ANNE OF FRANCE (146o-1522), dame de Beaujeu, was the eldest daughter of Louis XI. and Charlotte of Savoy. Louis XL betrothed her at first to Nicholas of Anjou, and afterwards offered her hand successively to Charles the Bold, to the duke of Brittany, and even to his own brother, Charles of France. Finally she married Pierre de Beaujeu, a younger brother of the duke of Bourbon. Before his death Louis XI. entrusted to Pierre de Beau jeu and Anne the entire charge of his son, Charles VIII., a lad of 13 ; and from 1483 to 1492 the Beaujeus exercised a virtual re gency. Anne was a true daughter of Louis XI. Energetic, obsti nate, cunning and unscrupulous, she inherited, too, her father's avarice and rapacity.
Although they made some concessions, the Beaujeus succeeded in maintaining the results of the previous reign, and in triumph ing over the feudal intrigues and coalitions, as was seen from the meeting of the Estates General in 1484,and the results of the "Mad War" (1485) and the war with Brittany (1488) ; and in spite of the efforts of Maximilian of Austria and Henry VII. of England they concluded the marriage of Charles VIII. and Anne, duchess of Brittany (1491). But a short time afterwards the king disen gaged himself completely from their tutelage, to the great detri ment of the kingdom. In 1488 Pierre de Beaujeu had succeeded to the Bourbonnais, the last great fief of France. He died in 1503, but Anne survived him 20 years. From her establishments at Moulins and Chantelle in the Bourbonnais she defended the Bour bon cause against the royal family.
Anne's only daughter, Suzanne, had married in 1505 her cousin, Charles of Bourbon, count of Montpensier, the future constable; and the question of the succession of Suzanne, who died in 1521, was the determining factor of the treason of the Constable de Bourbon (1523). Anne had died on Nov. 14 15 2 2.
See P. Pelicier, Essai sur le governement de la Dame de Beaujeu (Chartres, 1882) . (J. I.)