REIGN OF ANNE DE BRETAGNE, WIFE OF CHARLES VIII. AND LOUIS XII.
CHAPTER I
1476–1491
Birth of Anne and Isabelle—Their childhood—Louis d’Orléans—Alain d’Albret—Death of François II.—First Council—French war—Marriage ceremony—Siege of Rennes.
Anne, eldest daughter of François II., Duc de Bretagne, and his second wife, Marguérite de Foix, was born at Nantes, January 26, 1476,[278] and her sister, Isabelle, four or five years after.
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Their mother died in 1485, leaving the children under the care of Françoise de Dinan, Dame de Laval, a member of one of the greatest families of Bretagne, who had been their governess from their infancy. They continued to be brought up at the court of their father, who seems to have kept them constantly with him, but whose affection for them did not prevent his promising them to anybody whose alliance he thought might be useful to him amidst the difficulties and dangers he had brought upon the duchy which had been so prosperous when he succeeded to it.