centuries were destined to see the labors of the states-general of 1484 obtain substantial and durable results. The work they had conceived and attempted was premature. The establishment of a free government demands either spontaneous and simple virtues, such as may be found in a young and small community, or the lights, the scientific method, and the wisdom, painfully acquired and still so imperfect, of great and civilized nations. France of the fifteenth century was in neither of these conditions. But it is a crown of glory to have felt that honest and patriotic ambition which animated Ma.s.selin and his friends at their exodus from the corrupt and corrupting despotism of Louis XI. Who would dare to say that their attempt, vain as it was for them, was so also for generations separated from them by centuries? Time and s.p.a.ce are as nothing in the mysterious development of G.o.d's designs towards men, and it is the privilege of mankind to get instruction and example from far-off memories of their own history. It was a duty to render to the states-general of 1484 the homage to which they have a right by reason of their intentions and their efforts on behalf of the good cause and in spite of their unsuccess.

When the states-general had separated, Anne de Beaujeu, without difficulty or uproar, resumed, as she had a.s.sumed on her father's death, the government of France; and she kept it yet for seven years, from 1484 to 1491. During all this time she had a rival and foe in Louis, Duke of Orleans, who was one day to be Louis XII. ”I have heard tell,” says Brantome, ”how that, at the first, she showed affection towards him, nay, even love; in such sort that, if M. d'Orleans had been minded to give heed thereto, he might have done well, as I know from a good source; but he could not bring himself to it; especially as he found her too ambitious, and he would that she should be dependent on him, as premier prince and nearest to the throne, and not he on her; whereas she desired the contrary, for she was minded to have the high place and rule everything. . . . They used to have,” adds Brantome, ”p.r.i.c.kings of jealousy, love, and ambition.” If Brantome's anecdote is true, as one is inclined to believe, though several historians have cast doubts upon it, Anne de Beaujeu had, in their p.r.i.c.kings of jealousy, love, and ambition, a great advantage over Louis of Orleans. They were both young, and exactly of the same age; but Louis had all the defects of youth, whilst Anne had all the qualities of mature age. He was handsome, volatile, inconsiderate, impudent, brave, and of a generous, open nature, combined with kindliness; she was thoughtful, judicious, persistent, and probably a little cold and hard, such, in fact, as she must needs have become in the school of her father, Louis XI. As soon as the struggle between them began, the diversity of their characters appeared and bore fruit. The Duke of Orleans plunged into all sorts of intrigues and ventures against the fair regent, exciting civil war, and, when he was too much compromised or too hard pressed, withdrawing to the court of Francis II., Duke of Brittany, an unruly va.s.sal of the King of France. Louis of Orleans even made alliance, at need, with foreign princes, Henry VII., King of England, Ferdinand the Catholic, King of Arragon, and Maximilian, archduke of Austria, without much regard for the interests of his own kingly house and his own country. Anne, on the contrary, in possession of official and legal authority, wielded it and guarded it with prudence and moderation in the interests of France and of the crown, never taking the initiative in war, but having the wit to foresee, maintain, and, after victory, end it. She encountered from time to time, at her own court and in her own immediate circle, a serious difficulty: the young king, Charles, was charmed by the Duke of Orleans's brilliant qualities, especially by the skill and bravery that Louis displayed at tournaments.

One day, interrupting the Bishop of Montauban, George of Amboise, who was reading the breviary to him, ”Send word to the Duke of Orleans,” said the king, ”to go on with his enterprise, and that I would fain be with him.”

Another day he said to Count Dunois, ”Do take me away, uncle: I'm longing to be out of this company.” Dunois and George of Amboise, both of them partisans of the Duke of Orleans, carefully encouraged the king in sentiments so favorable to the fair regent's rival. Incidents of another sort occurred to still further embarra.s.s the position for Anne de Beaujeu. The eldest daughter of Francis II., Duke of Brittany, herself also named Anne, would inherit his duchy, and on this ground she was ardently wooed by many compet.i.tors. She was born in 1477; and at four years of age, in 1481, she had been promised in marriage to Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Edward IV., King of England. But two years afterwards, in 1483, this young prince was murdered, or, according to other accounts, imprisoned by his uncle Richard III., who seized the crown; and the Breton promise vanished with him. The number of claimants to the hand of Anne of Brittany increased rapidly; and the policy of the duke her father consisted, it was said, in making for himself five or six sons-in-law by means of one daughter. Towards the end of 1484, the Duke of Orleans, having embroiled himself with Anne de Beaujeu, sought refuge in Brittany; and many historians have said that he not only at that time aspired to the hand of Anne of Brittany, but that he paid her a.s.siduous court and obtained from her marks of tender interest. Count Darn, in his _Histoire de Bretagne_ (t. iii. p. 82), has put the falsehood of this a.s.sertion beyond a doubt; the Breton princess was then only seven and the Duke of Orleans had been eight years married to Joan of France, younger daughter of Louis XI. But in succeeding years and amidst the continual alternations of war and negotiation between the King of France and the Duke of Brittany, Anne de Beaujeu and the Duke of Orleans, compet.i.tion and strife between the various claimants to the hand of Anne of Brittany became very active; Alan, Sire d'Albret, called the Great because of his reputation for being the richest lord of the realm, Viscount James de Rohan, and Archduke Maximilian of Austria, all three believed themselves to have hopes of success, and prosecuted them a.s.siduously. Sire d'Albret, a widower and the father of eight children already, was forty-five, with a pimply face, a hard eye, a hoa.r.s.e voice, and a quarrelsome and gloomy temper; and Anne, being pressed to answer his suit, finally declared that she would turn nun rather than marry him.

James de Rohan, in spite of his powerful backers at the court of Rennes, was likewise dismissed; his father, Viscount John II., was in the service of the King of France. Archduke Maximilian remained the only claimant with any pretensions. He was nine and twenty, of gigantic stature, justly renowned for valor and ability in war, and of more literary culture than any of the princes his contemporaries, a trait he had in common with Princess Anne, whose education had been very carefully attended to. She showed herself to be favorably disposed towards him; and the Duke of Orleans, whose name, married though he was, was still sometimes a.s.sociated with that of the Breton princess, formally declared, on the 26th of January, 1486, that, ”when he came to the Duke of Brittany's, it was solely to visit him and advise him on certain points touching the defence of his duchy, and not to talk to him of marriage with the princesses his daughters.” But, whilst the negotiation was thus inclining towards the Austrian prince, Anne de Beaujeu, ever far-sighted and energetic, was vigorously pus.h.i.+ng on the war against the Duke of Brittany and his allies. She had found in Louis de la Tremoille an able and a bold warrior, whom Guicciardini calls the greatest captain in the world. In July, 1488, he came suddenly down upon Brittany, took one after the other Chateaubriant, Ancenis, and Fougeres, and, on the 28th, gained at St. Aubin-du-Cormier, near Rennes, over the army of the Duke of Brittany and his English, German, and Gascon allies, a victory which decided the campaign: six thousand of the Breton army were killed, and Duke Louis of Orleans, the Prince of Orange, and several French lords, his friends, were made prisoners. On receiving at Angers the news of this victory, Charles VIII. gave orders that the two captive princes should be brought to him; but Anne de Beaujeu, fearing some ebullition on his part of a too prompt and too gratuitous generosity, caused delay in their arrival; and the Duke of Orleans, who was taken first to the castle of Sable and then to Lusignan, went ultimately to the Tower of Bourges, where he was to await the king's decision.

It was a great success for Anne de Beaujeu. She had beaten her united foes; and the most formidable of them all, the Duke of Orleans, was her prisoner. Two incidents that supervened, one a little before and the other a little after the battle of St. Aubin-du-Cormier, occurred to both embarra.s.s the position and at the same time call forth all the energy of Anne. Her brother-in-law, Duke John of Bourbon, the head of his house, died on the 1st of April, 1488, leaving to his younger brother, Peter, his t.i.tle and domains. Having thus become d.u.c.h.ess of Bourbon, and being well content with this elevation in rank and fortune, Madame the Great (as Anne de Beaujeu was popularly called) was somewhat less eagerly occupied with the business of the realm, was less constant at the king's council, and went occasionally with her husband to stay a while in their own territories. Charles VIII., moreover, having nearly arrived at man's estate, made more frequent manifestations of his own personal will; and Anne, clear-sighted and discreet though ambitious, was little by little changing her dominion into influence. But some weeks after the battle of St. Aubin-du-Cormier, on the 7th or 9th of September, 1488, the death of Francis II., Duke of Brittany, rendered the active intervention of the d.u.c.h.ess of Bourbon natural and necessary; for he left his daughter, the Princess Anne, barely eighteen years old, exposed to all the difficulties attendant upon the government of her inheritance, and to all the intrigues of the claimants to her hand. In the summer of 1489, Charles VIII. and his advisers learned that the Count of Na.s.sau, having arrived in Brittany with the proxy of Archduke Maximilian, had by a mock ceremony espoused the Breton princess in his master's name. This strange mode of celebration could not give the marriage a real and indissoluble character; but the concern in the court of France was profound. In Brittany there was no mystery any longer made about the young d.u.c.h.ess's engagement; she already took the t.i.tle of Queen of the Romans. Charles VIII. loudly protested against this pretended marriage; and to give still more weight to his protest he sent to Henry VII., King of England, who was much mixed up with the affairs of Brittany, amba.s.sadors charged to explain to him the right which France had to oppose the marriage of the young d.u.c.h.ess with Archduke Maximilian, at the same time taking care not to give occasion for thinking that Charles had any views on his own account in that quarter. ”The king my master,” said the amba.s.sador, ”doth propose to a.s.sert by arms his plain rights over the kingdom of Naples, now occupied by some usurper or other, a b.a.s.t.a.r.d of the house of Arragon. He doth consider, moreover, the conquest of Naples only as a bridge thrown down before him for to take him into Greece; there he is resolved to lavish his blood and his treasure, though he should have to p.a.w.n his crown and drain his kingdom, for to overthrow the tyranny of the Ottomans, and open to himself in this way the kingdom of Heaven.” The King of England gave a somewhat ironical reply to this chivalrous address, merely asking whether the King of France would consent not to dispose of the heiress of Brittany's hand, save on the condition of not marrying her himself. The amba.s.sadors shuffled out of the question by saying that their master was so far from any such idea, that it had not been foreseen in their instructions.

Whether it had or had not been foreseen and meditated upon, so soon as the reunion of Brittany with France by the marriage of the young d.u.c.h.ess, Anne, with King Charles VIII. appeared on the horizon as a possible, and, peradventure, probable fact, it became the common desire, aim, and labor of all the French politicians who up to that time had been opposed, persecuted, and proscribed. Since the battle of St. Aubin-du-Cormier, Duke Louis of Orleans had been a prisoner in the Tower of Bourges, and so strictly guarded that he was confined at night in an iron cage like Cardinal Balue's for fear he should escape. In vain had his wife, Joan of France, an unhappy and virtuous princess, ugly and deformed, who had never been able to gain her husband's affections, implored her all-powerful sister, Anne of Bourbon, to set him at liberty: ”As I am incessantly thinking,” she wrote to her, ”about my husband's release, I have conceived the idea of setting down in writing the fas.h.i.+on in which peace might be had, and my said husband be released. I am writing it out for the king, and you will see it all. I pray you, sister, to look to it that I may get a few words in answer; it has been a very sad thing for me that I never see you now.” There is no trace of any answer from Anne to her sister. Charles VIII. had a heart more easily touched. When Joan, in mourning, came and threw herself at his feet, saying, ”Brother, my husband is dragging on his life in prison; and I am in such trouble that I know not what I ought to say in his defence. If he has had aught wherewith to reproach himself, I am the only one whom he has outraged.

Pardon him, brother; you will never have so happy a chance of being generous.” ”You shall have him, sister,” said Charles, kissing her; ”grant Heaven that you may not repent one day of that which you are doing for him to-day!” Some days after this interview, in May, 1491, Charles, without saying anything about it to the d.u.c.h.ess, Anne of Bourbon, set off one evening from Plessis du Pare on pretence of going a-hunting, and on reaching Berry sent for the Duke of Orleans from the Tower of Bourges.

Louis, in raptures at breathing the air of freedom, at the farthest glimpse he caught of the king, leaped down from his horse and knelt, weeping, on the ground. ”Charles,” says the chronicler, ”sprang upon his neck, and knew not what cheer (reception) to give him, to make it understood that he was acting of his own motion and free will.” Charles ill understood his sister Anne, and could scarcely make her out. But two convictions had found their way into that straightforward and steady mind of hers; one, that a favorable time had arrived for uniting Brittany with France, and must be seized; the other, that the period of her personal dominion was over, and that all she had to do was to get herself well established in her new position. She wrote to the king her brother to warn him against the accusations and wicked rumors of which she might possibly be the object. He replied to her on the 21st of June, 1491: ”My good sister, my dear, Louis de Pesclins has informed me that you have knowledge that certain matters have been reported to me against you; whereupon I answered him that nought of the kind had been reported to me; and I a.s.sure you that none would dare so to speak to me; for, in whatsoever fas.h.i.+on it might, I would not put faith therein, as I hope to tell you when we are together,--bidding you adieu, my good sister, my dear.” After having re-a.s.sured his sister, Charles set about reconciling her, as well as her husband, the Duke of Bourbon, with her brother-in-law, the Duke of Orleans. Louis, who was of a frank and by no means rancorous disposition, as he himself said and proved at a later period, submitted with a good grace; and on the 4th of September, 1491, at La Fleche, the princes jointly made oath, by their baptism and with their hands on the book of the Gospels, ”to hold one another once more in perpetual affection, and to forget all old rancor, hatred, and ill will, for to well and loyally serve King Charles, guard his person and authority, and help him to comfort the people, and set in order his household and his kingdom.” Councillors and servants were included in this reconciliation of the masters; and Philip de Commynes and the Bishop of Montauban, ere long Archbishop of Rouen, Governor of Normandy, and Cardinal d'Amboise, went out of disgrace, took their places again in the king's councils, and set themselves loyally to the work of accomplis.h.i.+ng that union between Charles VIII. and Anne of Brittany, whereby France was to achieve the pacific conquest of Brittany.

Pacific as it was, this conquest cost some pains, and gave some trouble.