9 - Anne de Bretagne, A Woman of State

Summary

Anne de Bretagne's role as a stateswoman has never been adequately examined. Yet the manner in which she conceived and defended a political project, namely the perpetuation of the autonomy of the duchy that she had inherited, is of vital importance to an understanding of her reign. It is particularly instructive to see how she defended this project coherently over a considerable period of time, especially during her second marriage, when her freedom of action was greater than it had been at an earlier time.

Anne has suffered recently at the hands of a number of biographers who have had little empathy for her. Philippe Tourault thinks the duchess was simply a seductive woman, conceding only that she was more perceptive than her mediocre husband. Georges Minois, who announced that he was going to describe the French queen's personality, characterizes her as an authoritarian woman who was ‘hard, grudging and humorless’ (!), ‘high and mighty, acerbic, unpleasant’ and vain. Anne's potential qualities are transformed into flaws; her piety becomes superstition, her virtue is described as making her naive. The generosity that was so often praised by contemporary chroniclers becomes wastefulness, but Louis XII's thrift is interpreted as stinginess. Minois systematically denigrates Anne de Bretagne, but what he presents as character traits he has invented to conform to the expectations of his readership (her piety and superstition) as well as to the needs of the monarchical state (an awareness of her dignity, her liberality). I think it more important to concentrate on the political persona, not least because another of her biographers, Didier Le Fur, has quite simply denied that she had any political aims whatsoever. It is sad to note that his viewpoint was recently endorsed by the 2007 exhibition held at the Château de Nantes – the most significant battle of Anne's life ignored in her own native land and home. A discussion of Anne's political mission is also of interest because it raises important methodological issues.

The notion of attributing the stature of a true stateswoman to Anne is not new, but the idea has been somewhat confused by a number of related issues. First of all, she derived her power simultaneously from her matrimonial and her hereditary status.