A Regent Named Anne
Charles VIII was thirteen when his father died. For eight years his sister Anne de Beaujeu, only ten years his senior, ruled France wisely as regent. She cut government expenses, remitted a quarter of the head tax, recalled many exiles and freed many prisoners. She also successfully crushed the barons' attempts in their foolish war of 1484 to regain half the powers Louis had taken from them.
When Brittany allied with Orléans, Lorraine, Angoulême, Orange and Navarre in another revolt, her shrewd statecraft and the generalship of Louis de la Trémoille defeated them all. She ended the unrest in triumph by arranging a marriage between Charles and Anne of Brittany, who brought her great duchy to the French court as a dowry (1491). The regent then withdrew from power and spent the remaining thirty-one years of her life in restful obscurity.
The New Queen
The new queen was, in every respect, another "Anne." She was short, broad, thin and lame, with a hooked nose, a wide mouth and a long Gothic face. As befitted a Breton woman, she was sharp-witted and thrifty. She dressed simply, often in a black dress and headscarf, yet on formal occasions she could wear cloth of gold and shine under a load of jewels.
It was she, not Charles, who patronized poets and artists and commissioned Jean Bourdichon to illustrate the prayers of Anne of Brittany. She never forgot Brittany and its customs, which she cherished deeply. She hid her pride behind modesty, sewed diligently, and worked to improve the morals and manners of her husband and the court.
The King
Brantôme, who likes to write groundless gossip, says Charles "loved women more than his frail constitution allowed." After marriage he kept to one mistress. He could hardly complain of the queen's plainness, since he had a large, long head and a hunched back himself. His looks were unattractive. He had large, pale, nearsighted eyes, a thick drooping lower lip, slow speech, and sudden convulsive twitching of the hands. But he was good-natured, kind and sometimes very imaginative. He loved tales of chivalry and dreamed of conquering Naples for France and Jerusalem for Christendom.
The Claim to Naples
The House of Anjou had held the kingdom of Naples from 1268 until Alfonso of Aragon drove it out in 1435. The claim passed from the Dukes of Anjou to Louis XI, and now Charles revived it. His council thought him the only man in the world, and the last, capable of leading an army in a great war. The councilors hoped to smooth the way to victory by diplomacy and believed that conquering Naples would give France commercial dominance in the Mediterranean.
To secure the kingdom's flanks, they gave Artois and Franche-Comté to Maximilian of Austria and Cerdagne and Roussillon to Ferdinand of Spain. They expected to win half of Italy in return for these small gifts. With heavy taxes, pawned jewels and loans from Genoese bankers and from Ludovico, regent of Milan, they raised an army of forty thousand men, a hundred cannons and eighty-six warships.
The March South
In 1494 Charles, perhaps not unhappy to be away from his wife Anne and his sister Anne, left the capital gladly. He was warmly welcomed in Milan (which had small accounts to settle with Naples) and found its women irresistible. On the way he left a trail of illegitimate children. But he chivalrously refused to take advantage of one unyielding girl, a servant of his bedchamber who had been used to lure him into lust. Instead he sent for her lover, presided over their wedding feast, and gave the girl a dowry of 500 crowns.
Naples had no strength to resist, and Charles entered the city easily (1495). Its sights, cooking and women pleased him, and he forgot Jerusalem. He seems to have been one of those lucky Frenchmen who did not catch the venereal disease that, because it spread so quickly after the troops returned to France, was later called the "French disease."
Retreat from Italy
The "Holy League" of Alexander VI, and Ludovico of Milan, who had now changed sides and turned from his alliance with Charles, forced Charles to evacuate Naples and retreat through an Italy that had become his enemy. His much-reduced army fought a hard battle at Fornovo (1495) and hurried back to France, bringing the Renaissance home with it, along with a contagious disease.
Bayard, the Good Knight
At Fornovo, Pierre Terrail, Lord of Bayard, then twenty-two, first showed such courage that he earned half of his famous title, "the knight without fear and without reproach." He was born in the château of Bayard in Dauphiné, into a great family whose heads had died on the battlefield for two centuries. At Fornovo it looked as if Pierre meant to continue the tradition. Two horses were killed under him, he captured one of the enemy's banners, and a grateful king knighted him.
In an age of tyranny, anarchy and treachery, he combined all the virtues of chivalry. He was generous and high-minded without pretension, dutiful and loyal without servility, respected and honored without pride or arrogance. In his many wars he showed such a cheerful and kind spirit that his contemporaries called him the "good knight." We will hear of him again.
The Death of Charles VIII
Charles lived three years after the Italian expedition. Then, going to watch a tennis match at Amboise, he struck his head hard on a low, rough doorframe. The injury to his brain killed him at twenty-eight. Since all his children had died before him, the throne passed to his cousin the Duke of Orléans, who became Louis XII (1498).
Louis XII and His Marriage
Louis was the son of Charles d'Orléans, born when his father was seventy. He was now thirty-six and in poor health. By the standards of the age his morals were unusually decent, and his manner was so unaffected and lovable that, in spite of his futile wars, the French people soon came to love him.
When in the year of his accession he divorced Joan of France, daughter of Louis XI, he was accused of disrespect. But it was not his fault. Louis XI, that gloomy and unbending king, had forced him at eleven to marry this unattractive girl, and he could never feel affection for her. So he got Alexander VI to annul the marriage on grounds of kinship, offering a French bride, a province and the expenses of the pope's son Cesare Borgia. The pope also authorized his marriage to Anne of Brittany, now a widow, whose Duchy of Brittany came as her dowry. The couple settled at Blois and became a royal model of love and loyalty in France.
The Father of the People
Louis XII shows a man whose character outweighed his intelligence. He was not as clever as Louis XI, but he was kind and well-mannered and shrewd enough to leave affairs to capable chosen friends. He left administration and much of politics to the friend of his life, Georges, Cardinal d'Amboise. This farsighted and kindly churchman managed things so well that when some serious matter arose, the fickle people shrugged and said: "Leave it to George."
The people were amazed when their taxes were reduced, first by a tenth and then by a third. Though raised in luxury, the king cut his own and the court's expenses as far as he could and kept his associates from abuse. He abolished the sale of public offices and forbade judges to accept gifts. He set up a state postal service for confidential business. He bound himself to fill vacant offices by choosing one of every three candidates nominated by the judiciary and never to dismiss an official before proof of crime or incompetence.
Some comic writers and courtiers mocked his economies, but he heard their jokes cheerfully and said: "In their ribaldry there may sometimes be useful truth. Let them amuse themselves, provided they respect women. I would rather have courtiers laugh at my stinginess than the people weep over my extravagance." The surest way to please him was to show him a way to serve and benefit his subjects. The French nation expressed its gratitude by giving him the title "Father of the People." France had never dreamed of such happiness.
The Italian Stain
It is a pity that the attack on Italy stained the happy years of his reign. Perhaps the purpose of Louis and other French kings in these expeditions was to get rid of belligerent, troublesome nobles who might endanger the half-formed monarchy and national unity with civil wars. After twelve years of victories in Italy, Louis XII had to withdraw his army from the peninsula. Later, at Guinegate (1513), he was defeated by the English. This fight was mockingly named the "Battle of the Spurs," because the French cavalry fled the field with unusual speed. Louis had to make peace, and from then on he was content to be king of France.
The Last Year
The death of his wife Anne of Brittany completed his sorrows (1514). She had given him no male heir, and Louis reluctantly agreed to marry his daughter Claude to Francis, Count of Angoulême, now the next heir to the throne. His friends urged him, at fifty-two, to take a third wife and, by fathering a son, to disappoint Francis's hopes. He married Mary Tudor, the sixteen-year-old sister of Henry VIII. The new queen, who insisted on everything that youth and beauty bring, drew the ailing king into a pleasurable but exhausting life. Louis died three months after the wedding (1515), leaving his son-in-law a France that was defeated but fortunate, and that remembered the love and service of the "Father of the People."