Mary, Queen of France: The Story of the Youngest Sister of Henry VIII

The husband Anne chose for Louise was Charles d’Angouleme, son of Jean d’Angouleme, who was a grandson of Charles V, and thus not without some claim to the throne.

Louise remembered, as a little girl of eleven, being betrothed to Charles, who was sixteen years older than she was and not very pleased to be given a child for his bride. His domestic affairs were a little complicated. He had a mistress, Jeanne de Polignac, who had given him a child; and he had installed her in his chateau at Cognac. Jeanne was a clever woman and had taken under her care two other illegitimate children of her lover’s; it was a pleasant easygoing household he had set up in Cognac, and Charles felt that an eleven-year-old wife would be a complication.

However the Regent Anne was insistent and the ceremony had taken place.

How well Louise remembered arriving at Cognac; a little apprehensive, eager to please her husband, determined to have a son; she could never forget her husband’s connection with the royal family, and she could not help being secretly delighted that the young King, Charles VIII, was malformed and possibly would not have healthy children.

At Cognac Jeanne de Polignac was in control as the chatelaine of the establishment; and with her was her daughter Jeanne (who was also Louise’s husband’s daughter) and the little Souveraine and Madeleine whom he accepted as his, although Jeanne was not their mother.

It was a cozy household, efficiently managed by Jeanne, herself completely contented because she knew that a Polignac could not marry a Comte d’Angouleme. She gathered the young bride in her maternal arms and treated her as another daughter; and Louise, shrewd, wise, understanding her husband’s devotion to this woman, and that as yet he had no need of herself, accepted the situation.

Later she was glad of that move, for the good-hearted Jeanne became her greatest friend and confidante and helped her to live more comfortably through those first years of marriage than she otherwise would have done.

Now, looking at her own children, she was thinking of all this. Jeanne was still in the chateau, as devoted to little Marguerite and Francois as she was to her own Jeanne and Souveraine and Madeleine. Jeanne was a wonderful manager, now as she had always been; and what they would have done without her, Louise could not imagine, for Charles was comparatively poor and had always found it a struggle to live as a man of his rank should. Therefore little entertaining had taken place at Cognac, and often a strict economy had been necessary; but all were ready and willing to serve the Comte for, as his men and maid servants reminded themselves often, in serving their master they were serving the great-grandson of a King of France.

Perhaps for this reason Jeanne had been happy to remain his mistress when she might have had a good marriage; it was certainly the reason why Louise was happy to be at Cognac and to be his wife; it was the reason why she dreamed of the boy she would one day have.

Eventually her triumph came; she was pregnant and she prayed for the son who, she was sure, when he was born would make her completely contented with her lot. But the first pregnancy resulted in a disappointment as the child was not the boy she longed for, but merely a girl. This child, however, was beautiful and healthy from the day of her birth and she named her Marguerite. Louise had been sixteen years old then and she came through her confinement with miraculous ease. A girl and a disappointment; but she had at least shown she could bear children.

With the coming of Marguerite there had been a subtle change in the chateau. Jeanne stepped into the background; the chatelaine was now undoubtedly Louise. Not that Jeanne resented this. No, there was another little one to take into her motherly arms, and as she said to Louise: “This one surpasses the others. I never knew a child so quick to notice what goes on around her. It was never thus with even my own little Jeanne.”

Louise was exultant. Soon, she must have her boy.

Impatiently she waited for the signs of pregnancy; but at Court certain events were giving her anxiety. The young King Charles VIII had taken Anne of Brittany to wife. In his childhood little Margaret, the daughter of Maximilian, had been intended for him, and Margaret had come to Amboise to be brought up as the future Queen of France; but eventually it had been decided that it was more necessary for young Charles to bring Brittany to the crown than to forge an alliance with the Emperor; so Margaret was sent home, and Charles betrothed to Anne of Brittany. It was an insult which Maximilian would take a long time to forget.

So now that Charles and Anne were married, the fervent desire of Anne of Brittany was to get a son.

When Louise had heard that the marriage had been consummated she had shut herself in her chamber because she was afraid that she might betray her anguish. Between her husband and the throne of France stood two men: Charles VIII, a cripple who might possibly be unable to beget a son, and Louis d’Orleans, son of Charles d’Orleans, elder brother of Jean d’Angouleme, Louise’s own husband’s father. When she considered that Louis d’Orleans had married the daughter of Louis XI, Jeanne de France, a poor malformed creature who had been unable to give him an heir, her hopes had been high—if not for her husband, for that son she intended to have.

But if Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany should have a son, that would be the end of her hopes.

She might be only a girl herself, but she had her ambitions even then. And what sorrow was hers when the news was brought to Cognac that Anne of Brittany had been delivered of a healthy boy. How Anne would laugh, for she was well aware of Louise’s hopes, and as determined that they should come to nothing as Louise herself was that they should be fulfilled.

Then Louise discovered that she was once more pregnant.

She could smile now, as she remembered journeying to Amboise that she might make a pilgrimage to the cave of Francois de Paule, known as the Good Man, who inhabited a cave on the banks of the Loire. It had become the custom for pregnant royal ladies to visit him, imploring him to intercede with the Saints and ensure the birth of a healthy boy. The Good Man was reputed to have lived for a hundred years; he scorned the jewels that were offered him in exchange for his services, and all he asked for was enough food to keep him alive.

He had given her holy candles to be burned in her lying-in-chamber, and she now laughed to remember the day. It was September and warm; and she had not thought her pains were near.

How like him, she thought. All impatience to be born! He did not need holy candles. Was it for that reason that he came before I was prepared?

She had been out of doors, some distance from the chateau—for Jeanne had advised her that a healthy young woman should not lie about during the months of pregnancy—when suddenly he had decided to be born. There had been no time to get back to the chateau so her attendants had helped her to a tree and there she lay back in its shade and under the September sky was born her love, her life, her Francois, her King, her Caesar.