Charles VIII and his elder sister Anne of Beaujeu
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A generation later, on 6th December 1491, the Dunois-owned château was the scene of the dawn wedding between Charles VIII (Louis XI’s son) and Duchess Anne of Brittany. The marriage put an end to the strife between France and Anne’s independent duchy and paved the way for Brittany eventually being incorporated formally into the French kingdom (in 1532).
Only a small number 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; in addition, 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. |
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Recreation of the wedding ceremony
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