French princes, who had
completely won the confidence of the weak Duke Francois II., resolved to
expel the foreigners, and appealed to Anne to help them. She responded
by despatching a force of twelve thousand men into Brittany and
besieging the duke and Louis d'Orleans in Nantes. But the town having
received reinforcements from Maximilian, the royal army raised the siege
and occupied strategic points in Brittany. While the season forbade
military operations, Anne returned to Paris with her king, and had
resort to law in her contest with the rebels. She issued a summons to
the Dukes of Orleans and Brittany to appear before the court of
Parliament. Upon their failure to appear, however, another summons was
issued; but no sentence was passed, since Anne did not care to push
matters to extremes in the case of these great personages, whom she
hoped to conciliate; but Dunois, Comines, and others of the rebels were
condemned for contumacy, their goods were confiscated, and, if their
persons could be laid hold of, they were imprisoned. Comines, historian
and scholar as he was, and favorite of Louis XI, had a taste of
imprisonment in one of those famous iron cages of which his old master
had been so fond.

In the spring of 1488 the power of the house of Beaujeu was increased by
the death of the Duke of Bourbon, to whose duchy Anne's husband was
heir. Nevertheless, fortune was not favoring Anne in all things; for the
Breton nobles, having repented of their rebellion against their own
duke, and beginning to suspect that Madame Anne meant to keep her troops
in Brittany, now changed sides, and expelled the French garrisons from
some of the towns. In retaliation, Anne's general, Louis de La
Tremoille, began a vigorous campaign in Brittany early in April, which
culminated in the decisive victory of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier (July
27th). The Breton army was completely routed, and the rebel nobles,
including Louis d' Orleans and the Prince of Orange, fell into the power
of Anne. Louis, her most dangerous enemy, was confined in the tower of
Bourges, where he might meditate, without endangering the public peace,
upon the injustice of allowing a woman to govern France. Within a month
after the battle, Francois II., humbly suing for peace to his
"sovereign" Charles VIII., signed a treaty in which he promised to
exclude from his court and dukedom the enemies of France, and to
negotiate no marriage for his daughters without the advice and cons