Were King Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany really in love?

Being in love to get married is a quite "new" consideration...in the past, in France, love was not really a matter when it came to get married...

On December 6th 1491, the château of Langeais (our home-town…we actually live in the street called Anne de Bretagne) was the scene of the dawn wedding between Charles VIII and Duchess Anne of Brittany. The 14-year-old Duchess Anne, not happy with the arranged marriage, arrived for her wedding with her entourage carrying two beds!

This union put an end to the war between France and Anne’s Brittany independent duchy and started to incorporate formally Brittany into the French kingdom (which happened in 1532).

                                   This is a reconstruction of the wedding in the castle of Langeais

Only a small amount of people attended the wedding ceremony, held in one of the château’s great halls. The marriage contract stipulated that the couple gave each other mutually their rights over the duchy.

Moreover, Anne promised that, if the King were to die without a male descendant, she would marry the new sovereign. That is what actually happened. The children born to the royal couple were either born dead or died at a very young age. After Charles VIII died in 1498, at the Château d’Amboise, Anne of Brittany married his cousin, Louis d’Orléans, who reigned as Louis XII.

Love, Love, Love….

If you would like to read more about Anne de Bretagne