Quotation from: A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3

Written by: Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot


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 duchess,
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 fashion 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 duchess, 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 assure you that none would dare so to speak to me; for, in
whatsoever fashion 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-assured 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 accomplishing
that union between Charles VIII. and Anne of Brittany, whereby France was
to achieve the pacific conquest of Brittany.

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