The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 12 : § 7.29-30

Chapter 12 : The Eleventh Star or Splendour of the Crown of Excellence of the Mother of God

Continuing our translation of the 1845 reprint of Fr François Poiré's Triple Crown of the Mother of God (1643 French edition).

Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac.(Poggi, 2020)

She has been and is still recognized and called blessed by all generations in the world

§ 7. How she was recognised and honoured in the Regular Orders

The Order of the Annunciation (of Bourges), also known as the Order of the Virgin Mary’s Ten Virtues

 29   The institution of the Order of the Annunciation of Bourges, also known as the Order of the Virgin Mary’s Ten Virtues, is no less worthy of wonder than the foundation of the Order of the Immaculate Conception we have just described. 

Blessed Jeanne of France, daughter of Louis XI, sister of Charles VIII, and wife of Louise XII, laid the foundations of the Order at the end of the century which had just ended, at the beginning of the fifteenth.

Her gravitas, her recollection and self-restraint, her scorn for material pleasures and her limitless courage are examples of the virtuous inclinations which shone forth from this Princess. Foremost amongst these were her humility and her patience, which she would have need to call upon frequently throughout her life. She was endowed with a great store of interior qualities of the sort that render a soul pleasing to God, but she had less of those external qualities which are typically sought after with such passion among daughters of great houses. For this reason the King her father could not behold her without a certain regret, finding it difficult to look upon her plain features and her awkward gait.

The world looked askance upon her, but her celestial Spouse freely bestowed His caresses upon her and He alone was the One whom she wanted to please. She was never happy except when she was praying and in communication with God. She implored Him to help her, even if with only one ray of His divine light, to follow a path that would be pleasing unto Him and would lead to His greater glory. She addressed the same request to the Queen of Angels whom she had chosen for her Mother and Protectress, begging her every day to intercede on her behalf with her beloved Son, asking Him to show how she might be of greater service to Him and imitate Him more perfectly.

The MOTHER OF GOD, whose infinitely tender heart is always ready to help those who have recourse to her, especially on such matters, appeared to her immediately. She called to her by her own name and promised that before her death she would found a religious Order in her honour which would be the highest service that could be offered to her Son and to herself. The young girl was not yet six years old when she received this promise from Heaven. Nevertheless, the words that she heard remained so deeply engraved in her soul that from that day onwards she never ceased to work on the plan of the spiritual edifice for which she was to lay the foundations before her life was over, and to map out the design of the Religious Order which was never to change despite all the obstacles she encountered.

 30   God had chosen this Princess in order to raise her to the highest virtue and it was therefore necessary that she should pass through a crucible of suffering so as to be tested and purified in every way. The divine goodness worked in this way right up until the death of blessed Jeanne and especially during the period over twenty years that she spent in the marital state.

She had scarcely attained the age of sixteen years when the King her father, to divert her away from her stated plan of founding a Religious Order and to engage her more effectively in the world, married her to Louis de Valois, the Duke of Orleans, who on coming to the throne became king Louis XII. If ever you wanted to find a poor Princess who had so much to suffer and who put a brave face on in the midst of her tribulations, Jeanne would be her. The Duke had married her against his wishes and out of pure dread of King Louis XI, whose moods and anger he greatly feared. In a secret session with a notary and a number of witnesses, he protested formally about how he had been constrained and threatened with violence to go ahead with the marriage. He never accepted Jeanne for his wife but he kept up the external appearances of marriage. His secret plan was always to leave her as soon as he possibly could. His treatment of her was what might be expected from a Prince who saw himself forced against his will to live with someone whom he could not love. The fear however that he always had of Louis XI and after him of Charles VIII meant that while they were still alive he would never dare to try and take leave of his wife. After the death of these two kings, the Crown passed to him and he immediately determined that there was no longer anything in the way of his plans. Accordingly, he asked His Holiness to take cognizance of a case which he judged to be no less important for the welfare of the Realm than for his own peace of mind. Three of the most highly qualified Prelates in France received the commission and when they had heard all the parties and had taken judicial notice of the fact that the king never had any physical relations with the woman claimed to be his wife, they declared the marriage to be a nullity. By virtue of their Apostolic authority they allowed the King full license and freedom to take for his wife any woman whom he pleased.

Try to imagine what must have been the feelings of the Princess with her fine mind and magnanimous heart, daughter and sister of two kings and related to the foremost Monarchs in the world, being treated so rudely and with such notable disdain by the Duke over such a long period of time. How heart-breaking it must have been to have seen herself the subject of arguments between lawyers and the butt of gossip amongst the common people. She seemed to have been abandoned by nearly all France after previously receiving the honours due to a Queen of her noble extraction! What a terrible blow to her who had in good faith taken a prince of blood Royal and who had lived over twenty years with him in the belief that she was his true and lawful wife, only to learn that she was obliged to yield this title to another just at the time when she had arrived at the summit of great things and could claim to be reaping the rewards all the troubles and afflictions that she had suffered in the past!

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The Vladimirskaya Icon. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.

 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam. 

© Peter Bloor 2025