Prologue
HJR
Banned
Prologue: An Awful Day
In the spring of 1484, Charles VIII was returning to Paris from the Estates General at Tours with his regents, Anne of Beaujeu and the Duke of Bourbon. Having feigned illness to bring an end to the Estates General, the young king’s symptoms went undetected until he was suddenly overcome by fever on 20 March. With their ward struggling for life, Anne and Bourbon rushed him to the nearest respectable castle; the ill-fated castle of Châteaudun.
At Châteaudun, the young king Charles was confined in bed, trembling with chills and muscle cramps, sweating heavily, and hot to the touch. The regents sent for the finest doctors in the kingdom, then set to praying for the life of their lord (and the source of their power). On the 24th, the third day in Châteaudun, they were joined by an unwelcome figure: Louis, Duke of Orleans, Beaujeu and Bourbon’s rival for the regency and the heir to the throne.
Orleans claimed to have come to give homage to the king and pray for his recovery, but his timing was suspect. The duke’s position in Châteaudun would make him the first to know if the king perished, and to preempt the regents in any mad dash for Rheims. Beaujeu and Bourbon attempted to persuade Orleans to depart, but as Châteaudun was a property of Orleans’ lieutenant, François d’Orleans-Longueville, and the king was too incoherent to order him away, there was little they could do.
By 29 March, Charles seemed to have recovered, and received well-wishers--among them the regents and the Duke of Orleans. The king began to weaken that afternoon, however, and by midnight he was dead. Although Beaujeu attempted to suppress news of her brother’s death, word quickly spilled out--and with it, rumors of Orleans’ complicity. Still, with the king dead, there was a need for lawful succession, and as dawn broke on the 30th, Orleans massed the magnates present in Châteaudun to swear fealty to the new Louis XII, and to begin his journey to coronation at Rheims.
As the noblemen milled in the courtyard, a pair of knights--Jean de Menglon and Henri de Serres[1]--shoved through the crowd, falling upon Louis with daggers drawn. They were swiftly cut down, de Serres declaring Louis a regicide with his dying cry, but it was too late; the king had been stabbed a half-dozen times, and was bleeding heavily from his chest and stomach. As the courtyard descended into chaos, partisans of Louis and the regents slaughtering each other, the doctors that had waited on Charles now descended on the wounded king. Despite their ministrations, Louis grew weaker and weaker, and by about noon--as a vengeful Count Orleans-Longueville harried Beaujeu and Bourbon and their surviving retainers westward--the king was once more dead.
The sudden death of two kings, or at the very least a king and a prince of the blood, passed the Crown of France to an unlikely heir. Charles, Count of Angoulême, was the great-grandson of Charles V through his son, the Duke of Orleans, but at age twenty-five his personal accomplishments amounted to a string of bastards and a passion for illuminated manuscripts. Normally a profoundly lethargic man, the ‘double succession’ brought on a rare attack of common sense, and upon hearing the news Charles raced for Reims, riding dead several horses to claim the throne before any potential riders.
Despite his speed, the succession was still a close-run thing, and had Anne of Beaujeu and the Duke of Bourbon--both personal enemies--not been besieged in Chartres by the Count of Orleans-Longueville, it is entirely possible that he may have been denied the crown. Nevertheless, as the coronation was completed on 10 April 1484, the crown rested upon the head of Charles of Angoulême, now Charles IX of France. That the bloodshed at Châteaudun had left the realm on the brink of war was of little concern to the new king; the vast stores of wine, women, and manuscripts that were laid bare to him were far more interesting.
Thus began one of the most colorful chapters of French history.
[1] Fictional; retainers of Charles VIII who believed Orleans had murdered their lord.
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