The marriage once accomplished, Anne and her husband started upon a triumphal journey through Brittany. The marriage had been a brutal necessity, and, for all her determination, the girl of fourteen was in it only the tool of the men and women who called themselves her subjects. But once married, Charles showed the utmost tactfulness. In the “History of the Dukes of Brittany” we read, “The king, having against his will, as it were, become her husband, omitted nothing that could assuage the unhappiness their marriage had caused her, behaving so well that in the end she was quite satisfied with her new life, and felt for this prince the greatest love and tenderness.” But to have hated Charles would seem to have been impossible. All writers are unanimous as to the sweetness of his character in personal intercourse.
A good deal is known about Anne’s equipment for her first journey as a married woman. Her travelling dress was of black velvet trimmed with zebeline, and her gown for best occasions of gold material lined with ermine. Among the furniture also were two beds—a serviceable one, draped with black, white, and velvet cloth; and another hung with gold brocade and bordered with a heavy fringing of black.
During the journey Anne received innumerable wedding presents, and at the gates and squares of every town plays were acted for the two young people. Most of these were mystery plays, but a certain number of farces were introduced for variety. What these comic plays were like can be gathered from the Farce du Cuvier, famous a little later. It deals with a hen-pecked husband, whose wife had provided a written list of his household duties in order to jog his harried memory.
One day, while washing the linen, his wife fell into the copper. The conversation between them is the dramatic moment of the play. I quote it as given in Mr. Van Laun’s interesting “History of French Literature.”
Wife (in the copper). Good husband, save my life. I am already quite fainting; give me your hand a while.
Jacquemet. It is not in my list....
Wife. Alas! oh, who will hear me? Death will come and take me away.
Jac. (reading his list). “To bake, to attend to the oven, to wash, to sift, to cook.”
Wife. My blood is already quite changed. I am on the point of death.
Jac. (continuing to read). “To rub, to mend, to keep bright the kitchen utensils ...”
Wife. Come quickly to my assistance.
Jac. “To come, to go, to bustle, to run ...”
Wife. Never shall I pass this day.
Jac. “To bake the bread, to heat the oven ...”
Wife. Ah, your hand; I am approaching my last moment.
Jac. “To bring the corn to the mill ...”
Wife. You are worse than a mastiff.
Jac. “To make the bed early in the morning ...”
Wife. Oh, you think this is a joke.
Jac. “And then to put the pot on the fire ...”
Wife. Oh, where is my mother, Jacquette?
Jac. “And to keep the kitchen clean....”
Wife. Go and fetch the priest.
Jac. My paper is ended, but I tell you, without more ado, that it is not on my list.
In the end, having wrung from her a promise of docility, he helped her out. The farce concluded with the joyful murmur, “For the future, then, I shall be master, for my wife allows it.”
But the great day of Anne’s youth was the day of her coronation in France. No toy lay so dear to her heart as a crown, and no one could have felt more unspeakably proud and great when, before an immense crowd of nobles and people, her crowning took place at the church of St. Denis. She wore a gown of pure white satin, and hung her hair—which was long and beautiful—in two great plaits over her shoulders. St. Gelais de Montluc said of her at this time, “It did one good to look at her, for she was young, pretty, and so full of charm that it was a pleasure to watch her.”
Afterwards followed the unavoidable reaction, when the ordinary routine of existence had to be confronted. Anne’s position, once the glamorous days of public functions were over, revealed innumerable drawbacks. She was a little girl in a strange country, surrounded by persons unwilling to surrender either power or precedence. Anne of Beaujeu, the former Regent—harsh, efficient, domineering—was the first power with whom Anne suffered combat. Small questions of precedence kindled the tempers of both. The elder Anne loved power as much as the younger, and was a woman few people cared to defy. But the juvenile bride had been modelled a little bit after the same pattern; she also possessed indomitable qualities, and had no intention of being a queen for nothing. The Regent—her surprise must have been overwhelming—found herself worsted. Sensible as well as proud, she retired before any pronounced unseemliness had occurred, and left the two young people to manage the kingdom for themselves.
But the period of domesticity between Charles and Anne did not continue long. There was a little love-making, a little house decorating, and then came the momentous first invasion of Italy. Commines, a shrewd and plain-spoken observer, says a good deal about this Italian campaign, which he accompanied. Both he and the Italian historian Guicciardini refer with pronounced contempt to Charles’s mismanagement of it, while Commines goes so far as to state practically that nothing but the grace of God kept the army from annihilation.
While Charles was away time passed wearily for Anne. Previously to her husband’s departure, when barely fifteen years old, she had given birth to her first baby, the needful son and heir. But to make the days more empty and interminable, the child was taken from her at the beginning of hostilities. For safety’s sake he remained at the castle of Amboise, strongly guarded by a hundred of the Scottish guard. So carefully was he protected, in fact, that when one of his godfathers, François de Paule, came to see him, he was only allowed to bring one other priest with him—a man born in France, and one who had never been to Naples. Unfortunately, no guards could save a life so feeble as this child’s of a child-mother. Almost immediately after Charles had come back from Italy the little creature fell ill and died with tragic suddenness.