Anne of Brittany

Ladislav of Poland eventually reigned in their stead, but Frederick had the satisfaction of witnessing the conclusion of the Treaty of Pressburg, 1491, by which the Habsburgs were to become the heirs of Ladislav when the male line of his house should fail.

By 1526, this had come to pass on the death at Mohawks of his son Louis, whose sister Anne was the wife of Frederick's great-grandson.

Thus, Ferdinand of Austria, by the double claim of marriage and treaty rights, became king of Hungary and Bohemia, which the emperors, his descendants, continued to hold as their family possessions.

During the critical years of this question, Frederick's chief attention was drawn to affairs in the West.

For several years before that event, however, Louis' relations with Brittany, Burgundy, and England continued to be full of difficulties.

Since 1466, he had been allied with Warwick, who had quarreled with Edward IV.

while the Yorkist party in England had definitely ranged itself on the side of Burgundy by the marriage of Edward's sister Margaret with Charles the Bold.

Preparations were made for a war between France on the one hand and Burgundy, Brittany, and England on the other.

as everything from the adjacent country, which is thought to be the most beautiful in Brittany, to the ancient gateways and clock tower in a street so narrow that the gabled roofs meet overhead, is sufficiently attractive to keep the brush constantly busy.

Queen Anne's Castle, now a prison.

The old town wall and watchtowers, fine fosse and Romanesque Saint-Sever, are all interesting.

Also the steep descent to the river 250 feet below, down which the many little streets run so precipitantly.

ALSO, BECAUSE THE OTHERS WOULD NOT WISH TO TAKE LUMBERTY FROM FRANCE IN ORDER TO GIVE IT TO THE VENETIANS, AND TO RUN COUNTER TO BOTH, THEY WOULD NOT HAVE HAD THE COURAGE.

and if any one should say king louis yielded the romagna to alexander and the kingdom to spain to avoid war i answer for the reasons given above that a blunder ought never to be perpetrated to avoid war because it is not to be avoided but is only deferred to your disadvantage and if another should allege the pledge which the king had given to the pope that he would assist him in the enterprise, in exchange for the dissolution of his marriage, begin footnote, Louis VII divorced his wife, Jean, daughter of Louis VI, and married in 1499 Anne of Brittany, widow of Charles VIII, in order to retain the Duchy of Brittany for the crown, and for the cap to ruin.

BEGIN FOOTNOTE The Archbishop of Rouen, he was Georges d'Amboise, created a cardinal by Alexander VI, born 1460, died 1510.

END FOOTNOTE To that I reply what I shall write later on concerning the faith of princes and how it ought to be kept.

still she was by no means indifferent to the pastimes in which her brother and his companions engaged gaston de foix the nephew of the king william goffier who became admiral de bonivet philip briand sieur de chabot florange the young adventurer charles de bourbon count of montpensier and anne de montmorency two future constables of france surrounded the heir to the throne with whom they practised tennis archery and jousting or plaited soldiers pending the time when they were to wage war in earnest margaret was a frequent spectator of these pastimes and took a keen interest in her brother's efforts whenever he was assailing or defending some miniature fortress or tilting at the ring it would appear also that she was wont to play at chess with him for we have it on high authority that it is she and her brother who are represented thus engaged in a curious miniature preserved at the bibliothque nationale in paris in this design executed by an unknown artist only the back of francis is to be seen but a full view of margaret is supplied the personage standing behind her being artus goffier her own and her brother's governor whatever time margaret may have devoted to diversion she was certainly a very studious child for at fifteen years of age she already had the reputation of being highly accomplished shortly after her sixteenth birthday a great change took place in her life on august third fifteen o eight louise of savoy records in her journal that francis this day quitted amboise to become a courtier and left me all alone margaret accompanied her brother upon his entry into the world the young couple repairing to blois where louis the twelfth had fixed his residence there had previously been some unsuccessful negotiations in view of marrying margaret to prince henry of england henry the eighth and at this period another husband was suggested in the person of charles of austria count of flanders and subsequently emperor charles v louis the twelfth however had other views as regards the daughter of the count of angouleme for he knew that if he himself died without male issue the throne would pass to margaret's brother hence he decided to marry her to a prince of the royal house charles duke of alenon this prince born at alenon on september second fourteen eighty nine had been brought up at the chateau of mauve in la perche by his mother the pious and charitable margaret of lorraine who on losing her husband had resolved like louise of savoy to devote herself to the education of her children it had originally been intended that her son charles should marry suzanne daughter of the duke and duchess of bourbon the celebrated peter and anne de beaujeu but this match fell through owing to the death of peter and the opposition of anne who preferred the young count of montpensier afterwards constable de bourbon as a son-in-law the a yet higher alliance than presented itself for Charles.

It was proposed that he should marry Anne of Brittany, the widow of King Charles VIII.

But she was many years his senior, and, moreover, to prevent the separation of Brittany from France, it had been stipulated that she should marry either her first husband's successor, Louis XII, or the heir presumptive to the throne.

Either course seemed impracticable, as the heir, Francis of Angoulême, was but a child, while the new king was already married to Jane, a daughter of Louis XI.

Brittany seemed lost to France, when Louis XII.

by promising the duchy of valentinois to caesar borgia prevailed upon pope alexander the sixth to divorce him from his wife he then married anne of brittany while charles of alenon proceeded to perfect his knightly education pending other matrimonial arrangements in fifteen o seven when in his eighteenth year he accompanied the army which the king led against the genoese and conducted himself bravely it was during this italian expedition that his mother negotiated his marriage with margaret of angouleme the alliance was openly countenanced by louis the twelfth and the young duke of valois as francis of angouleme was now called readily acceded to it margaret brought with her a dowry of sixty thousand livres payable in four instalments and charles who was on the point of attaining his twenty-first year was declared a major and placed in possession of his estates the marriage was solemnized at blois in october fifteen o nine margaret did not find in her husband a mind comparable to her own differences of taste and temper brought about a certain amount of coolness which did not however hinder the duchess from fulfilling the duties of a faithful submissive wife in fact although but little sympathy would appear to have existed between the duke and duchess of alenon their domestic differences have at least been singularly exaggerated during the first five years of her married life margaret lived in somewhat retired style in her duchy of alenon while her husband took part in various expeditions and was invested with important functions in fifteen thirteen he fought in picardy against the english and imperialists commanded by henry the eighth being present at the famous battle of spurs and early in fifteen fourteen he was appointed lieutenant-general and governor of brittany margaret at this period was not only often separated from her husband but she also saw little of her mother who had retired to her duchy of angouleme louise of savoy as mother of the heir-presumptive was the object of the homage of all adroit and politic courtiers but she had to behave with circumspection on account of the jealousy of the queen anne of brittany whose daughters claude and rene were debarred by the salic law from inheriting the crown louis the twelfth wished to marry claude to francis of angouleme but anne refusing her consent it was only after her death in fifteen fourteen that the marriage was solemnized It now seemed certain that Francis would in due course ascend the throne, but Louis XII abruptly contracted a third alliance, marrying Mary of England, the sister of Henry VIII.

Louise of Savoy soon deemed it prudent to keep a watch on the conduct of this gay young queen, and took up her residence at the court in November 1514.

crown coins

Nevertheless, it was clear now that he could no longer remain safely even in Wales, and his uncle Jasper took him across the sea, hoping to find asylum for him in France.

The wind, however, carried them into Brittany, then an independent duchy, and the Duke, Francis II, received them with great satisfaction, knowing well the value of such political refugees if he should require the assistance of England against his powerful neighbour, France.

It was at the urgent request of his mother, the Countess of Richmond, that Henry was thus conveyed abroad.

She, however, remained in England, having probably before this time married her second husband, Henry Lord Stafford, the son of the Duke of Buckingham.

She, at least, was not an object of jealousy to Edward IV, who endowed her with lands in Devonshire, where it is supposed that she chiefly lived.

But he made pretty persistent efforts to induce the Duke of Brittany to give up her son to him, urging that he intended not to treat him as a prisoner, but to marry him to one of his own daughters, so that at last Duke Francis delivered him up to an English embassy, which carried him as far as St. Malo, where they were about to have taken ship for England.

Henry believed that he was going to his death, and in the words of the old chronicler, for very pensiveness and inward thought fell into fervent and sore ague.

But Jean de Quenelac, Admiral of Brittany, an old and faithful counsellor of the Duke, took alarm at what seemed to him like a stain upon his master's honour, and persuaded him at the last moment to stay the effect of his weak concession.

Ladislaus of Poland eventually reigned in their stead, but Frederick had the satisfaction of witnessing the conclusion of the Treaty of Pressburg, 1491, by which the Habsburgs were to become the heirs of Ladislaus when the male line of his house should fail.

By 1526 this had come to pass on the death at Mohawks of his son Louis, whose sister Anne was the wife of Frederick's great-grandson.

Thus Ferdinand of Austria, by the double claim of marriage and treaty rights, became king of Hungary and Bohemia, which the emperors, his descendants, continued to hold as their family possessions.

During the critical years of this question, Frederick's chief attention was drawn to affairs in the west.

He even delayed to give up the sum towns till his brother's death in 1471 made it safe flatly to refuse to fulfill his promise.

For several years before that event, however, Louis' relations with Brittany, Burgundy, and England continued to be full of difficulties.

Since 1466 he had been allied with Warwick, who had quarreled with Edward IV, while the Yorkist party in England had definitely ranged itself on the side of Burgundy by the marriage of Edward's sister Margaret with Charles the Bold.

Preparations were made for a war between France on the one hand and Burgundy, Brittany, and England on the other.

It rises, massive and perpendicular, out of the centre of the village to which it gives its name, and which it entirely dominates, so that, as you stand before it, in the crooked and empty street, there is no resource for you but to stare up at its heavy, overhanging cornice, and at the huge towers surmounted with extinguishers of slate.

if you follow the street to the end however you encounter in abundance the usual embellishments of a french village little ponds or tanks with women on their knees on the brink pounding and thumping a lump of saturated linen brown old crones the tone of whose facial hide makes their nightcaps worn by day look dazzling little alleys perforating the thickness of a row of cottages and showing you behind as a glimpse the vividness of a green garden in the rear of the castle rises a hill which must formerly have been occupied by some of its appurtenances and which indeed is still partly enclosed within its court you may walk round this eminence which with the small houses of the village at its base shuts in the castle from behind the enclosure is not defiantly guarded however for a small rough path which you presently reach leads up to an open gate this gate admits you to a vague and rather limited parc which covers the crest of the hill and through which you may walk into the gardens of the castle these gardens of small extent confront the dark walls with their brilliant parterre and covering the gradual slope of the hill form as it were the fourth side of the court this is the stateliest view of the chteau which looks to you sufficiently grim and grey as after asking leave of a neat young woman who sallies out to learn your errand you sit there on a garden bench and take the measure of the three tall towers attached to this inner front and forming severally the cage of a staircase the huge bracketed cornice one of the features of langeais which is merely ornamental as it is not machicolated though it looks so is continued on the inner face as well the whole thing has a fine feudal air though it was erected on the ruins of feudalism the main event in the history of the castle is the marriage of anne of brittany to her first husband charles the eighth which took place in its great hall in fourteen ninety one into this great hall we were introduced by the neat young woman into this great hall and into sundry other halls winding staircases galleries chambers the cicerone of langeais is in too great a hurry the fact is pointed out in the excellent guy joan this ill-dissimulated vice however is to be observed in the country of the loire in every one who carries a key it is true that at langeais there is no great occasion to indulge in the tourist's weakness of dawdling for the apartments though they contain many curious odds and ends of antiquity are not of first-rate interest they are cold and musty indeed with that touching smell of old furniture as all apartments should be through which the insatiate american wanders in the rear of a bored domestic pausing to stare at a faded tapestry or to read the name on the frame of some simpering portrait to return to tours my companion and i had counted on a train which as is not uncommon in france existed only in the indicateur des chemins de fer and instead of waiting for another we engaged a vehicle to take us home a sorry carryall or batache it proved to be with the accessories of a lumbering white mare and a little wizened ancient peasant who had put on in honor of the occasion a new blouse of extraordinary stiffness and blueness we hired the trap of an energetic woman who put it to with her own hands women in touraine and the blaisois appearing to have the best of it in the business of letting vehicles as well as in many other industries there is in fact no branch of human activity in which one is not liable in france to find a woman engaged women indeed are not priests but priests are more or less women they are not in the army it may be said but then they are the army they are very formidable in france one must count with the women the drive back from lange de tours was long slow cold we had an occasional spatter of rain but the road passes most of the way close to the loire and there was something in our jog-truck through the darkening land beside the flowing river which it was very possible to enjoy.

chapter x the consequence of my leaving to the last my little mention of loche is that space and opportunity fail me and yet a brief and hurried account of that extraordinary spot would after all be in best agreement with my visit we snatched a fearful joy my companion and i the afternoon we took the train for loche the weather this time had been terribly against us again and again a day that promised fair became hopelessly foul after lunch at last we determined that if we could not make this excursion in the sunshine we would make it with the aid of our umbrellas we grasped them firmly and started for the station where we were detained an unconscionable time by the evolutions outside of certain trains laden with liberated and exhilarated conscripts who their term of service ended were about to be restored to civil life The trains in Touraine are provoking.

They serve as little as possible for excursions.

Loche is certainly one of the greatest impressions of the traveller in central France, the largest cluster of curious things that presents itself to his sight.

it rises above the valley of the indre the charming stream set in meadows and sedges which wanders through the province of berri and through many of the novels of madame georges champs lifting from the summit of a hill which it covers to the base a confusion of terraces ramparts towers and spires having but little time as i say we scaled the hill amain and wandered briskly through this labyrinth of antiquities the rain had decidedly stopped and save that we had our train on our minds we saw loche to the best advantage we enjoyed that sensation with which the conscientious tourist is or ought to be well acquainted and for which at any rate he has a formula in his rough-and-ready language we experienced as they say most odious of verbs an agreeable disappointment we were surprised and delighted we had not suspected that lush was so good i hardly know what is best there the strange and impressive little collegial church with its romanesque atrium or narthex its doorways covered with primitive sculpture of the richest kind its treasure of a so-called pagan altar embossed with fighting warriors its three pyramidal domes so unexpected so sinister which i have not met elsewhere in church architecture or the huge square keep of the eleventh century the most cliff-like tower i remember whose immeasurable thickness i did not penetrate or the subterranean mysteries of two other less striking but not less historic dungeons into which a terribly imperative little cicerone introduced us with the aid of downward ladders ropes torches warnings and extended hands and many fearful anecdotes all in impervious darkness these horrible prisons of loches at an incredible distance below the daylight were a favoured resort of louis the eleventh and were for the most part i believe constructed by him one of the towers of the castle is garnished with hooks or supports of the celebrated iron cage in which he confined the cardinal la balue who survived so much longer than might have been expected this extraordinary mixture of seclusion and exposure all these things form part of the castle of loches whose enormous enceinte covers the whole of the top of the hill and abounds in dismantled gateways in crooked passages in winding lanes that lead to postern doors in long facades that look upon terraces interdicted to the visitor who proceeds with irritation that they command magnificent views These views are the property of the sub-prefect of the department, who resides at the Chateau de Loche, and who has also the enjoyment of a garden, a garden compressed and curtailed, as those of old castles that perch on hilltops are apt to be, containing a horse-just-not-tree of fabulous size, a tree of a circumference so vast and so perfect that the whole population of Loche might sit in concentric rows beneath its boughs.

the gem of the place however is neither the big marronnier nor the collegial church nor the mighty dungeon nor the hideous prisons of louis the eleventh it is simply the tomb of agnes sorel la belle des belles so many years the mistress of charles the seventh she was buried in fourteen fifty in the collegial church whence in the beginning of the present century her remains with the monument that marks them were transferred to one of the towers of the castle she has always i know not with what justice enjoyed a fairer fame than most ladies who have occupied her position and this fairness is expressed in the delicate statue that surmounts her tomb it represents her lying there in lovely demureness her hands folded with the best modesty a little kneeling angel at either side of her head and her feet hidden in the folds of her decent robe resting upon a pair of couchant lambs innocent reminders of her name agnes however was not lamblike inasmuch as according to her popular tradition at least she exerted herself sharply in favour of the expulsion of the english from france it is one of the suggestions of loches that the young charles the seventh hard put to it as he was for a treasury and a capital le roi de bourges as he was called at paris was yet a rather privileged mortal to stand up as he does before posterity between the noble joan and the gentil agnes deriving however much more honour from one of these companions than from the other almost as delicate a relic of antiquity as this fascinating tomb is the exquisite oratory of anne of brittany among the apartments of the castle the only chamber worthy of note this small room hardly larger than a closet and forming part of the addition made to the edifice by charles the seventh is embroidered over with the curious and remarkably decorative device of the ermine and festooned cord the objects in themselves are not especially graceful but the constant repetition of the figure on the walls and ceiling produces an effect of richness in spite of the modern whitewash with which if i remember rightly they have been endued the little streets of loches wander crookedly down the hill and full of charming pictorial bits an old-town gate passing under a mediaeval tower which is ornamented by gothic windows and the empty niches of statues a meagre but delicate hotel de ville of the renaissance nestling close beside it a curious chancellerie of the middle of the sixteenth century with mythological figures and a latin inscription on the front both of these latter buildings being rather unexpected features of the huddled and precipitous little town loches has a suburb on the other side of the indre which we had contented ourselves with looking down at from the heights while we wondered whether even if it had not been getting late and our train were more accommodating we should care to take our way across the bridge and look up that bust and terra-cotta of francis i which is the principal ornament of the chateau de sansac and the faubourg of beaulieu i think we decided that we should not that we were already quite well enough acquainted with the nasal profile of that monarch chapter eleven i know not whether the exact limits of an excursion as distinguished from a journey have ever been fixed at any rate it seemed none of my business at tours to settle the question therefore though the making of excursions had been the promise of my stay i thought it vain while i started for bourges to determine to which category that little expedition might belong it was not till the third day that i returned to tours and the distance traversed for the most part after dark was even greater than i had supposed That, however, was partly the fault of a tiresome wait at Vierzon, where I had more than enough time to dine, very badly, at the buffet, and to observe the proceedings of a family who had entered my railway carriage at Tours, and had conversed unreservedly for my benefit all the way from that station, a family whom it entertained me to assign to the class of petite noblesse de province.

their noble origin was confirmed by the way they all made maigre in the refreshment room it happened to be a friday as if it had been possible to do anything else they ate two or three omelettes apiece and ever so many little cakes while the positive talkative mother watched her children as the waiter handed about the roast fowl i was destined to share the secrets of this family to the end for when i had taken place in the empty train that was in waiting to convey us to bourges the same vigilant woman pushed them all on top of me into my compartment though the carriages on either side contained no travellers at all it was better i found to have dined even on omelettes and little cakes at the station at vierzon rather than at the hotel at bourges which when i reached it at nine o'clock at night did not strike me as the prince of hotels the inns in the smaller provincial towns of france are all as the term is commercial and the commis voyageur is in triumphant possession i saw a great deal of him for several weeks after this for he was apparently the only traveller in the southern provinces and it was my daily fate to sit opposite to him at table d'hte and in railway trains he may be known by two infallible signs his hands are fat and he tucks his napkin into his shirt collar in spite of these idiosyncrasies he seemed to me a reserved and inoffensive person with singularly little of the demonstrative good-humour that he had been described as possessing i saw no one who reminded me of balzac's illustres and indeed in the course of a month's journey through a large part of france i heard so little desultory conversation that i wondered whether a change had not come over the spirit of the people they seem to me as silent as americans when americans have not been introduced and infinitely less addicted to exchanging remarks in railway trains and at table d'hte than the colloquial and cursory english a fact perhaps not worth mentioning were it not at variance with that reputation which the french have long enjoyed of being a pre-eminently sociable nation the common report of the character of a people is however an indefinable product and it is apt to strike the traveller who observes for himself as very wide of the mark the english who have for ages been described mainly by the french as the dumb stiff unapproachable race present to-day a remarkable appearance of good humour and garrulity and are distinguished by their facility of intercourse on the other hand anyone who has seen half a dozen frenchmen pass a whole day together in a railway carriage without breaking silence is forced to believe that the traditional reputation of these gentlemen is simply the survival of some primitive formula it was true doubtless before the revolution but there have been great changes since then the question of which is the better taste to talk to strangers or to hold your tongue is a matter apart i incline to believe that the french reserve is the result of a more definite conception of social behaviour i allude to it only because it is at variance with the national fame and at the same time is compatible with a very easy view of life in certain other directions on some of these latter points the boule d'or at bourges was full of instruction boasting as it did of a hall of reception in which amid old boots that had been brought to be cleaned old linen that was being sorted for the wash and lamps of evil odour that were awaiting replenishment a strange familiar promiscuous household life went forward small scullions in white caps and aprons slept upon greasy benches the boot sat staring at you while you fumbled helpless in a row of pigeon-holes for your candlestick or your key and amid the coming and going of the commis voyageurs a little seamstress bent over the undergarments of the hostess the latter being a heavy stern silent woman who looked at people very hard it was not to be looked at in that manner that one had come all the way from tours so that within ten minutes after my arrival i sallied out into the darkness to get somehow and somewhere a happier impression However late in the evening I may arrive at a place, I cannot go to bed without an impression.