Eleanor of Aquitaine, recently divorced from Louis VII of France, had to deftly avoid several marriageable suitors who were lying in ambush along the road home.

>[Eleanor](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Church_of_Fontevraud_Abbey_Eleanor_of_Aquitaine_effigy.jpg) quickly left Beaugency for Poitiers. But she was once again a fabulous heiress [**following the divorce, she still retained Aquietaine**]. At Blois, count Thibault – the son of Louis’s old enemy in the Champagne war – was so insistent on his courtship that she had to escape by night, taking a barge down the Loire to Tours. Here she learned that the seventeen-year-old [Geoffrey of Anjou](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Geoffrey_of_Anjou_Monument.jpg), a younger brother of duke Henry of Normandy, was lying in ambush for her at the crossing of the little river Creuse at Port-de-Piles, no doubt with the intention of forcing her to marry him. Travelling by a little-used road, however, she at length reached Poitiers and her palace of the Maubergeon. ______________________________ **Source:** Seward, Desmond. “The Divorce.” *Eleanor of Aquitaine*. New York: Times , 1979. 64. Print. _____________________________ **Further Reading:** [Aliénor d'Aquitaine / Éléonore / Alienora (Eleanor of Aquitaine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine) [Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou / Geoffrey V / Geoffrey the Handsome / Geoffrey le Bel (Geoffrey the Fair)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Plantagenet,_Count_of_Anjou)