Читать книгу The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France - R. Knecht J. - Страница 24

By marrying Anne of Brittany, Louis XII had hoped to produce a son. So far, however, the queen had borne him only a daughter whom the Salic law debarred from the throne. The king’s nearest male heir was his second cousin, François d’Angoulême, who in 1500 was six years old. He was being brought up at Amboise by his mother, Louise of Savoy. Both were closely supervised by Pierre de Gié, a marshal of France of Breton origin. Being firmly committed to Brittany’s union with France, Gié hoped to see it maintained by a marriage between the king’s daughter Claude and François. But Anne was determined to protect her duchy’s independence and, for this reason, favoured an alternative match between Claude and Charles of Ghent, the infant son of Archduke Philip the Fair and grandson of the Emperor Maximilian. Finding himself caught in the crossfire between Anne and Gié, Louis pursued contradictory policies. Whether he did so out of weakness or duplicity is not easy to unravel.

On 30 April 1501 the king signed a secret declaration nullifying in advance any marriage between his daughter and another than François. Meanwhile, the idea of marrying Claude to Charles of Ghent was strongly canvassed by Anne with the backing of Georges d’Amboise. Claude’s dowry was to comprise Milan, Asti and Naples, the duchies of Burgundy and Brittany and the county of Blois. Had this marriage taken place, France would have been dismembered. That Louis XII should have entertained such a possibility is difficult to understand. He may have agreed to Anne’s proposal simply in order to extort the investiture of Milan from the emperor. He may also have felt covered by the secret declaration made in April 1501. Be that as it may, the betrothal of Claude and Charles was celebrated in August 1501, and Philip the Fair and his wife, Juana of Castile, visited France in November and met their prospective daughter-in-law. As for Maximilian, he promised to confer Milan’s investiture on Louis, but only verbally and within the secrecy of his own chamber.

Early in 1504, as Louis fell seriously ill, Gié persuaded him to confirm his declaration of April 1501. He also ordered a strict watch to be kept on all river traffic and roads leading to Brittany, so as to prevent Anne from returning there with her daughter in the event of Louis’s death. The king, however, recovered, and Gié came under fire from both Anne and Louise of Savoy. The latter’s servant, Pierre de Pontbriant, brought damaging charges to the king, which were subsequently used to prepare Gié’s indictment. He was accused inter alia of ordering the queen’s detention and of alienating her from Louise. In July a royal commission was appointed to investigate the charges.

Maximilian, in the meantime, drew closer to Louis. On 22 September the Treaty of Blois was concluded. It consisted of three separate agreements. The first was an alliance between Maximilian, Philip the Fair and Louis XII which Ferdinand of Aragon was conditionally invited to join. Louis renounced his claim to Milan in return for an indemnity of 900,000 florins, and Maximilian promised to give him the investiture of Milan within three months. The second agreement was a league against Venice which involved Pope Julius II. The third revived the projected marriage between Claude de France and Charles of Ghent. If Louis died without a direct male heir, the couple were to get Milan, Genoa, Brittany, Asti, Blois, Burgundy, Auxonne, the Auxerrois, the Mâconnais, and Bar-sur-Seine! On 7 April 1505, Maximilian conferred the investiture of Milan on Louis and his male descendants. However, the accord between the two rulers was upset in November by the death of Isabella of Castile. She bequeathed her kingdom to her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon, thereby setting aside the rights of her daughter Juana. Philip the Fair, taking umbrage, assumed the title of king of Castile. He also accused Louis XII of betrayal, a development which naturally threatened the marriage recently arranged between his son and Claude. Another setback for Anne was the trial of Marshal Gié. He appeared before the Grand conseil in October 1504 and was relentlessly interrogated. The magistrates, impressed by his testimony, refused the queen’s demand for an additional enquiry to be held in Brittany. Once all the evidence had been gathered, the prosecuting counsel called for the death sentence to be passed on Gié, whom he accused of lèse-majesté. However, on 30 December, the marshal was set free, his case being adjourned till April.

In April 1505, Louis XII made his will. He ordered his daughter’s marriage to François d’Angoulême as soon as she was old enough, notwithstanding the earlier agreement with Charles of Ghent. He also forbade her to leave the kingdom in the meantime for any reason and set up a council of regency which included a number of royal servants capable of standing up to the queen. These arrangements infuriated Anne, and when the king had a relapse she again demonstrated her ducal independence by withdrawing to Brittany for five months. At the same time she brought pressure to bear on Gié’s trial. On 14 March it was transferred to the Parlement of Toulouse, a body noted for its severity. Anne employed an army of barristers to press her case against the marshal and sought the backing of jurists from as far afield as Italy. Her efforts, however, proved unavailing. Although Gié was found guilty of various offences, the sentence passed on him on 9 February 1506 was surprisingly mild. He lost the governorship of François d’Angoulême, his captaincies of the châteaux of Angers and Amboise and his company of a hundred lances. He was also suspended as marshal for five years and banished from court for the same length of time. Though he was refused a royal pardon, Gié was allowed to retire to his château at Le Verger, where he died in 1513.

The queen’s absence in Brittany gave Louis a chance to secure his position. In May he formally announced his daughter’s forthcoming marriage to François d’Angoulême whom he instructed to join him at Plessis-lez-Tours. The captains of all the kingdom’s fortresses were made to swear an oath to obey the king’s will when the time came. Before the marriage could take place, however, the Treaty of Blois had to be repudiated. It contained a penalty clause whereby Burgundy, Milan and Asti were to be forfeited to Charles if his marriage to Claude were broken off by Louis, Anne or Claude herself. Louis got round the difficulty by putting the responsibility for his breach of faith on the shoulders of his subjects. He called an Assembly of Notables consisting of representatives from the parlements and towns, which met at Plessis-lez-Tours in May 1506. Through their spokesman Thomas Bricot, a doctor of the University of Paris, the delegates implored the king, whom they addressed as ‘Father of the people’, to gratify them by marrying his daughter to François d’Angoulême, who, being ‘wholly French’ (tout français), was most acceptable to them. Simulating surprise, the king requested time for reflection and to consult the princes of the blood. A few days later, the chancellor signified Louis’s willingness to concede his subjects’ request. He asked them to promise in return to see that the marriage took place and to recognize François as king should Louis die without male issue. On 21 May, Claude and François were formally betrothed; Louis had averted the damage that the kingdom would have suffered if the Treaty of Blois had been implemented.

On 3 August 1508, François d’Angoulême left Amboise to settle permanently at court. At fourteen he was old enough for kingship, but could not yet be sure of the throne. In April 1510 the queen was again pregnant, but on 25 October she gave birth to another daughter, called Renée. Anne did produce a son in 1512, but he died almost at birth. The king, it seems, now abandoned hope of perpetuating his line. François, now known as the Dauphin, was admitted to the king’s council and made captain of a hundred lances.