The book of the ladies: Illustrious Dames: The Reign and Amours of the Bourbon RégimeBrantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille
History
The book of the ladies: Illustrious Dames: The Reign and Amours of the Bourbon Régime
Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille
France -- Biography; France -- Court and courtiers; Queens; Women -- Biography
The king, on the other hand, who knew the lady, did not press her to
stay very long; so that if one was displeased with the other, the other
was displeased with the first; wherefore without staying more than eight
days she returned, very little content with the king, her brother.
Philippe de Commines has told about this meeting more at length; but the
old people of those days said that they thought this princess a very
able female, who owed nothing to the king, her brother, who twitted her
often about being a Bourgognian; but she tacked about as gently and
modestly as she could, for fear of affronting him, knowing full well,
and better than even her brother, how to dissimulate, being a hundred
times slyer than he in face, and speech, and ways, though always very
good and very wise.
2. _Madame Jeanne de France._
Jeanne de France, daughter of the aforesaid king, Louis XI., was very
witty, but so good that after her death she was counted a saint, and
even as doing miracles, because of the sanctity of the life she led
after her husband, Louis XII., repudiated her [to marry Anne de
Bretagne]; after which she retired to Bourges, which was given her as a
dowry for the term of her natural life; where all her time was spent in
prayer and orisons and in serving God and his poor, without giving any
sign of the wrong that was done her by such repudiation. But the king
protested that he had been forced to marry her fearing the wrath of her
father, Louis XI., a master-man, and declared positively that he had
never known her as his wife. Thus the matter was allowed to pass; in
which this princess showed her wisdom, not making the reply of Richarde
of Scotland, wife of Charles le Gros, King of France, when her husband
repudiated her, affirming that he had never lived with her as his wife.
“That is well,” she said, “since by the oath of my husband I am maid and
virgin.” By those words she scoffed at her husband’s oath and her own
virginity.
But the king was seeking to recover his first loves, namely: Queen Anne
and her noble duchy, which gave great temptations to his soul; and that
was why he repudiated his wife. His oath was believed and accepted by
the pope, who sent him the dispensation, which was received by the
Sorbonne and the parliament of Paris. In all of which this princess was
wise and virtuous, and made no scandal, nor uproar, nor appeal to
justice, because a king can do much and just what he will; but feeling
herself strong to contain herself in continence and chastity, she
retired towards God and espoused herself to Him so truly that never
another husband nor a better could she have.
3. _Madame Anne de France._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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