I should have been nothing." But, before all others, the dauphin
was to honor and obey his wise sister, Anne de Beaujeu, the least
foolish woman in the world.

In spite of astrologers; in spite of liberal doses of that expensive
panacea, potable gold, administered by his insolent physician, Jacques
Coictier; in spite of a second anointing from the sacred _ampulla_,
brought from Rheims for that special purpose; in spite of all the silver
saints stuck on the rim of his cap the spirit went out of the body of
Louis XI, and France welcomed his death as a deliverance. In his zeal
for the destruction of feudalism and the upbuilding of a national
government, he had become a tyrant. But the work he had begun must go
on, if France was not to step back fifty or a hundred years in progress.
The new king, Charles VIII, was but a boy of fourteen, and deplorably
immature. He could hardly read and write, nor did natural intelligence
supply the defects of education; for he was weak in mind, weak in body,
and easily influenced for good or for ill. With such a tool ready for
the hand of any ambitious noble who would destroy France, the outlook
was not cheering. But it was the good fortune of France to find a ruler
who could and did control the king till such time as the fruits of the
wise despotism of Louis could be safely gathered; and this ruler was a
woman.

As Charles had already attained the legal majority prescribed for the
heir to the throne, there could be no regency. But Anne de Beaujeu and
her husband had been named by the late king as the tutors of Charles, to
the exclusion of Louis d'Orleans, who, as first prince of the blood
royal, had a prescriptive right to the guardianship. And just as Blanche
de Castille, under different conditions and by different means, had
managed to displace Philippe Hurepel, so Anne now managed to outwit and
supplant Louis d'Orleans.

She had already laid the foundations of her influence by making friends
of the best counsellors and captains of the late king. And her brother,
to whom she was a divinity to be worshipped and feared, was already so
accustomed to submission to her will that it did not occur to him to
resist her authority now. In default of a regent, there was a royal
council, and in this council Anne managed to assure herself of a
powerful following. To be sure, at first there was nothing to fear,
since Louis d' Orleans, young and fond of pleasure, was engaged in
satisfying his tastes