But in succeeding years and amidst the continual alternations of war and negotiation between the King of France and the Duke of Brittany, Anne de Beaujeu and the Duke of Orleans, competition and strife between the various claimants to the hand of Anne of Brittany became very active; Alan, Sire d’Albret, called the Great because of his reputation for being the richest lord of the realm, Viscount James de Rohan, and Archduke Maximilian of Austria, all three believed themselves to have hopes of success, and prosecuted them assiduously. Sire d’Albret, a widower and the father of eight children already, was forty-five, with a pimply face, a hard eye, a hoarse voice, and a quarrelsome and gloomy temper; and Anne, being pressed to answer his suit, finally declared that she would turn nun rather than marry him. James de Rohan, in spite of his powerful backers at the court of Rennes, was likewise dismissed; his father, Viscount John II., was in the service of the King of France. Archduke Maximilian remained the only claimant with any pretensions. He was nine and twenty, of gigantic stature, justly renowned for valor and ability in war, and of more literary culture than any of the princes his contemporaries, a trait he had in common with Princess Anne, whose education had been very carefully attended to. She showed herself to be favorably disposed towards him; and the Duke of Orleans, whose name, married though he was, was still sometimes associated with that of the Breton princess, formally declared, on the 26th of January, 1486, that, “when he came to the Duke of Brittany’s, it was solely to visit him and advise him on certain points touching the defence of his duchy, and not to talk to him of marriage with the princesses his daughters.” But, whilst the negotiation was thus inclining towards the Austrian prince, Anne de Beaujeu, ever far-sighted and energetic, was vigorously pushing on the war against the Duke of Brittany and his allies. She had found in Louis de la Tremoille an able and a bold warrior, whom Guicciardini calls the greatest captain in the world. In July, 1488, he came suddenly down upon Brittany, took one after the other Chateaubriant, Ancenis, and Fougeres, and, on the 28th, gained at St. Aubin-du-Cormier, near Rennes, over the army of the Duke of Brittany and his English, German, and Gascon allies, a victory which decided the campaign: six thousand of the Breton army were killed, and Duke Louis of Orleans, the Prince of Orange, and several French lords, his friends, were made prisoners. On receiving at Angers the news of this victory, Charles VIII. gave orders that the two captive princes should be brought to him; but Anne de Beaujeu, fearing some ebullition on his part of a too prompt and too gratuitous generosity, caused delay in their arrival; and the Duke of Orleans, who was taken first to the castle of Sable and then to Lusignan, went ultimately to the Tower of Bourges, where he was to await the king’s decision.