The Queen’s second coronation at St. Denis and entry into Paris took place when the King was convalescent--with the same splendour as the first. It was by torchlight, and after the usual fêtes and banquet at the Palais they returned to Touraine, and spent the rest of the summer at Blois, Loches, and Amboise with the Princess Claude.
The year 1505 opened with an unsatisfactory state of affairs in Italy,[325] where many of the best French officers, amongst them the Chevalier Bayard, were still engaged. The King became depressed and out of spirits, all the more because of the dispute about his daughter, whose marriage the Emperor kept urging him to celebrate immediately with the Duke of Luxemburg, while the French were so vehemently in favour of François, whom he had created Duc de Valois, that he felt both he and the Queen were for the first time becoming unpopular. These matters so preyed upon his mind as to bring on an illness more serious than the last. He was seized with fever and delirium, and all the country was plunged into grief and alarm. Again the Queen nursed him night and day, the people thronged the churches,[326] masses were chanted, long lines of cowled figures carried holy relics, with banners, crosses, and swinging censers through the streets, peasants left their work and multitudes with bare feet, tears and lamentations flocked after the processions. The Queen vowed that if he recovered she would make a pilgrimage to Notre Dame du Foll-Coat in Bretagne before the year was out.[327]
A romantic incident caused by this calamity was the death of Tommasina Spinola, a beautiful Genoese who had fallen in love with Louis in Italy. It was a platonic, chivalrous romance, to which neither her husband nor the Queen objected, and after the shock of hearing that Louis was dead had been fatal to her, he, having by this time recovered, desired Jean d’Auton to write a record of her, which was presented to him and the Queen at Tours.[328]
In the summer the Queen set off for Bretagne to fulfil her vow about the pilgrimage, leaving the King at Blois with their child.
When once Anne was in Bretagne it was no easy matter to get her away again, although Louis was now left with Louise de Savoie, and all those who were anxious for the French instead of the Austrian marriage of the Princess Claude.