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 vassal 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 embarrass 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 competitors. 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 assiduous 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 assertion 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.