Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/443

429 ST. JANE 429 with Lor simple pious soul ; slie became deeply interested in his charities, and he continued to be a friend and comforter to her for many years. She had hardly emerged from childhood when Louis XI. compelled the Duke of Orleans (after- wards Louis XII.) to marry her. The young duke wept when he was com- manded to come to the ch&teau of Mon- trichard to be married to the king's daughter — the first lady in France. He attempted to rebel, but the king threat- ened to make a priest of him, or if that were not a hard enough fate, to sew him up in a sack and throw him into the river. Jeanne adored him, but, painfully conscious of her own defects, she said to one of her friends, *' Alas, I am no match for this beautiful prince 1 " There was not even a friendly alliance between the newly wedded pair ; Orleans was barely ciyil to his bride; he absented himself as much as he dared. By the express command of the king, he visited her five or six times a year, for ten or twelve days at a time, and pretended a certain amount of conjugal attention, because his life was threatened. He thought of leaving France altogether and going to live on his Italian estates, but his mother dissuaded him from this step, and his suspicious father-in-law kept him a prisoner in his duchy and intercepted his letters. They had been married about six years, when, in 1 483, Louis XL on his death-bod, stormed at St Francis of Paula, and insisted that, as he had wrought other miracles, he might and should keep him alive. Francis per- suaded him into a phase of resignation and penitence, and was considered to have procured for him a Christian death. This increased St. Jano's veneration for the holy man. Charles YIII. succeeded to the throne, and Madame Anne de Bcaujeu, his and Jeanne's sister, made mischief all round : she governed Charles ; she was the im- placable foe of Orleans. Contemporary historians insinuate that she loved the duke before she hated him, but he was afraid of so meddlesome and domineering a woman and rejected her advances. It was in consequence of her intrigues that, in 1488, Louis of Orleans went over to the Duke of Brittany, who was at war with the King of France. In July of that year he was taken prisoner. He was imprisoned very strictly, removed from fortress to fortress, and finally shut up in the great Tower of Bourges, where he remained for three years. From day to day his friends and his foes expected to hear that his life was forfeited. Many of his old Mends interceded in vain for him. His neglected wife entreated her sister, who ruled the king, to procure his pardon, and reproached her with her cruelty and injustice. She obtained leave to visit him in his prison, and offered to share his captivity, but he declined her company. During this anxious and unhappy time, she sought consolation in charity and prayer, and one day the B. V. Maky appeared to her, and said, ** Daughter Jane, be comforted, for before you die you will found a religious order in my honour." At last, in 1491, at Plessis-les-Tours, Charles YIII. woke up to the fact that he was king, and was not obliged to be always ruled by Anne de Beaujeu. Just then some of the friends of Orleans dis- posed Charles to take a more lenient view of his conduct, and at a favourable moment, Jeanne, bathed in tears, came and throw herself at his feet. Straight from her loyal heart came a very different explanation of her husband's actions from that put upon them by her sister. She proved that Orleans had never rebelled against his king, and that he had been driven, solely in self-defence, by his deadly enemy, Madame Anno, to the disastrous course he had taken. Charles the Affable granted Jeanne's petition. " Sister," he said, " I will do what you ask me, but God grant that you may not have laboured for your own injury." He set out, the same day, for Montriohard, as if on a hunting expe- dition, and sent for Louis to meet him at Baragon. They embraced, and explained all the misunderstandings that had kept them apart, and were friends until the death of Charles in 1498, when the Duke of Orleans succeeded him as Louis XII. He proved to be one of the best kings who had ever sat on the French throne, and was called '* the father of his