of Burgundy, as a male fief of the kingdom; he also took possession of
Franche Comte at the same time; the King’s armies recovered all Picardy,
and even entered Flanders. Then Mary of Burgundy, hoping to raise up a
barrier against this dangerous neighbour, offered her hand, with all her
great territories, to young Maximilian of Austria, and married him within
six months after her father’s death. To this wedding is due the rise to
real greatness of the House of Austria; it begins the era of the larger
politics of modern times.
After a little hesitation Louis determined to continue the struggle
against the Burgundian power. He secured Franche Comte, and on his
northern frontier retook Arras, that troublesome border city, the “bonny
Carlisle” of those days; and advancing to relieve Therouenne, then
besieged by Maximilian, fought and lost the battle of Guinegate (1479).
The war was languid after this; a truce followed in 1480, and a time of
quiet for France. Charles the Dauphin was engaged to marry the little
Margaret, Maximilian’s daughter, and as her dower she was to bring
Franche Comte and sundry places on the border line disputed between the
two princes. In these last days Louis XI. shut himself up in gloomy
seclusion in his castle of Plessis near Tours, and there he died in 1483.
A great king and a terrible one, he has left an indellible mark on the
history of France, for he was the founder of France in its later form, as
an absolute monarchy ruled with little regard to its own true welfare. He
had crushed all resistance; he had enlarged the borders of France, till
the kingdom took nearly its modern dimensions; he had organised its army
and administration. The danger was lest in the hands of a feeble boy
these great results should be squandered away, and the old anarchy once
more raise its head.
For Charles VIII., who now succeeded, was but thirteen years old, a weak
boy whom his father had entirely neglected, the training of his son not
appearing to be an essential part of his work in life. The young Prince
had amused himself with romances, but had learnt nothing useful. A head,
however, was found for him in the person of his eldest sister Anne, whom
Louis XI. had married to Peter II., Lord of Beaujeu and Duc de Bourbon.
To her the dying King entrusted the guardianship of his son; and for more
than nine years Anne of France was virtual King. For those years all
went well.
With her disappearance from the scene, the controlling hand is lost, and
France begins the age of her Italian expeditions.
When the House of Anjou came to an end in 1481, and Anjou and Maine fell
in to the Crown, there fell in also a far less valuable piece of
property, the claim of that house descended from Charles, the youngest
brother of Saint Louis, on the kingdom of Naples and Sicily. There was
much to tempt an ambitious prince in the state of Italy. Savoy, which
held the passage into the peninsula, was then thoroughly French in
sympathy; Milan, under Lodovico Sforza, “il Moro,” was in alliance with
Charles; Genoa preferred the French to the Aragonese claimants for
influence over Italy; the popular feeling in the cities, especially in
Florence, was opposed to the despotism of the Medici, and turned to
France for deliverance; the misrule of the Spanish Kings of Naples had
made Naples thoroughly discontented; Venice was, as of old, the friend of
France. Tempted by these reasons, in 1494 Charles VIII. set forth for
Italy with a splendid host. He displayed before the eyes of Europe the
first example of a modern army, in its three well-balanced branches of
infantry, cavalry, and artillery. There was nothing in Italy to
withstand his onslaught; he swept through the land in triumph; Charles
believed himself to be a great conqueror giving law to admiring
subject-lands; he entered Pisa, Florence, Rome itself. Wherever he went
his heedless ignorance, and the gross misconduct of his followers, left
behind implacable hostility, and turned all friendship into bitterness.
At last he entered Naples, and seemed to have asserted to the full the
French claim to be supreme in Italy, whereas at that very time his
position had become completely untenable. A league of Italian States was
formed behind his back; Lodovico il Moro, Ferdinand of Naples, the
Emperor, Pope Alexander VI., Ferdinand and Isabella, who were now welding
Spain into a great and united monarchy, all combined against France; and
in presence of this formidable confederacy Charles VIII. had to cut his
way home as promptly as he could. At Fornovo, north of the Apennines, he
defeated the allies in July, 1495; and by November the main French army
had got safely out of Italy. The forces left behind in Naples were worn
out by war and pestilence, and the poor remnant of these, too, bringing
with them the seeds of horrible contagious diseases, forced their way
back to France in 1496. It was the last effort of the King. His health
was ruined by debauchery in Italy, repeated in France; and yet, towards
the end of his reign, he not merely introduced Italian arts, but
attempted to reform the State, to rule prudently, to solace the poor;
wherefore, when he died in 1498, the people lamented him greatly, for he
had been kindly and affable, brave also on the battle-field; and much is
forgiven to a king.
His children died before him, so that Louis d’Orleans, his cousin, was
nearest heir to the throne, and succeeded as Louis XII. By his accession
in 1498 he reunited the fief of Orleans County to the Crown; by marrying
Anne of Brittany, his predecessor’s widow, he secured also the great
duchy of Brittany. The dispensation of Pope Alexander VI., which enabled
him to put away his wife Jeanne, second daughter of Louis XI., was
brought into France by Caesar Borgia, who gained thereby his title of
Duke of Valentinois, a large sum of money, a French bride, and promises
of support in his great schemes in Italy.
His ministers were men of real ability. Georges d’Amboise, Archbishop of
Rouen, the chief of them, was a prudent and a sagacious ruler, who,
however, unfortunately wanted to be Pope, and urged the King in the
direction of Italian politics, which he would have done much better to
have left alone. Louis XII. was lazy and of small intelligence; Georges
d’Amboise and Caesar Borgia, with their Italian ambitions, easily made
him take up a spirited foreign policy which was disastrous at home.
Utterly as the last Italian expedition had failed, the French people were
not yet weary of the adventure, and preparations for a new war began at
once. In 1499 the King crossed the Alps into the Milanese, and carried
all before him for a while. The duchy at first accepted him with
enthusiasm; but in 1500 it had had enough of the French and recalled
Lodovico, who returned in triumph to Milan. The Swiss mercenaries,
however, betrayed him at Novara into the hands of Louis XII., who carried
him off to France. The triumph of the French in 1500 was also the
highest point of the fortunes of their ally, Caesar Borgia, who seemed
for a while to be completely successful. In this year Louis made a
treaty at Granada, by which he and Ferdinand the Catholic agreed to
despoil Frederick of Naples; and in 1501 Louis made a second expedition
into Italy. Again all seemed easy at the outset, and he seized the
kingdom of Naples without difficulty; falling out, however, with his
partner in the bad bargain, Ferdinand the Catholic, he was speedily swept
completely out of the peninsula, with terrible loss of honour, men, and
wealth.
It now became necessary to arrange for the future of France. Louis XII.
had only a daughter, Claude, and it was proposed that she should be
affianced to Charles of Austria, the future statesman and emperor. This
scheme formed the basis of the three treaties of Blois (1504). In 1500,
by the Treaty of Granada, Louis had in fact handed Naples over to Spain;
now by the three treaties he alienated his best friends, the Venetians
and the papacy, while he in fact also handed Milan over to the Austrian
House, together with territories considered to be integral parts of
France. The marriage with Charles came to nothing; the good sense of
some, the popular feeling in the country, the open expressions of the
States General of Tours, in 1506, worked against the marriage, which had
no strong advocate except Queen Anne. Claude, on intercession of the
Estates, was affianced to Frangois d’Angouleme, her distant cousin, the
heir presumptive to the throne.
In 1507 Louis made war on Venice; and in the following year the famous
Treaty of Cambrai was signed by Georges d’Amboise and Margaret of
Austria. It was an agreement for a partition of the Venetian
territories,--one of the most shameless public deeds in history. The
Pope, the King of Aragon, Maximilian, Louis XII., were each to have a
share. The war was pushed on with great vigour: the battle of Agnadello
(14th May, 1509) cleared the King’s way towards Venice; Louis was
received with open arms by the North Italian towns, and pushed forward to
within eight of Venice. The other Princes came up on every side; the
proud “Queen of the Adriatic” was compelled to shrink within her walls,
and wait till time dissolved the league. This was not long. The Pope,
Julius II., had no wish to hand Northern Italy over to France; he had
joined in the shameless league of Cambrai because he wanted to wrest the
Romagna cities from Venice, and because he hoped to entirely destroy the
ancient friendship between Venice and France. Successful in both aims,
he now withdrew from the league, made peace with the Venetians, and stood
forward as the head of a new Italian combination, with the Swiss for his
fighting men. The strife was close and hot between Pope and King; Louis
XII. lost his chief adviser and friend, Georges d’Amboise, the splendid
churchman of the age, the French Wolsey; he thought no weapon better than
the dangerous one of a council, with claims opposed to those of the
papacy; first a National Council at Tours, then an attempted General
Council at Pisa, were called on to resist the papal claims. In reply
Julius II. created the Holy League of 1511, with Ferdinand of Aragon,
Henry VIII. of England, and the Venetians as its chief members, against
the French. Louis XII. showed vigour; he sent his nephew Gaston de Foix
to subdue the Romagna and threaten the Venetian territories. At the
battle of Ravenna, in 1512, Gaston won a brilliant victory and lost his
life. From that moment disaster dogged the footsteps of the French in
Italy, and before winter they had been driven completely out of the
peninsula; the succession of the Medicean Pope, Leo X., to Julius II.,
seemed to promise the continuance of a policy hostile to France in Italy.
Another attempt on Northern Italy proved but another failure, although
now Louis XII., taught by his mishaps, had secured the alliance of
Venice; the disastrous defeat of La Tremoille, near Novara (1513),
compelled the French once more to withdraw beyond the Alps. In this same
year an army under the Duc de Longueville, endeavouring to relieve
Therouenne, besieged by the English and Maximilian, the Emperor-elect,
was caught and crushed at Guinegate. A diversion in favour of Louis
XII., made by James IV. of Scotland, failed completely; the Scottish King
was defeated and slain at Flodden Field. While his northern frontier was
thus exposed, Louis found equal danger threatening him on the east; on
this aide, however, he managed to buy off the Swiss, who had attacked the
duchy of Burgundy. He was also reconciled with the papacy and the House
of Austria. Early in 1514 the death of Anne of Brittany, his spouse, a
lady of high ambitions, strong artistic tastes, and humane feelings
towards her Bretons, but a bad Queen for France, cleared the way for
changes. Claude, the King’s eldest daughter, was now definitely married
to Francois d’Angouleme, and invested with the duchy of Brittany; and the
King himself, still hoping for a male heir to succeed him, married again,
wedding Mary Tudor, the lovely young sister of Henry VIII. This marriage
was probably the chief cause of his death, which followed on New Year’s
day, 1515. His was, in foreign policy, an inglorious and disastrous
reign; at home, a time of comfort and material prosperity. Agriculture
flourished, the arts of Italy came in, though (save in architecture)
France could claim little artistic glory of her own; the organisation of
justice and administration was carried out; in letters and learning
France still lagged behind her neighbours.
The heir to the crown was Francois d’Angouleme, great-grandson of that
Louis d’Orleans who had been assassinated in the bad days of the strife
between Burgundians and Armagnacs, in 1407, and great-great-grandson of
Charles V. of France. He was still very young, very eager to be king,
very full of far-reaching schemes. Few things in history are more
striking than the sudden change, at this moment, from the rule of
middle-aged men or (as men of fifty were then often called) old men, to
the rule of youths,--from sagacious, worldly-prudent monarchs--to
impulsive boys,--from Henry VII. to Henry VIII., from Louis XII. to
Frangois I, from Ferdinand to Charles.
On the whole, Frangois I. was the least worthy of the three. He was
brilliant, “the king of culture,” apt scholar in Renaissance art and
immorality; brave, also, and chivalrous, so long as the chivalry involved
no self-denial, for he was also thoroughly selfish, and his personal aims
and ideas were mean. His reign was to be a reaction from that of Louis
XII.
From the beginning, Francois chose his chief officers unwisely. In
Antoine du Prat, his new chancellor, he had a violent and lawless
adviser; in Charles de Bourbon, his new constable, an untrustworthy
commander. Forthwith he plunged into Italian politics, being determined
to make good his claim both to Naples and to Milan; he made most friendly
arrangements with the Archduke Charles, his future rival, promising to
help him in securing, when the time came, the vast inheritances of his
two grandfathers, Maximilian, the Emperor-elect, and Ferdinand of Aragon;
never was a less wise agreement entered upon. This done, the Italian war
began; Francois descended into Italy, and won the brilliant battle of
Marignano, in which the French chivalry crushed the Swiss burghers and
peasant mercenaries. The French then overran the north of Italy, and, in
conjunction with the Venetians, carried all before them. But the
triumphs of the sword were speedily wrested from him by the adroitness of
the politician; in an interview with Leo X. at Bologna, Francois bartered
the liberties of the Gallican Church for shadowy advantages in Italy. The
‘Pragmatic Sanction of Bourgea’, which now for nearly a century had
secured to the Church of France independence in the choice of her chief
officers, was replaced by a concordat, whereby the King allowed the
papacy once more to drain the wealth of the Church of France, while the
Pope allowed the King almost autocratic power over it. He was to appoint
to all benefices, with exception of a few privileged offices; the Pope
was no longer to be threatened with general councils, while he should
receive again the annates of the Church.
The years which followed this brilliantly disastrous opening brought
little good to France. In 1516 the death of Ferdinand the Catholic
placed Charles on the throne of Spain; in 1519 the death of Maximilian
threw open to the young Princes the most dazzling prize of human
ambition,--the headship of the Holy Roman Empire. Francois I., Charles,
and Henry VIII. were all candidates for the votes of the seven electors,
though the last never seriously entered the lists. The struggle lay
between Francois, the brilliant young Prince, who seemed to represent the
new opinions in literature and art, and Charles of Austria and Spain, who
was as yet unknown and despised, and, from his education under the
virtuous and scholastic Adrian of Utrecht, was thought likely to
represent the older and reactionary opinions of the clergy. After a long
and sharp competition, the great prize fell to Charles, henceforth known
to history as that great monarch and emperor, Charles V.
The rivalry between the Princes could not cease there. Charles, as
representative of the House of Burgundy, claimed all that had been lost
when Charles the Bold fell; and in 1521 the war broke out between him and
Francois, the first of a series of struggles between the two rivals.
While the King wasted the resources of his country on these wars, his
proud and unwise mother, Louise of Savoy, guided by Antoine du Prat,
ruled, to the sorrow of all, at home. The war brought no glory with it:
on the Flemish frontier a place or two was taken; in Biscay Fontarabia
fell before the arms of France; in Italy Francois had to meet a new
league of Pope and Emperor, and his troops were swept completely out of
the Milanese. In the midst of all came the defection of that great
prince, the Constable de Bourbon, head of the younger branch of the
Bourbon House, the most powerful feudal lord in France. Louise of Savoy
had enraged and offended him, or he her; the King slighted him, and in
1523 the Constable made a secret treaty with Charles V. and Henry VIII.,
and, taking flight into Italy, joined the Spaniards under Lannoy. The
French, who had again invaded the Milanese, were again driven out in
1524; on the other hand, the incursions of the imperialists into Picardy,
Provence, and the southeast were all complete failures. Encouraged by
the repulse of Bourbon from Marseilles, Francois I. once more crossed the
Alps, and overran a great part of the valley of the Po; at the siege of
Pavia he was attacked by Pescara and Bourbon, utterly defeated and taken
prisoner (24th February, 1525); the broken remnants of the French were
swept out of Italy at once, and Francois I. was carried into Spain, a
captive at Madrid. His mother, best in adversity, behaved with high
pride and spirit; she overawed disaffection, made preparations for
resistance, looked out for friends on every side. Had Francois been in
truth a hero, he might, even as a prisoner, have held his own; but he was
unable to bear the monotony of confinement, and longed for the pleasures
of France. On this mean nature Charles V. easily worked, and made the
captive monarch sign the Treaty of Madrid (January 14, 1526), a compact
which Francois meant to break as soon as he could, for he knew neither
heroism nor good faith. The treaty stipulated that Francois should give
up the duchy of Burgundy to Charles, and marry Eleanor of Portugal,
Charles’s sister; that Francois should also abandon his claims on
Flanders, Milan, and Naples, and should place two sons in the Emperor’s
hands as hostages. Following the precedent of Louis XI. in the case of
Normandy, he summoned an assembly of nobles and the Parliament of Paris
to Cognac, where they declared the cession of Burgundy to be impossible.
He refused to return to Spain, and made alliances wherever he could, with
the Pope, with Venice, Milan, and England. The next year saw the ruin of
this league in the discomfiture of Clement VII., and the sack of Rome by
the German mercenaries under Bourbon, who was killed in the assault. The
war went on till 1529, when Francois, having lost two armies in it, and
gained nothing but loss and harm, was willing for peace; Charles V.,
alarmed at the progress of the Turks, was not less willing; and in
August, 1529, the famous Treaty, of Cambrai, “the Ladies’ Peace,” was
agreed to by Margaret of Austria and Louise of Savoy. Though Charles V.
gave up all claim on the duchy of Burgundy, he had secured to himself
Flanders and Artois, and had entirely cleared French influences out of
Italy, which now became firmly fixed under the imperial hand, as a
connecting link between his Spanish and German possessions. Francois
lost ground and credit by these successive treaties, conceived in bad
faith, and not honestly carried out.
No sooner had the Treaty of Cambrai been effectual in bringing his sons
back to France, than Francois began to look out for new pretexts and
means for war. Affairs were not unpromising. His mother’s death in 1531
left him in possession of a huge fortune, which she had wrung from
defenceless France; the powers which were jealous of Austria, the Turk,
the English King, the members of the Smalkald league, all looked to
Francois as their leader; Clement VII., though his misfortunes had thrown
him into the Emperor’s hands, was not unwilling to treat with France; and
in 1533 by the compact of Marseilles the Pope broke up the friendship
between Francois and Henry VIII., while he married his niece Catherine
de’ Medici to Henri, the second son of Francois. This compact was a real
disaster to France; the promised dowry of Catherine--certain Italian
cities--was never paid, and the death of Clement VII. in 1534 made the
political alliance with the papacy a failure. The influence of Catherine
affected and corrupted French history for half a century. Preparations
for war went on; Francois made a new scheme for a national army, though
in practice he preferred the tyrant’s arm, the foreign mercenary. From
his day till the Revolution the French army was largely composed of
bodies of men tempted out of other countries, chiefly from Switzerland or
Germany.