I have read many letters from her to our family in the days of her greatness; but never did I see any of our kings (and I have seen many) talk and write so bravely and imperiously as she did, as much to the great as to the small. Of a surety, she was a _maîtresse-femme_, though quarrelsome, and if M. d’Orléans had not been captured and his luck had not served him ill, she would have thrown France into turmoil; and all for her ambition, which so long as she lived she never could banish from her soul,--not even when retired to her estates, where, nevertheless, she pretended to be pleased and where she held her Court, which was always, as I have heard my grandmother say, very fine and grand, she being accompanied by great numbers of ladies and maids of honour, whom she trained very wisely and virtuously. In fact she gave such fine educations (as I know from my grandmother) that there were no ladies or daughters of great houses in her time who did not receive lessons from her, the house of Bourbon being one of the greatest and most splendid in Christendom. And indeed it was she who made it so brilliant, for though she was opulent in estates and riches of her own, she played her hand so well in the regency that she gained a great deal more; all of which served to make the house of Bourbon more dazzling. Besides being splendid and magnificent by nature and unwilling to diminish by ever so little her early grandeur, she also did many great kindnesses to those whom she liked and took in hand. To end all, this Anne de France was very clever and sufficiently good. I have now said enough about her. 4. _Madame Claude de France._ I must now speak of Madame Claude de France, who was very good, very charitable, and very gentle to all, never doing any unkindness or harm to any one either at her Court or in the kingdom. She was much beloved by King Louis [XII.] and Queen Anne, her father and mother, being their good and best-loved daughter, as they showed her plainly; for after the king was peaceably Duke of Milan they declared and proclaimed her, in the parliament of Paris with open doors, duchess of the two finest duchies in Christendom, to wit, Milan and Bretagne, the one coming from her father, the other from her mother. What an heiress, if you please! These two duchies joined together made a noble kingdom.