The Least Foolish Woman in France: Sexual Harassment in Late Medieval Times

In a startling twist on the #MeToo movement, discover the secret torment of a future king of France caught between two royal sisters-in-law: one his worst nightmare, the other the deepest desire of his heart.

Anne de Beaujeu is France’s most powerful woman in 1491. Yet she can't have the one thing she wants most: the love of Louis, Duke d’Orléans, future king of France. Why not? He's already in love with another woman.

Anne of Brittany is the bride of Charles VIII, King of France and Louis’ brother-in-law through Jeanne of France, Louis’ wife. Forced at age fourteen to marry the hunchbacked sterile younger daughter of the spider king, Louis is caught in his web. His intent? To stamp out Louis’ line so that upon his death his lands and holdings revert to the French crown.

Trapped in a loveless marriage that produces no children, Louis turns his energies to becoming France’s top tennis player when he isn’t dallying with fair ladies of the court. But when he attracts the eye of his wife’s elder sister Anne de Beaujeu, regent of France in the young King Charles VIII’s minority, Louis vows he will not be caught in anyone's web again.

To escape her attentions he flees over France’s border to Brittany. There, he allies himself with Anne of Brittany’s father, Duke Francis II, in the Breton struggle to fight off French domination in the Mad War of 1485-1488.

When Louis is taken captive in the French defeat of Brittany at the 1488 battle of Saint-Aubin, Anne de Beaujeu has him locked up. But capturing his body does not mean she has captured his heart.