nciled the ungrateful husband to the marriage. He now bethought
himself that this marriage had been contracted when he was but a youth,
under threat of death from Louis XI, that Jeanne had borne him no
children, and that they were related within the degrees prohibited by
the Church. He appealed to the head of the Church, the notorious
Alexander VI., to annul an incestuous union that was a burden to his
conscience. Needless to say that, in the corrupt papal court of that
period, the appeal was supported by arguments more weighty than
honorable. Needless to say that, in spite of the heartbroken protests of
Jeanne, Alexander, and his son Caesar Borgia, having received their
price, granted a decree annulling the marriage.

Having disposed of his wife, Louis sought the disconsolate widow in
Brittany. Anne made some show of reluctance, of inconsolable grief, and
of scruples moral and sentimental. As a matter of fact, however, she had
consented to marry Louis before the divorce from Jeanne had been
secured, and within four months from the death of Charles. The decree of
divorce, brought by magnificent Caesar Borgia himself, was published in
December, 1498, and the marriage of Anne and Louis XII. was celebrated
at Nantes in January, 1499.

Anne had profited by her sojourn at the French court; the new contract
of marriage was far from being as favorable to France as that imposed by
Anne de Beaujeu. It was now stipulated that she should retain in her own
hands the administration of Brittany, and that the administrative
offices and the ecclesiastical benefices should be filled by natives of
Brittany only and with the consent of the duchess; that the ancient
rights and privileges so dear to the Bretons should be respected; and
that the province should descend to the second child of the marriage, or
to the second child of her child, if there should be but one born to her
and Louis, or to her own heirs next of kin, in case the marriage should
prove childless. But little hope was left in this contract that the
dearest wish of Anne de Beaujeu should be gratified, and that Brittany
should remain French.

A complete change of character and of policy in a woman of twenty-three
is very remarkable; and we are therefore surprised to find that the Anne
who returned to Paris as the queen of Louis XII. was a very different
person from the meek lady who had submitted to the ignorant and
light-headed Charles. Not only did she insist upon and ex