Castles -- France; Touraine (France) -- Description and travel
After her marriage at Langeais, Anne de Bretagne made a right royal
progress to St. Denis, where she was anointed and crowned with great
state and ceremony, the crown, which was far too heavy for the head of
the little Queen of fourteen, being held over her by the Duke of
Orleans. The new Queen, after making a solemn entrance into Paris and
receiving the homage of all the civil and military officers of the
Chatelet, the Provost of Paris, and of many other dignitaries, returned
with her husband to Amboise, where most of their married life was spent.
Additions were made to the chateau at this time and its interior was
fitted up with great splendor; thousands of yards of cloth of gold,
silk, tapestries from Flanders, and other precious stuffs were used as
hangings, to the amount of ten thousand pounds, says one chronicler.
"Past and contemporary events were portrayed on the tapestries. Andre
Denisot and Guillaume Menagier, workers of Tours, had charge of the
furnishing; one room by Menagier was hung with silk tapestry on which
the history of Moses was represented, and the floor was covered with a
large, fine silk Moorish carpet." All this, and much more in the way of
rich furnishings and handsome silver, was brought to the old castle to
do honor to the Bretonne bride, who was destined to know little
happiness in her new home. Her eldest son, the Dauphin Charles, who was
described by Philippe de Commines as "a fine child, bold in speech, and
fearing not the things other children are frightened at," a child whose
birth was hailed with rejoicing as an heir to the Duchy of Brittany and
the Kingdom of France, fell ill and died at Amboise while his mother was
near the frontier of Italy celebrating the King's recent victories. A
curious story is told by Brantome about the mourning of the King and
Queen for this beloved son.
"After the death of the Dauphin," says this chronicler, "King Charles
and his Queen were full of such desolate grief that the doctors,
fearing the weakness and feeble constitution of the King, were of
opinion that excess of sorrow might be prejudicial to his health; they
therefore advised as many distractions as possible, and suggested that
the princes at court should invent new pastimes, dances, and mummeries
to give pleasure to the King and Queen, which being done, the
Monseigneur d'Orleans devised a masquerade with dances, in which he
danced with such gaiety and so played the fool that the Queen thought he
was making merry because he was nearer the throne of France, seeing that
the Dauphin was dead. She was extremely displeased, and looked on him
with such aversion that he was obliged to leave Amboise, where the court
then was, and go to his Castle of Blois."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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