ANNE OF BEAUJEU.*
So few English scholaas have devoted their attention to French history that it is interesting to receive the first volume of a History of France from the Death of Louis XL, which premises to be a serious and valuable work. The author, Mr. John S. C. Bridge, is conversant with the latest authorities and, unlike some madam historians, ,he has taken pains to state his con- clusions in a style that is lucid and attractive. He has planned his book on a large freak, for the first volume covers only the ten years following the accession of the youthful Charles VIII, for whom his sister Anne of Beaujeu acted as Regent. As Mr. -Bridge says, this period has been neglected, partly because Philippe de -Gamines, hating the Regent, said nothing about her week in his memoirs, and partly because the Regency 0,4-Thriaretof Prams from the Deaastaituis X•1. By 4ohn S.C, &ridge. VoLl. "Eogency of A.nne of Beaujeu, 1483-1493." Oxford ; at the Clarendon tress, WI& nest.)
seemed dull by comparison with the preceding reign or with the Italian wars that followed it. Yet it was in truth a moat critical period, both for France and for her neighbours. It witnessed the failure of the great feudal lords to upset the new monarchy of Louis XI. ; it saw the inability of the States General at Tours in 1484 to assert themselves against the Crown, and it brought the union of Brittany with France, thus ending a very old and bitter conflict. For England, which had long been accustomed to regard the Bretons as useful allies against the French, the loss of Breton independence through the mar- riage of the young Duchess Anne to Charles VITT. was a grave matter. A divided France had been a tempting prey for adventurous English kings, but a consolidated France promised to be a menace to English trade, especially with Flanders, and a too potent ally of the troublesome Scots. On the foreign policy of Henry VII. this detailed study of contemporary affairs in France throws a flood of light.
Mr. Bridge assigns the credit for the great achievements of the Regency to Anne of Beaujeu herself. She was the eldest daughter of the shrewd tyrant, Louis XL, and inherited his courage and his statesmanship. She was, he had said, " the least foolish member of a sex which contained no wise ones." She had been married, as a child, to Pierre de Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu, who eventually became Due de Bourbon, the head of one of the greatest feudal houses in France. Anne, as a stately young woman of twenty-two, overawed her little brother the King who was but thirteen.
" During the banquet which followed Charles's coronation ceremony, Madame de. Beaujeu came through the chapel door and entered the hall to see how the King was behaving himself.' Even in the first flush of his new-born greatness the boy was powerless to resist the spell, and at sight of his sister he fell straightway into a half-frightened silence, the laughter stilled upon his lips and the sweetmeats left untested before him."
The Regent had a secure hold over the King, but she was threatened by a host of adversaries. Louis, Due d'Orleans, the cousin and the successor of Charles VIII., was bitterly jealous of the Beaujeus and entered into a succession of plots to overthrow them. The adventurous Maximilian sought to regain the Flemish districts that Louis Xl. had wrested from Austria. Richard the Third tried to profit by what he regarded as an opportunity for making trouble in France, but wae counter- checked by the help which Anne gave to Henry Tudor, who owed his success at Bosworth Field in no small degree to French subsidies. The popular discontent at the late King's arbitrary rule and heavy taxes was• expressed at the States General of 1484 and had to be skilfully appeased, by the punishment of Olivier Le Daim• and other harsh counsellors and by fair promises of reform. But the greatest danger lay in Brittany, whose feeble Duke, last of his line, had two daughters, on whose marriage the future of the province. depended. Spain, England, Austria were all deeply interested in the fate of Brittany. After many moves and counter-moves, lucidly explained by the author, the Regent Anne at last struck hard at the coalition of Bretons and disaffected French lords. Her General, La Tremoille, routed the allies with heavy loss at St. Aubin du Cormier, to the north-east of. Rennes, on July 28th, 1488.
Orleans, himself was captured in the rent. The Duke of Brittany accepted a not ungenerous peace treaty, by which he agreed not
to marry his daughters without the consent of the French King, and then took to his bed and died. Two years later, his heiress, the Duchess Anne, broke the treaty- by going through a form of marriage by proxy with the representative of Maximilian. Then the French invaded Brittany anew, took Nantes by treachery and blockaded the Duchess in Rennes. The Breton heiress felt it necessary- to change her mind, disavow Maximilian and marry King Charles. Thus was Brittany, so long inde- pendent, united to France. Mr: Bridges comments shrewdly on the skilful hesitation displayed by Henry VII. at this crisis. He wanted to please. the war party in England, but he did not want to fight on behalf of the Bretons who were divided among themselves and helpless. He achieved a diplomatic success by sending an army to Boulogne and making-good terms with the Regent at Etaples, thus, as Bacon remarked, securing-a double profit, "upon his subjects for the war and upon his enemies for the peace, like a- good merchant that malceth his gain both upon. the • commodities exported and imported back again." Brittany, like Ireland, was gained in the first place by a
marriage. It would be interesting to speculate on the reasons which hare differentiated Breton from Irish history. There can be little doubt that religion is the chief of them. Had'
Ireland been thoroughly pacified and converted at the Reforma- tion, we should have been spared the incessant rebellions. France has kept Brittany because she, like the province, has retained the Roman Catholic faith. It is noteworthy that the one serious Breton rebellion—apart from the movement in aid of the Guises at the close of the sixteenth century—was•occa- sioned by the Revolutionary measures against the Church. The Chouans fought for their religion against the atheists of the Jacobin Convention, rather than for their provincial liberties against the centralizing tendencies of Paris. Yet while Brittany has remained loyal to the French connexion, she has retained even more of her separate characteristics than Ireland. The Breton language, for instance, is still a living tongue, and the Bretons do not need to attempt an artificial revival of it, such as the Shin Fein enthusiasts are trying to bring about for the dying Irish. language. To return to Anne de Beaujeu, nothing became her better in her Regency than her quiet and dignified retirement from office. When she saw that her brother wanted to rule, and preferred the advice of Orleans to her own, she withdrew from court and lived quietly on her estates, educating her only daughter, Suzanne, till her death in 1522. Had her counsel been taken, we may be fairly sure. that Charles VIII. would not have made the fatal expedition to Naples which was to cost Italy and France so muob blood and tears for generations to come. Anne of Beaujeu was a great woman and on the whole a good ruler, and it is pleasant to have so excellent an account in English of her famous regency.
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