Sire d'Albret, a widower and the father of eight children already, was forty-five, with a pimply face, a hard eye, a hoarse voice, and a quarrelsome and gloomy temper; and Anne, being pressed to answer his suit, finally declared that she would turn nun rather than marry him.
James de Rohan, in spite of his powerful backers at the court of Rennes, was likewise dismissed; his father, Viscount John II., was in the service of the King of France.

Archduke Maximilian remained the only claimant with any pretensions.

He was nine and twenty, of gigantic stature, justly renowned for valor and ability in war, and of more literary culture than any of the princes his contemporaries, a trait he had in common with Princess Anne, whose education had been very carefully attended to.

She showed herself to be favorably disposed towards him; and the Duke of Orleans, whose name, married though he was, was still sometimes associated with that of the Breton princess, formally declared, on the 26th of January, 1486, that, "when he came to the Duke of Brittany's, it was solely to visit him and advise him on certain points touching the defence of his duchy, and not to talk to him of marriage with the princesses his daughters." But, whilst the negotiation was thus inclining towards the Austrian prince, Anne de Beaujeu, ever far-sighted and energetic, was vigorously pushing on the war against the Duke of Brittany and his allies.

She had found in Louis de la Tremoille an able and a bold warrior, whom Guicciardini calls the greatest captain in the world.