[Illustration: Anne de Beaujeu----264]
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 embarrassment 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 title Anne de Beaujeu had assumed) 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.
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