d trying to keep on reasonably good terms with his Flemish
subjects; meanwhile, he thought his bride might look out for herself,
and was not aware that Anne de Beaujeu was preparing a coup that would
deprive him forever of Brittany.

The influence of Anne de Beaujeu was already showing signs of a decline;
and it therefore behooved her to work while it was yet day, for the time
was fast coming when her boy king would no longer submit to sisterly
tyranny. Charles was in his twentieth year when, in the spring of 1491,
he made his first independent move, with a prospect of still more
dangerous manifestations of independence. One evening he left Plessis,
as if to go hunting, and rode toward Bourges. He had secretly given
orders that Louis d'Orleans should be released, and went to meet and be
reconciled with this dangerous adversary of his sister. Louis, who had
been sobered by his confinement, was overjoyed at his release, and met
the king with every manifestation of loyal devotion and respect.
Fortunately, Louis cherished no feelings of resentment against the house
of Beaujeu, and willingly acceded to the formal reconciliation proposed
by the king, signing, with Pierre de Bourbon, a treaty of amity and
fraternal love, in which all past wrongs and differences were to be
forgotten. Louis was faithful to the spirit of this agreement, and
France had no longer to fear his factious activity. And when Dunois,
always ready to plot, always ready to undo his own plots, also agreed to
a reconciliation, the personal power of Anne in the royal council may
have been weakened, but the ultimate triumph of the principles for which
she had contended was assured. Though no longer dominant in all things,
she could yet shape the policy of the kingdom and contrive the ruin of
Maximilian's ambitious schemes.

To unite France and Brittany had been the dream of the French kings, but
again and again had the dream proved a delusion. Louis XI, always awake
to every possible chance of advantage, had bought the claims of the
heiress of the ancient line of Charles de Blois and Jeanne de
Penthievre; but no opportunity of profiting by these claims had been
vouchsafed his greedy soul. Now the coveted province seemed more
hopelessly alienated than ever. For Anne de Bretagne was married to
Maximilian, and the young King of France was solemnly betrothed to the
daughter of Maximilian, Marguerite, who had actually been reared at the
French court on purpose to f