Anne of Brittany was the object of representations very early on. The royal propaganda of Charles VIII and, later on, of Louis XII idealized her as a symbol of the perfect queen, on the union between the kingdom and the duchy, and of the return to peace. Maximilian's Austria having been evicted from the marriage, had a different perspective on the events. Throughout the centuries, historians and popular imagery forged a very different Anne of Brittany, attributing her physical or psychological characteristics or actions that are not necessarily verifiable through historical data.
Sources
Anne of Brittany's physique
We have a few descriptions of Anne of Brittany's physique provided by chroniclers, a good number of portraits on wood or on illuminated manuscripts, her profile on medals, the statues on her funeral monument in Basilica of Saint Denis and maybe her face sculpted by Michel Colombe as the allegory of Prudence, at a corner of the tomb of Francis II in Nantes. At the time, physical beauty was not as praised and was to be only the reflection of moral beauty. The portraits and sculptures present a woman with a regular and pleasant face, meeting the universal canons and 15th and 16th century Europe. These are all ordered works and present few distinctive features: under Charles VIII, her representations are without personality: she is only a queen, next to her husband; under Louis XII, she personifies peace, the union between Brittany and France: she is given the traits of the Virgin Mary.
Anne of Brittany was, however, generally represented as a blonde. The contemporary descriptions feature clothing appropriate to her rank: brocade dresses enhanced with fur, necklaces, jewellery, and hennin. Zaccaria Contarini, ambassador of Venice, describes her in the following manner in 1492:
Symbol of the Union between France and Brittany
The image that Anne spreads of herself, through commissions (portraits, stories), is one of a queen personifying the union between France and Brittany. Until the incorporation of Brittany into France was assured,With the signing of the Treaty of Etaples with England (November 1492) and of Barcelona with Spain (January 1493). she is called Reine de Sure Alliance (Queen of the Certain Alliance).Didier le Fur, p. 26. She is devoted, like all queens of France, to her kingdom. She appears as a symbol of peace and union between France and Brittany, mostly after her marriage to Louis XII, which is why she is nicknamed "Dame Union" after her third wedding.Didier le Fur, Anne de Bretagne, éditions Guénégaud, 2000, p. 27.
In the arts, France was then represented as an enchanted garden (a tradition since the beginning of the 14th century), where porcupines (symbol of Louis XII) and ermines (symbol of Anne of Brittany) run.Didier le Fur, p. 29. She is endowed with the virtues suiting the queen of France: she is liberal, pious and loving, and contributes these three qualities to the government (generosity, prayer and love for the king), a living example for the subjects of the kingdom.
These public displays of attachment reinforce the alliance between the Breton people and the French. The Marie de la CordelièreDidier le Fur, pp. 34–35. episode (10 August 1512), during the war against England, shows that the two peoples were coming closer together, even though some Bretons were reluctant to fight for "an excommunicated monarch".Henry Poisson and Jean Pierre le Mat, p. 241. At the Battle of St. Mathieu a united Franco-Breton fleet fought the English marine, with the warship Marie de la Cordelière, flying the Breton pavilion, in front.
Anne of Brittany commissions three histories of Brittany over the course of her life: the first is commissioned in 1498 to Pierre Le Baud (who had already written one in 1480 for Jean Derval), traces the history of the province from Conan Meriadoc to Francis II and is edited in 1515; the second is commissioned to Alain Bouchard, advisor to Francis II and lawyer in the Parliament; finished and edited in 1514, then reedited in 1518, 1531, 1532 and 1541. Each edition includes additions (on the reigns of the kings of France, starting with Charles VIII); the third is commissioned in 1512 to Jean Lemaire de Belges, but is never edited.
Evolution of Anne of Brittany's image
In his essay on the queen's biographies, Anne de Bretagne, Didier Le Fur takes the image that a number of writers and historians have given of Anne through the centuries after her death and compares it with the sources available to him. He concludes that the story of Anne of Brittany has been enriched by hagiographical or depreciatory elements, not recounted in the writings contemporary to the duchess, hard to prove or invented. The following paragraphs synthesize most of the arguments found in his book. Georges Minois' Anne de Bretagne draws, on the contrary, a non-lenient portrait of Anne by a critical reading of the sources.
Anne, "heroic orphan" and a duchess loved by the Bretons
The reedition of Bouchard's Histoire de Bretagne from 1518 includes an addition on her trip to Brittany in 1505 (while the king was sick and which includes a pilgrimage) to insist on the festive atmosphere of the trip and on the reciprocal love between the Queen and her duchy (which is not a compulsory figure of the royal voyages accounts, popular affection being the best manifestation of the legitimacy of the kings). The government of Brittany by Louis XII is not related by Bouchard, who states, on the contrary, that Anne of Brittany governed the duchy by herself, and that she defended Brittany's privileges. These additions where deleted in 1531 (during the negotiation of the Union Treaty) and reintroduced in 1532 and 1541. This story is there to defend the privileges of the Breton nobility and, as an incitation, a reminder for the king to respect them. Four years after her death, Anne is presented as a person loved by her people and while there is no trace of this through her lifetime, this emotional relationship was to be reused in the following centuries.
In 1577, the States of Brittany opposed the levying of new taxes. This position is based upon Anne's second wedding contract and use as a justification the Annales de Bretagne to Bertrand d'Argenté, Breton law scholar and grand-nephew of Le Beaud. These Annales, edited in Rennes in 1582 and Paris in 1588, 1605, 1611, 1618 and 1668, create an outcry (d'Argenté is accused of supporting the claims of the Duke of Mercœur on the Duchy of Brittany), are partially censored and open a debate on the suzerainty of the king of France on Brittany. Henri III commissions a refutation to Nicolas Vignier (who dies in 1596; his story is published in 1619). Based on a few acts signed by Anne between 1489 and 1491 and on two quotes,In the Généalogie by Disarvoez Penguern, published when Anne is recognized as the duchess and in order to justify his choice for a queen, we find, after the death of Francis II:
(Translation- modern English: Her two daughters were greatly suffering, Dame Anne was the successor, and started to think in her heart, About her business like a true duchess, Everybody spoke of her wisdom, Nobody could, in his own right, see, Her great virtue, prudence and nobility, Is an abyss to conceive of.) and in a history of Louis XII by Jean de Saint-Gelais (published in 1511), we can find, after Nantes was taken and during the meeting of Jean IV de Rieux and Alain d'Albret "où estoit pour l'heure la duchesse en croupe derrière Monseigneur Dunois, ores son chancelier" (translation: "where was, for the time being, the duchess, riding pillion behind lord Dunois, her chancellor at the time"). he creates the image of a young girl, called "the heroic orphan" by Didier Le Fur: who governs the Breton state between 1488 and 1491 (from ages 11 to 14); and who has to face a brutal campaign by Charles VIII.
This image is used and amplified afterwards. François de Mézeray, royal historian, adds, in 1646, that she leads the campaign by herself, refuses to see others govern in her place (in 1489–91) and rejects an imposed wedding. He uses the thesis of her will to govern Brittany by herself. He does so in order to justify the capacity of a woman, Anne of Austria, then the regent of Louis XIV, to govern France, a little before the Fronde.
The second contesting of the levying of new taxes takes place in Brittany at the end of the 17th century, with the rebellion against the papier timbré. This episode started a new wave of stories of Brittany, including a commission by the Breton States to the Benedictines of Saint-Maur. It was started by Dom Audren, who died while he was writing it, and finished by Dom Lobineau. It uses the thesis of d'Argenté and also created an outcry, without being censored. It was refuted by abbé Vertot.Traité historique de la mouvance de Bretagne, published in 1710 and Histoire critique de l'établissement des Bretons en Gaule, published in 1720. Lobineau transforms what were private considerations about the refusal to marry Alain d'Albret into political will; she makes a sacrifice during the 1489–1491 war for the happiness of her people.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the image of Anne of Brittany is more one of a duchess than of a queen, more attached to her duchy than to the kingdom of France with, for instance, the Histoire de Bretagne by abbé Desfontaines (1739), which has been used since: he states that "the title of duchess was dearer to her than that of queen"; he multiplies her trips to Brittany; Anne of Brittany is saddened by the union of Brittany to France. For Le Fur, her will to govern by herself becomes obvious.Didier Le Fur, p. 161. The "heroic orphan" imageDidier Le Fur's expression develops afterwards: she campaigns alone, with her people, against the king of France. The numerous patriotic episodes are invented.
In the 19th century, her character as defender of Breton independence is accentuated: in one book, she appears at the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier,Didier Le Fur, p. 169. she loves only her native land,Jamin, La Bretagne, 1844. her trips take the Bretons out of their state of lethargy, encourage the founding of covenants and the construction of religious buildings.de Courson, Histoire du peuple de Bretagne, 1846. Her biographies of the 19th century are devoted, for half of them, to her youth (until 1491), a period of her life for which sources are very few. After 1850, in the regional histories and sometimes in the republican, Anne of Brittany is never presented as French; she is the one who preserves the autonomy of Brittany after 1491. It becomes obvious, even to major historians like Arthur Le Moyne de La Borderie.See his course on the history of Brittany.
With the creation of the separatist movement in 1911, Anne makes the sacrifice of her life in order to preserve the name and independence of Brittany. She does nothing for the union of the duchy to France which becomes guilty of not respecting its engagements. In 1934, a little-known historian, Bardin, even compares her to Joan of Arc.Bardin, L'autonomisme breton, 1815–1930, Poitiers, 1934. He sees her as superior, not only because she is good and has honour, but also because "of the reasonable tenacity of her Breton personality" and because of "the will of the entire Celtic race, of which she is the spokesperson".
Finally, Didier Le Fur systematically finds these characteristics of autonomism in all the descriptions made of duchess Anne in the histories of Brittany after 1945.
The forced wedding