Duchy of Anjou

“ Directly Duke Robert died, and the succession fell to an ecclesiastic, the dissatisfied subjects of the Barrois crown considered it a favourable opportunity for throwing off their allegiance. Jean de Luxembourg, a cousin of the widowed Duchess Marie, and Robert de Sarrebouche,—at the extreme limits of the territories of the duchy,—were perhaps the most conspicuous for their infidelity. The Cardinal-Duke struck home at once, and both rebels surrendered. In the case of the latter, Prince René was put forward to receive his submission, on his great-uncle’s behalf. ”

“ Mlle. de Montpensier brought her husband a revenue of 350,000 livres and immense estates, amongst which was the sovereign principality of Dombes, and Louis XIII, on the advice of Richelieu, gave Monsieur, as the price of his honour and the lives of his friends, a rich appanage. He exchanged the duchy of Anjou for those of Orléans and Chartres and the county of Blois, with a revenue of 100,000 livres and pensions amounting to more than six times that sum. ”

“ The count of Anjou was wedged in between powers anything but favourably disposed towards him and his patrons. The princes of Aquitania looked scornfully across the Loire at the upstarts on its northern bank; little as they recked of any authority beyond their river-barrier, the only one which they acknowledged at all was that of the Karolingian king at Laon. The Bretons beyond the Mayenne were as far from being subdued as ever. Within the duchy of France itself, one little corner was equally scornful of the dukes and of their partisans ”

“ From the point of view of purely judicial administration, Anjou was subject to the parlement of Paris; Angers was the seat of a presidial court, of which the jurisdiction comprised the sénéchaussées of Angers, Saumur, Beaugé, Beaufort and the duchy of Richelieu; there were besides presidial courts at Château-Gontier and La Flèche. When the Constituent Assembly, on the 26th of February 1790, decreed the division of France into departments, Anjou and the Saumurois, with the exception of certain territories, formed the department of Maine-et-Loire, as at present constituted. ”

“ Anjou, Maine, and Touraine already formed a state whose power equaled that of the French kingdom; to north and south successive counts had made advances towards winning fragments of Britanny and Poitou; the Norman marriage was the triumphant close of a long struggle with Normandy; but to Fulk was reserved the greatest triumph of all, when he saw his son heir, not only of the Norman duchy, but of the great realm which Normandy had won. ”

“ Henry laid claim to the great south-French county of Toulouse, as owing fealty to his wife's duchy of Aquitaine. He led against it the greatest army that had been seen for many years, in which the King of Scotland and the Prince of Wales served as his chief vassals. Pg 100 But when Lewis of France threw himself into Toulouse, Henry turned aside, moved, it is said, by the curious feudal scruple that it did not befit him as Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou to make a personal attack on his suzerain, the King of France. ”

“ Supported upon either hand by the most distinguished Sovereign Princes of France,—Louis III., King of Sicily and Duke of Anjou, and his brother René, Duke of Barrois and heir-consort of Lorraine,—he passed majestically up the nave under the heavy golden canopy of state. Another Anjou Prince, Charles, Duke of Maine, nephew of Louis and René, bore the monarch’s train—his cousins all. The Grand Peers, with one exception, Burgundy, marched alongside in sovereign dignity and pride. Strange it was that no royal ladies graced the auspicious sacring. Queen Marie bore no part ”

“ The duke of Anjou, then in his twentieth year, had been brought up, like his brother, by Gondi, who had taught him to violate faith and to feast himself with spectacles of blood. He was already given up to those unbridled debaucheries, and to those ignoble superstitions, which made him a modern Heliogabalus, and the most abject prince ever seen upon the throne of France. “As for me,” said Charles IX. to Coligny, “I am a Frenchman and king of the French; my brother, the duke of Anjou, speaks only with his head, his eyes, and his shoulders; he is an Italian.” ”

“ No regent had been appointed, and the four royal dukes, the young king’s uncles of Anjou, Burgundy, Bourbon, and Berri, began to strive for power.
In 1382 Anjou, who had been suffered to hold the regency, sought to enforce an unpopular tax on the merchants of Paris. The people revolted, armed themselves with the loaded clubs (maillotins) stored in the Hôtel de Ville for use against the English, attacked the royal officers and opened the prisons. ”

“ The stability of the throne and the welfare of its subjects having been secured, the Queen turned her attention to the matrimonial prospect of her eldest son. Some years before King Louis’s death, Jean “sans Peur,” Duke of Burgundy,—in days when the Courts of Angers and Dijon saw eye to eye, and the States were not rivals in the direction of the general policy of the French Sovereigns,—had confided his little daughter Catherine to the charge of the eminent Queen of Sicily-Anjou, to be brought up with her own girls, the Princesses Marie and Yolande. ”

“ Nothing could be more brutalising or more brutal: but the savage traits of civil war are less revolting than the ghastly revelries of the Court. All the chiefs were alike--neither the King, nor Henry of Navarre, nor Anjou, nor even the strict Catholic Guise, disdained to wallow in debauch." Having quarreled with his brother, the King, "Anjou fled, in the beginning of 1578, to Angers, where, finding that there was a prospect of amusement in the Netherlands, he turned his back on the high Catholics, and renewed friendship with the Huguenot chiefs. ”

“ This was the time in which Anjou was engaged in that strange courtship of Elizabeth which caused so much amusement and excited so much anger and alarm. While the United Provinces were discussing the terms of his sovereignty, he was in England. While he was absent, Parma besieged and reduced Tournay, the Prince of Orange, being most inadequately supported by those whose liberties he was doing his best to protect. The fact is, the disunion of the Provinces led to their being attacked and reduced in detail. Anjou returned to Flushing on February 10, 1582, and was inaugurated at Antwerp. ”

“ I resolved to die, and rushed upon the Swiss—vowing, if I escaped with life, never again to draw sword for that unjust prince. Grievously wounded, thrown from my horse, one of the Duke of Anjou's gentlemen, Béville—the mad fellow whom we dined with to-day—saved my life, and presented me to the duke. He treated me well. I was eager for vengeance. They urged me to take service under my benefactor, the Duke of Anjou; they quoted the line—
Omne solum forti patria est, ut piscibus æquor. ”

“ Most of the characteristics of Anjou are without their like elsewhere, and opulent Anjou of ancient France has to-day a departmental etiquette in many things quite different from that of other sections.
A magnificent agricultural province, it has been further enriched by liberal proprietors; a land of aristocracy and the church, it has ever been to the fore in political and ecclesiastical matters; and to-day the spirit of industry and progress are nowhere more manifest than here in the ancient province of Anjou. ”

“ A consultation was held at Angers by the Barons and nobles of Anjou, Maine, Lorraine, Barrois, and Provence, with respect to their beloved Sovereign’s prostration, and a unanimous decision was reached—a second marriage with a young consort, comely, cultivated, and of good fame. A petition was presented to the King praying him to yield to the advice of his “right loyal lieges,” that he should look out for some noble and virtuous “pucelle qui fust à son gré.” ”

“ The apparent object was to secure the common weal; the real one, to subvert the Spanish sway. This confederacy was the foundation of the Seven United Provinces. The election of the duke of Anjou threatened forever to destroy the expiring domination of Spain, which the same states (in 1581) declared to be at an end. But Anjou was weak and faithless, and was soon expelled by his new subjects. Subsequently, indeed, they showed a disposition to be reconciled with him; but his death intervened, and again left the prince of Parma a theatre for the exercise of his talents. ”

“ But for him Henry III. would be King of France."
"Alas, madame," returned Henry, "M. D'Anjou, who is always my enemy, will now hate me more than ever; but everyone has to do what he can."
Had Charles IX. been killed, the Duke d'Anjou would have been King of France, and D'Alençon most probably King of Poland. Henry of Navarre would have gained nothing by this change of affairs.
Instead of Charles IX. who tolerated him, he would have had the Duke d'Anjou on the throne, who, being absolutely at one with his mother, Catherine, had sworn his death, and would have kept his oath. ”

“ Angers was the capital par excellence of the dominions of the King of Sicily-Anjou, the ancestral seat of his house, and Anjou was more favourably conditioned than Lorraine or Bar for the completion of the training of the royal children. Queen Yolande was only too delighted to welcome her brave daughter-in-law and to caress her beloved grandchildren. She went off to the Castle of Saumur, her favourite residence, and the walls of the grim Castle of Angers once more resounded to the merry laughter of childish games. ”

“ While technically all the territories so concerned were regarded as appanages, [1743] it is plain that a distinction may easily be made between the duchies of Alençon, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and La Roche—which had originally been given him as a prince of the blood—and places like Bourges, Moulins, Loches, Saumur, La Charité, Pont-de-Sel, Amiens, Moulans, and Mantes. These latter possessions were practically a class apart of security cities intrusted by compromise to the duke. ”

“ It was a season of universal rejoicing in Anjou, and the Queen-mother, laying aside her widow’s chapelle and veil, entered whole-heartedly into the festivities. The most cheering feature of the gaiety was due to the magnanimity of the Duke of Burgundy, who quite unexpectedly and unreservedly offered the crown of peace by proposi [91] ng that Princess Marie, daughter of Charles I., Duke of Bourbon, his niece, should be affianced to the young Duke of Calabria. The ceremony of betrothal was duly celebrated in Angers Cathedral, the little bride being no more than seven years old. ”

“ But time was preparing a solution of the difficulties of the kingdom. Henry of Anjou was grown into manhood. Born in 1133, he had been knighted by his uncle, David of Scotland, in 1149. His father died in 1151, and he became not only Duke of Normandy, but Earl of Anjou, Touraine, and Maine. In 1152 he contracted a marriage of ambition with Eleanor, the divorced wife of Louis of France, and thus became Lord of Aquitaine and Poitou, which Eleanor possessed in her own right. ”

“ A beautiful girl and a brave is unmatchable! Fortune of war favoured the French-Anjou colours, and Charles became master of Normandy and all English-held North France. Guienne, too, was yielded to the valiant young Duke of Calabria. Moreover, the war-galleys of “Le Petit Roy de Bourges” scoured the Channel, and gained prizes and renown for Charles and René off the English coast.
Somerset’s defeat was a loss of credit, however, to Queen Margaret, and York of course made the most of it. ”

“ Renatus, that the new deliverance might presage a new birth of hope for France, and that the holy one,—the patron of child-bearing mothers who sought male heirs,—might supplicate at the throne of heaven for a baby-boy.
Baptized in the Cathedral of St. Maurice eight days after birth, the little Prince had for sponsors no foreign potentates, but men of good renown [60] and substance in Anjou: Pierre, Abbé de St. Aubin; Jean, Seigneur de l’Aigle; Guillaume, Chevalier des Roches; and Mathilde, Abbée de Nôtre Dame d’Angers. The Queen by proxy named her child “René—reconnaissance à Messire St. ”

“ But business is business even in royal circles, and the Estates of Lorraine and Bar were assembled by the Sovereigns to consider and fulfil the terms of René’s charter of liberty. The crux was the amount of the money ransom, and how to raise it. Both duchies were stripped bare of resources, prolonged wars had impoverished the nobles, and had brought upon all classes great privations. In Anjou and Provence much the same conditions existed, and Queen Yolande had as much as she could do to make all ends meet. ”

“ The time was altogether unfavourable for the King of France to grant such a request, for he was otherwise engaged. About the middle of the twelfth century, as a result of two great marriages, the Plantagenet Counts of Anjou (in addition to their hereditary lands of Anjou, Maine and Touraine) had become kings of England and Dukes of Normandy, suzerains of Brittany, and Dukes of Aquitaine, which included Poitou, Guienne, Gascony, and Auvergne. ”

“ Charles and Marie should be betrothed, and Mary should be Queen of France! Yolande broached the subject to King Charles, and at once gained his cordial consent, but tactfully she left to him the furthering of the project. Upon December 18, 1415, Charles of France and Marie of Sicily-Anjou were privately affianced in the Royal Chapel of the Castle of Bourges. France was in the throes of revolution and dissolution; the terrible defeat at Azincourt, on October 24 that same year, had paralyzed the military power of the French States, and was the ultimate cause of King Charles’s insanity. ”

“ It was bounded on the north by the countship of Maine, on the east by that of Touraine, on the south by that of Poitiers and by the Mauges, on the west by the countship of Nantes.
From the outset of the reign of Charles the Bald, the integrity of Anjou was seriously menaced by a two-fold danger: from Brittany and from Normandy. Lambert, a former count of Nantes, after devastating Anjou in concert with Nominoé, duke of Brittany, had by the end of the year 851 succeeded in occupying all the western part as far as the Mayenne. ”