She consented, and the King, taking her by the hand, they left her private apartment together. They had to pass through a low, dirty, dilapidated gallery which Charles intended to have pulled down, and in entering which he struck his head violently against its arched doorway.[296] He declared, however, that he was not much hurt and they proceeded to the seats from which they were to watch the game. While it was going on the King talked and laughed as usual, but when it was over he complained of pain in his head and said he would go to his own room. The Queen, dreadfully frightened, went with him.[297] As they walked back he began to speak of his repentance for the faults and follies of his life, and just as he said, “J’espère bien ne commettre aucun péché, soit mortel, soit véniel,” he suddenly fell to the ground. They were again at the entrance of the fatal gallery, where a straw mattress being hastily thrown on the floor he was laid upon it. They dared not move him, so he lay there until about eleven at night, only recovering consciousness for a few moments, when, after murmuring, “Mon Dieu! Vierge Marie! Monseigneur Saint Claude! Monseigneur Saint Blaise me soient en aide!” he died.[298]
CHAPTER III
1498–1501
Despair of the Queen—Resumes duchy—Friendship with Louis XII.—Returns to Bretagne—King’s divorce—Charlotte d’Aragon—Marriage of Anne and Louis XII.—Italian war—Birth of Claude de France—Splendour of Court—Hôtel des Tournelles—Maids of honour—Disaster in Italy.
Charles VIII. died at dawn on Palm Sunday.[299] The Queen, who was only two and twenty, had now lost her mother, father, sister, children, and husband. In a frenzy of grief and despair she shut herself up in her own rooms where she remained crying, wringing her hands and refusing to eat.
The Duc d’Orléans, now Louis XII., was still at Blois, and much distressed at the melancholy state of the Queen. He sent the Cardinal Briçonnet and the Bishop of Condon, who had been friends of hers and of Charles VIII., to see her.[300] They found her lying on the floor sobbing and crying in a corner of the room. She did not get up when they came in, but the Bishop, a man of holy life and intellectual power, succeeded in comforting her so far that she listened to his words of consolation, rose, became calmer, and was persuaded to take some food.
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Then she began to think about her beloved Bretagne, now her own again, and directly she had finished that first repast she signed a decree reestablishing the chancellerie which had been suppressed.
Her nearest remaining relation was her brother the Baron d’Avaugour, but she was very fond of her cousin, Jeanne de Laval, Queen-dowager of Sicily, to whom she wrote, telling her of the death of the King; and also of the Prince of Orange, Jean de Châlons, for whom she sent at once and whom she made governor of Bretagne.