Almost the first scene of our history has to do with just such an instance of shameless quibbling about sacred things as that we must now record. Louis's wife, Jeanne de France, was a good, gentle, loving woman, who had clung with despairing affection to a husband who despised her, who was unfaithful to her, who was now to humiliate her. The poor creature was unfortunately ugly, and deformed, and twenty-two years of unfailing devotion it was in great part owing to her incessant appeals that the young Charles VIII. had liberated Louis from Bourges--had not reconciled the ungrateful husband to the marriage. He now bethought himself that this marriage had been contracted when he was but a youth, under threat of death from Louis XI, that Jeanne had borne him no children, and that they were related within the degrees prohibited by the Church. He appealed to the head of the Church, the notorious Alexander VI., to annul an incestuous union that was a burden to his conscience. Needless to say that, in the corrupt papal court of that period, the appeal was supported by arguments more weighty than honorable. Needless to say that, in spite of the heartbroken protests of Jeanne, Alexander, and his son Cæsar Borgia, having received their price, granted a decree annulling the marriage. Having disposed of his wife, Louis sought the disconsolate widow in Brittany. Anne made some show of reluctance, of inconsolable grief, and of scruples moral and sentimental. As a matter of fact, however, she had consented to marry Louis before the divorce from Jeanne had been secured, and within four months from the death of Charles. The decree of divorce, brought by magnificent Cæsar Borgia himself, was published in December, 1498, and the marriage of Anne and Louis XII. was celebrated at Nantes in January, 1499. Anne had profited by her sojourn at the French court; the new contract of marriage was far from being as favorable to France as that imposed by Anne de Beaujeu. It was now stipulated that she should retain in her own hands the administration of Brittany, and that the administrative offices and the ecclesiastical benefices should be filled by natives of Brittany only and with the consent of the duchess; that the ancient rights and privileges so dear to the Bretons should be respected; and that the province should descend to the second child of the marriage, or to the second child of her child, if there should be but one born to her and Louis, or to her own heirs next of kin, in case the marriage should prove childless. But little hope was left in this contract that the dearest wish of Anne de Beaujeu should be gratified, and that Brittany should remain French.