The hôtel St. Paul, the favourite palace of Charles V. and Charles VI., was now deserted. It was considered unhealthy because of the malaria arising from its many moats and ponds, and Louis XI. gave away most of the splendid hôtels belonging to it.[312]
Louis XII. and Anne, when in Paris, lived at Les Tournelles, a most picturesque and delightful old château near St. Paul, but more healthy. It was built in 1380, and had belonged to Jean Duc de Berry, Charles VI., and Louis d’Orléans. It was named from being a mass of little towers and turrets, was very large and convenient, stood in a wood like a country house, had chapels, galleries and gardens with fountains and seats of turf. The Duke of Bedford lived there during the English rule, and his beautiful wife, Anne of Burgundy; they kept flocks of peacocks and other rare birds.
Louis and Anne were as fond of animals as their predecessors. The Queen kept a large hawking establishment, and numbers of horses and mules; her stables were magnificent, and her litters and _chariots branlants_ (suspended) lined with soft cushions and costly stuffs. She had many dogs of different breeds and sizes.
The position of the Queen’s ladies was very distinguished and important. Already in 1492 she had sixteen _dames_ and eighteen _demoiselles_, of the noblest families. She was very strict, keeping constant supervision over their books, songs, and amusements, and forbidding them to be alone with the gentlemen of the court, or talk to them about love that had nothing to do with marriage. If they disobeyed her she was implacable, otherwise she treated them with unbounded kindness, gave them the same luxuries she had herself, and took the greatest care of them in illness. An existing account mentions silver plate and a fur-lined coverlet for the night, ordered for Anne de Foix when she was ill. She gave them dowries, arranged their marriages, and if their husbands lived far away sent somebody to take care of them and bring her news of them. Some she loved almost like her own children.
Ladislas, King of Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia, being a widower, wanted a French princess for his wife. The Queen selected Anne de Candale and Germaine de Foix, both pretty girls and princesses of Foix, and sent him their portraits. He chose Anne, who did not wish to be Queen of Hungary, but to marry the Comte de Dunois, son of the Queen’s old friend whom he did not resemble, for though handsome and agreeable he was supposed to be wanting in courage. The Queen would not hear of it, and notwithstanding the tears and objections of the young princess the marriage was celebrated by proxy, and she started with a brilliant retinue in charge of Bretagne, King-at-arms, whose account of the grandeur of her reception, presents, &c., still exists in the _Bibliothèque Impériale_. Ladislas was enchanted with her and wrote with enthusiastic gratitude to the Queen, who was very fond of and anxious about her, and many messengers and letters passed between them; but the princess, who never became reconciled to her splendid exile, died in giving birth to a son.