CHAPTER XXVI .-- --THE WARS OF ITALY.-- CHARLES VIII.-- 1483-1498.
[Illustration: CHARLES VIII .-- --263] Louis XI.

had by the queen his wife, Charlotte of Savoy, six children; three of them survived him: Charles VIII., his successor; Anne, his eldest daughter, who had espoused Peter of Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu; and Joan, whom he had married to the Duke of Orleans, who became Louis XII.
At their father's death, Charles was thirteen; Anne twenty-two or twenty-three; and Joan nineteen.

According to Charles V.'s decree, which had fixed fourteen as the age for the king's majority, Charles VIII., on his accession, was very nearly a major; but Louis XI., with good reason, considered him very far from capable of reigning as yet.

On the other hand, he had a very high opinion of his daughter Anne, and it was to her far more than to Sire de Beaujeu, her husband, that, six days before his death, and by his last instructions, he intrusted the guardian-ship of his son, to whom he already gave the title of King, and the government of the realm.

They were oral instructions not set forth in or confirmed by any regular testament; but the words of Louis XI.