Francis I of France

“ The struggle against the emperor Charles V. filled the greater part of the reign. In reality, the policy of Francis, save for some flashes of sagacity, was irresolute and vacillating. Attracted at first by Italy, dreaming of fair feats of prowess, he led the triumphal Marignano expedition, which gained him reputation as a knightly king and as the most powerful prince in Europe. ”

“ The germs of heresy, long slumbering, were everywhere stirred into life.
Francis I. was King; sumptuous in tastes, suave and elegant in manners, as handsome as an Apollo, gay, pleasure-loving, as vicious as he was false, and if need be with a cruelty which matched his ambition, such was the man who held the destinies of France at this time.
A rival claimant for the throne of Germany, he was destined to spend his life in fruitless contest with the more able, wily, and astute Henry V., the possession of that Empire the ignis-fatuus ever luring him on ”

“ Owing to some misfortunes of his family, Francis went over to France in 1728, and being, like all his kinsmen, an ardent Roman catholic and Jacobite, he found powerful friends there, who quickly obtained for him a commission in the service of the French king. ”

“ His kingdom was environed with perils, and menaced with ruin, which could only be averted by singular courage and address. Against him was arrayed a most formidable confederacy of the Pope, the emperor, the King of England, and the various states of Italy. He had not a single ally, except the King of Scotland, a minor, and without authority. The internal condition of France was extremely discouraging. The wars of Francis in Italy and at home, his gay life and expensive pleasures, with his extravagant grants to his favourites, had exhausted his treasury, and involved him in grave embarrassment. ”

“ Ruin the prosperity of France, he meant, for Louis had been a good and thoughtful king, cherishing his land and enabling it to rise to the height of wealth and power, justified by its natural resources and the ingenuity of its people.
Francis, the "great boy," even more than his rival Henry, proved bent on being a hero. Like Maximilian of Germany, he sought to be known as the flower of knighthood. To win his ambition he also was possessed of youth and wealth, a gallant bearing, and a devoted people. He had intellect, too, and a love of art. He became the great patron of the later Renaissance. ”

“ His government had the vices of his foreign policy. It was uncertain, irregular and disorderly. The finances were squandered in gratifying the king’s unbridled prodigality, and the treasury was drained by his luxurious habits, by the innumerable gifts and pensions he distributed among his mistresses and courtiers, by his war expenses and by his magnificent buildings. His government, too, weighed heavily upon the people, and the king was less popular than is sometimes imagined.
Francis owes the greater measure of his glory to the artists and men of letters who vied in celebrating his praises. ”

“ To enlist Francis personally on the side of the divorce, and against the clerical influence, was good policy; for the Emperor could not afford to quarrel both with France and England for his aunt, and especially as the meeting arranged between Francis and the Pope at Nice for the betrothal of the Duke of Orleans with Katharine de Medici was already in contemplation, and threatened the Emperor with a combination of France, England, and perhaps the Papacy, which would be powerful enough to defy him. ”

“ Outside of the political arena, in quite a different field of ideas and facts, that is, in the intellectual field, Francis I. did better and succeeded better. In this region he exhibited an instinct and a taste for the grand and the beautiful; he had a sincere love for literature, science, and art; he honored and protected, and effectually too, their works and their representatives. And therein it is that more than one sovereign and more than one age have found their purest glory to consist. ”

“ Passionately enamoured of the princess of Condé, he set out reluctantly to Warsaw, but, on the death of his brother Charles IX. in 1574, he escaped from his Polish subjects, who endeavoured to retain him by force, came back to France and assumed the crown. He returned to a wretched kingdom, torn with civil war. In spite of his good intentions, he was incapable of governing, and abandoned the power to his mother and his favourites. Yet he was no dullard. He was a man of keen intelligence and cultivated mind, and deserves as much as Francis I. the title of patron of letters and art. ”

“ Francis was even taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia, in 1525, and confined in a fortress at Madrid, until he promised to the victors the complete dismemberment of France—an extorted (p. 034) promise he never meant to keep. No sooner had he recovered his liberty, than he violated all his oaths, and Europe was again the scene of fresh hostilities. The passion of revenge was now added to that of ambition, and, as the pope had favored the cause of Francis, the generals of Charles invaded Italy. ”

“ On the 12th of February 1736 he was married to Maria Theresa, and they went for a short time to Florence, when he succeeded to the grand duchy in 1737 on the death of John Gaston, the last of the ruling house of Medici. His wife secured his election to the Empire on the 13th of September 1745, in succession to Charles VII., and she made him co-regent of her hereditary dominions. Francis was well content to leave the reality of power to his able wife. ”

“ Much is forgiven a youthful king if he be but brave and jovial and hearty in his manner. His blunders, his excesses of fury, are put down to his inexperience. Nations are ever yearning for a hero-ruler.
In France a monarch of twenty years, Francis I, ascended [Pg xvi] the throne in 1515, five years older then than the century. Henry of England had descended from a family of simple Welsh gentlemen, far indeed at one time from the crown; Francis I was also of a new line of kings, only a distant cousin of the childless Louis XII, whom he succeeded. ”

“ He also forbade Calvinist ministers to reside in the Chablais, and substituted Catholic for Huguenot officials. St Francis concurred in these measures, and, three years later, even requested that those who, as he said, “follow their heresy, rather as a party than a religion,” should be ordered either to conform or to leave their country, with leave to sell their goods. His conduct, judged not by a modern standard, but by the ideas of his age, will be found compatible with the highest Christian charity, as that of the duke with sound political prudence. ”

“ Francis I. seemed to have some liking for his sister's religion; but there were other motives inclining him to entertain these ideas. Finding himself without allies in Europe, he endeavoured to gain the friendship of the protestants, hoping that with their help he would be in a condition to oppose the emperor and restore the French preponderance in Italy. One man in particular set himself the task of directing his country into a new path; this was William du Bellay, brother to the Bishop of Paris, and 'one of the greatest men France ever had,' says a catholic historian. ”

“ FRANCIS I. (1494-1547) , king of France, son of Charles of Valois, count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy, was born at Cognac on the 12th of September 1494. The count of Angoulême, who was the great-grandson of King Charles V., died in 1496, and Louise watched over her son with passionate tenderness. On the accession of Louis XII. in 1498, Francis became heir-presumptive. Louis invested him with the duchy of Valois, and gave him as tutor Marshal de Gié, and, after Gié’s disgrace in 1503, the sieur de Boisy, Artus Gouffier. ”

“ France was still rich in resources, and was made to pay or rather promise the vast sum of two million crowns in instalments, and an annuity of a hundred thousand a year to the King for England’s friendship, whilst Francis was forced to abandon all his claims on Italy and Burgundy (January 1526) , and marry the Emperor’s sister Leonora, before he was permitted to return to France, at peace once more. It is true that every party to the treaties endeavoured to evade the fulfilment of his pledges ”

“ Instead of laughing at the proposal as any modern leader would, Francis, in face of the protest of all his generals, accepted and in true chivalrous fashion fought the wholly unnecessary battle of Pavia. His forces were completely defeated, he himself made prisoner. "All is lost," he wrote home to France, "but honor." Even that too was lost, [Pg xxi] had he but known. Charles, unchivalrous, determined to make the most of his good-luck, and, for the release of his royal prisoner, demanded such terms as would make France little more than a subject state. ”

“ Her renown for beauty and genius resounded from one end of Europe to the other. With remarkable facility she learned French, Italian, Greek, Latin, history, theology, music, painting, dancing, and she excelled in writing poetry. Some of her short poems are still famous in French literature. But her life as Queen of France was but a short dream of splendor and delight. The weak and emaciated Francis the Second died after a reign of eleven months, and the crown went to his young brother, Charles the Ninth. ”

“ FRANCIS II. (1544–1560) , king of France, eldest son of Henry II. and of Catherine de’ Medici, was born at Fontainebleau on the 19th of January 1544. He married the famous Mary Stuart, daughter of James V. of Scotland, on the 25th of April 1558, and ascended the French throne on the 10th of July 1559. ”

“ But the princes were much too familiar with the wiles of Francis to repose any confidence in the lavish professions of his son. And the historian who discovers that the more intimately the king strove to associate himself with the German Protestants, the more fiercely did he commit the Protestants of France to the flames, in order to demonstrate to the Pope the immaculate orthodoxy of his religious belief, will not fail to applaud their discernment. ”

“ This confederacy of Francis and the Italian princes and states against the emperor, bound the Allies to raise and pay an army of 30,000 foot and 3,000 horse, with a certain number of ships and galleys. The King of France was to be put in possession of the county of Asti and the lordship of Genoa; and Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, engaged to pay him 50,000 crowns annually. Naples was to be wrested from Charles, and its crown placed at the disposal of the Pope; but the king whom he appointed was to pay an annuity of 75,000 crowns to the King of France. ”

“ He loved all that was gay, bright, and beautiful. He delighted in the repose of peace, yet no monarch ever plunged his country into more ruinous and causeless wars. Though capable of the tenderest and purest affection, no man was ever more heartless and cruel in principle and conduct.
Francis, Duc de Valois, [1] was educated at home by his mother, Madame Louise de Savoie, Duchesse d’Angoulême, Regent of France, together with his brilliant sister, Marguerite, “the pearl of the Valois,” poetess, story-teller, artist, and politician. ”

“ In France, certainly, taken as a whole, the papal power was less, and that of the kings was greater, than was the case in England from Louis IX., the contemporary of Henry III., down to Francis I., the contemporary of Henry VIII., when the two countries took new departures in this particular, almost in diametrically opposite directions, and Francis I. sacrificed all that remained of the so-called Gallican liberties to the Pope in order to obtain the surrender of the rest to himself, while Henry VIII. absorbed into his own person the authority of pope and king at once. ”

“ Young Manhood.
As he grew up into young manhood, Francis nominally assisted his father in his business as cloth merchant. His duties, however, were very light, and he was known more as a leader among the gay youth of Assisi than as a rising business man. He was always chosen as the leader of the sumptuous feasts that the young men of that era wiled away the evening hours with. After the feast was over, Francis used to lead his band out into the streets, and there under those glorious starry skies they finished the night singing the then popular love songs of France and Italy. ”

“ As the capital of an absolute monarchy, as others were, it became associated with principles which, in the Middle Ages, it resisted with spiritual and secular weapons; and the magnitude of the change was apparent when Leo X, by the Concordat of Bologna, conceded to Francis I the choice of bishops and the higher patronage of the Church of France. For Francis on his accession sent an army into Italy, the last work of Julius II was overthrown at Marignano, and France again was master of the Milanese. ”

“ England and the Empire saw with delight this dissension between Francis and the greatest of his subjects. They each sent a secret envoy to the Constable; and it was privately agreed that, as soon as Francis should be gone to reconquer Milan, the English should invade Picardy, the Germans and Spaniards enter Guienne and Burgundy, while the Constable should seize the central provinces. The kingdom conquered, each should satisfy what he considered his just claims. Henry should take the North, and call himself in earnest King of France ”

“ Francis, though only sixteen, was entitled to assume the government himself. He went to Rheims, a town northeast of Paris, where is an abbey, which is the ancient place of coronation for the kings of France. Here he was crowned. He appointed his ministers, and evinced, in his management and in his measures, more energy and decision than it was supposed he possessed. He himself and Mary were now, together, on the summit of earthly grandeur. ”