Part 131

"The career of Louis XI. presents a curious problem. How could a ruler whose morality fell below that of Jonathan Wild yet achieve some of the greatest permanent results of patriotic statesmanship, and be esteemed not only by himself but by so calm an observer as Commines the model of kingly virtue? As to Louis's moral character and principles, or want of principle, not a doubt can be entertained. To say he committed the acts of a villain is to fall far short of the truth. ... He possessed a kind of religious belief, but it was a species of religion which a respectable heathen would have scorned. He attempted to bribe heaven, or rather the saints, just as he attempted to win over his Swiss allies--that is, by gifts of money. ... Yet this man, who was daunted by no cruelty, and who could be bound by no oath save one, did work which all statesmen must admire, and which French patriots must fervently approve. {1182} He was the creator of modern France. When he came to the throne it seemed more than likely that an utterly selfish and treacherous nobility would tear the country in pieces. The English still threatened to repeat the horrors of their invasions. The House of Burgundy overbalanced the power of the crown, and stimulated lawlessness throughout the whole country. The peasantry were miserably oppressed, and the middle classes could not prosper for want of that rule of law which is the first requisite for civilization. When Louis died, the existence of France and the power of the French crown was secured: 'He had extended the frontiers of his kingdom; Picardy, Provence, Burgundy, Anjou, Maine, Roussillon had been compelled to acknowledge the immediate authority of the crown.' He had crushed the feudal oligarchy; he had seen his most dangerous enemy destroyed by the resistance of the Swiss; he had baffled the attempt to construct a state which would have imperilled the national existence of France; he had put an end to all risk of English invasion; and he left France the most powerful country in Europe. Her internal government was no doubt oppressive, but, at any rate, it secured the rule of law; and his schemes for her benefit were still unfinished. He died regretting that he could not carry out his plans for the reform of the law and for the protection of commerce; and, in the opinion of Commines, if God had granted him the grace of living five or six years more, he would greatly have benefited his realm. He died commending his soul to the intercession of the Virgin, and the last words caught from his lips were: 'Lord, in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.' Nor should this be taken as the expression of hopeless self-delusion or gratuitous hypocrisy. In the opinion of Commines, uttered after the king's death, 'he was more wise, more liberal, and more virtuous in all things than any contemporary sovereign.' The expressions of Commines were, it may be said, but the echo of the low moral tone of the age. This, no doubt, is true; but the fact that the age did not condemn acts which, taken alone, seem to argue the utmost depravity, still needs explanation. The matter is the more worthy of consideration because Louis represents, though in an exaggerated form, the vices and virtues of a special body of rulers. He was the incarnation, so to speak, of kingcraft. The word and the idea it represents have now become out of date, but for about two centuries--say, roughly, from the middle of the seventeenth century--the idea of a great king was that of a monarch who ruled by means of cunning, intrigue, and disregard of ordinary moral rules. We here come across the fact which explains both the career and the reputation of Louis and of others, such as Henry VII. of England, who were masters of kingcraft. The universal feeling of the time, shared by subjects no less than by rulers, was that a king was not bound by the rules of morality, and especially by the rules of honesty, which bind other men. Until you realize this fact, nothing is more incomprehensible than the adulation lavished by men such as Bacon or Casaubon on a ruler such as James I. ... The real puzzle is to ascertain how this feeling that kings were above the moral law came into existence. The facts of history afford the necessary explanation. When the modern European world was falling into shape the one thing required for national prosperity was the growth of a power which might check the disorders of the feudal nobility, and secure for the mass of the people the blessings of an orderly government. The only power which, in most cases, could achieve this end, was the crown. In England the monarchs put an end to the wars of the nobility. In France the growth of the monarchy secured not only internal quiet, but protection from external invasion. In these and in other cases the interest of the crown and the interest of the people became for a time identical. ... Acts which would have seemed villainous when done to promote a purely private interest, became mere devices of statesmanship when performed in the interest of the public. The maxims that the king can do no wrong, and that the safety of the people is the highest law, blended together in the minds of ambitious rulers. The result was the production of men like Louis XI."

_A. V. Dicey, Willert's Louis XI. (The Nation, December 7, 1876)._

"A careful examination of the reign of Louis the Eleventh has particularly impressed upon me one fact, that the ends for which he toiled and sinned throughout his whole life were attained at last rather by circumstances than by his labours. The supreme object of all his schemes was to crush that most formidable of all his foes, Burgundy. And yet had Charles confined his ambition within reasonable limits, had he possessed an ordinary share of statecraft, and, above all, could he have controlled those fiery passions, which drove him to the verge of madness, he would have won the game quite easily. Louis lacked one of the essential qualities of statecraft--patience; and was wholly destitute of that necessity of ambition--boldness. An irritable restlessness was one of the salient points of his character. His courtiers and attendants were ever intriguing to embroil him in war, 'because,' says Comines, 'the nature of the King was such, that unless he was at war with some foreign prince, he would certainly find some quarrel or other at home with his servants, domestics, or officers, for his mind must be always working.' His mood was ever changing, and he was by turns confiding, suspicious, avaricious, prodigal, audacious, and timid. He frequently nullified his most crafty schemes by impatience for the result. He would sow the seed with the utmost care, but he could not wait for the fructification. In this he was false to the practice of those Italian statesmen who were avowedly his models. It was this irritable restlessness which brought down upon him the hatred of all classes, from the noble to the serf; for we find him at one time cunningly bidding for popularity, and immediately afterwards destroying all he had gained by some rash and inconsiderate act. His extreme timidity hampered the execution of all his plans. He had not even the boldness of the coward who will fight when all the strength is on his own side. Constantly at war, during a reign of twenty-two years there were fought but two battles, Montlehéry and Guingette, both of which, strange to say, were undecided, and both of which were fought against his will and counsel. ... He left France larger by one-fourth than he had inherited it; but out of the five provinces which he acquired, Provence was bequeathed him, Roussillon was pawned to him by the usurping King of Navarre, and Burgundy was won for him by the Swiss. His triumphs were much more the result of fortune than the efforts of his own genius."

_Louis the Eleventh (Temple Bar, volume 46, pages 523-524)._

ALSO IN: _J. Michelet, History of France, book 13._

_P. F. Willert, The Reign of Louis XI._

_J. F. Kirk, History of Charles the Bold, book 1, chapters 4-6._

_P. de Commines, Memoirs, book 1._

_E. de Monstrelet, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), book 3, chapters 99-153._

{1183}

FRANCE: A. D. 1467-1477. The troubles of Louis XI. with Charles the Bold, of Burgundy. Death of the Duke and Louis' acquisition of Burgundy.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467-1468, to 1477.

FRANCE: A. D. 1483. The kingdom as left by Louis XI.

Louis XI., who died Aug. 30, A. D. 1483, "had joined to the crown Berry, the apanage of his brother, Provence, the duchy of Burgundy, Anjou, Maine, Ponthieu, the counties of Auxerre, of Mâcon, Charolais, the Free County, Artois, Marche, Armagnac, Cerdagne, and Roussilon. ... The seven latter provinces did not yet remain irrevocably united with France: one part was given anew in apanage, and the other part restored to foreign sovereigns, and only returned one by one to the crown of France. ... The principal work of Louis XI. was the abasement of the second feudality, which had raised itself on the ruins of the first, and which, without him, would have replunged France into anarchy. The chiefs of that feudality were, however, more formidable, since, for the most part, they belonged to the blood royal of France. Their powerful houses, which possessed at the accession of that prince a considerable part of the kingdom, were those of Orleans, Anjou, Burgundy, and Bourbon. They found themselves much weakened at his death, and dispossessed in great part, as we have seen in the history of the reign, by confiscations, treaties, gifts or heritages. By the side of these houses, which issued from that of France, there were others whose power extended still, at this period, in the limits of France proper, over vast domains. Those of Luxembourg and La Mark possessed great wealth upon the frontier of the north; that of Vaudemont had inherited Lorraine and the duchy of Bar; the house of La Tour was powerful in Auvergne; in the south the houses of Foix and Albert ruled, the first in the valley of Ariége, the second between the Adour and the Pyrenees. In the west the house of Brittany had guarded its independence; but the moment approached when this beautiful province was to be forever united with the crown. Lastly, two foreign sovereigns held possessions in France; the Pope had Avignon and the county Venaissin; and the Duke of Savoy possessed, between the Rhone and the Saône, Bugey and Valromey. The time was still distant when the royal authority would be seen freely exercised through every territory comprised in the natural limits of the kingdom. But Louis XI. did much to attain this aim, and after him no princely or vassal house was powerful enough to resist the crown by its own forces, and to put the throne in peril."

_E. de Bonnechose, History of France, volume 1, pages 315-318, and foot-note._

FRANCE: A. D. 1483. Accession of King Charles VIII.

FRANCE: A. D. 1485-1487. The League of the Princes.

Charles VIII., son and successor of Louis XI., came to the throne at the age of thirteen, on the death of his father in 1483. His eldest sister, Anne, married to the Lord of Beaujeu, made herself practically regent of the kingdom, by sheer ability and force of character; and ruled during the minority, pursuing the lines of her father's policy. The princes of the blood-royal, with the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon at their head, formed a league against her. They were supported by many nobles, including Philip de Commines, the Count of Dunois and the Prince of Orange. They also received aid from the Duke of Brittany, and from Maximilian of Austria, who now controlled the Netherlands. Anne's general, La Trémouille, defeated the league in a decisive battle (A. D. 1487) near St. Aubin du Cormier, where the Duke of Orleans, the Prince of Orange, and many nobles and knights were made prisoners. The Duke and the Prince were sent to Anne, who shut them up in strong places, while most of their companions were summarily executed.

_E. de Bonnechose, History of France, volume 1, book 3, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, ch. 26._

FRANCE: A. D. 1491. Brittany, the last of the great fiefs, united to the crown. The end of the Feudal System.

See BRITTANY: A. D. 1491.

FRANCE: A. D. 1492-1515. The reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. Their Italian Expeditions and Wars. The effects on France. Beginning of the Renaissance.

Louis XI. was succeeded by his son, Charles VIII., a boy of thirteen years, whose elder sister Anne governed the kingdom ably until he came of age. She dealt firmly with a rebellion of the nobles and suppressed it. She frustrated an intended marriage of Anne of Brittany with Maximilian of Austria, which would have drawn the last of the great semi-independent fiefs into a dangerous relationship, and she made Charles instead of his rival the husband of the Breton heiress. When Charles, who had little intelligence, assumed the government, he was excited with dreams of making good the pretensions of the Second House of Anjou to the Kingdom of Naples. Those pretensions, which had been bequeathed to Louis XI., and which Charles VIII. had now inherited, had the following origin: "In the eleventh century, Robert Guiscard, of the Norman family of Hauteville, at the head of a band of adventurers, took possession of Sicily and South Italy, then in a state of complete anarchy. Roger, the son of Robert, founded the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies under the Pope's suzerainty. In 1189 the Guiscard family became extinct, whereupon the German Emperor laid claim to the kingdom in right of his wife Constance, daughter of one of the Norman kings. The Roman Pontiffs, dreading such powerful neighbours, were adverse to the arrangement, and in 1254 King Conrad, being succeeded by his son Conradin, still a minor, furnished a pretext for bestowing the crown of the Two Sicilies on Charles d' Anjou, brother of St. Louis. Manfred, guardian of the boy Conradin, and a natural son of the Emperor Frederick II., raised an army against Charles d' Anjou, but was defeated, and fell in the encounter of 1266. Two years later, Prince Conradin was cruelly beheaded in Naples. Before his death, however, he made a will, by which he invested Peter III. of Aragon, son-in-law of Manfred, with full power over the Two Sicilies, exhorting him to avenge his death [see ITALY: A. D. 1250-1268]. {1184} This bequest was the origin of the rivalry between the houses of Aragon and Anjou, a rivalry which developed into open antagonism when the island of Sicily was given up to Peter of Aragon and his descendants, while Charles d' Anjou still held Naples for himself and his heirs [see ITALY: A. D. 1282-1300]. In 1435 Joan II., Queen of Naples, bequeathed her estates to Alfonso V. of Aragon, surnamed the Magnanimous, to the exclusion of Louis III. of Anjou. After a long and bloody struggle, Alfonso succeeded in driving the Anjou dynasty out of Naples [see ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389, and 1386-1414]. Louis III. was the last representative of this once-powerful family. He returned to France, survived his defeat two-and-twenty years, and by his will left all his rights to the Count of Maine, his nephew, who, on his death, transferred them to Louis XI. The wily Louis was not tempted to claim this worthless legacy. His successor, Charles VIII., less matter-of-fact, and more romantic, was beguiled into a series of brilliant, though sterile, expeditions, disastrous to national interests, neglecting the Flemish provinces, the liege vassals of France, and thoroughly French at heart. Charles VIII. put himself at the head of his nobles, made a triumphal entry into Naples and returned without having gained an inch of territory [see ITALY: A. D. 1492-1494, and 1494-1496]. De Commines judges the whole affair a mystery; it was, in fact, one of those dazzling and chivalrous adventures with which the French delighted to astonish Europe. Louis XII., like Charles VIII. [whom he succeeded in 1498], proclaimed his right to Naples, and also to the Duchy of Milan, inherited from his grandmother, Valentine de Visconti. These pretended rights were more than doubtful. The Emperor Wenceslas, on conferring the duchy on the Viscontis, excluded women from the inheritance, and both Louis XI. and Charles VIII. recognised the validity of the Salic law in Milan by concluding an alliance with the Sforzas. The seventeen years of Louis XII.'s reign was absorbed in these Italian wars, in which the French invariably began by victory, and as invariably ended in defeat. The League of Cambrai, the Battles of Agnadel, Ravenna, Novara, the Treaties of Grenada and Blois, are the principal episodes of this unlucky campaign."

_C. Coignet, Francis the First and His Times, chapter 3._

See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500.

"The warriors of France came back from Italy with the wonders of the South on their lips and her treasures in their hands. They brought with them books and paintings, they brought with them armour inlaid with gold and silver, tapestries enriched with precious metals, embroidered clothing, and even household furniture. Distributed by many hands in many different places, each precious thing became a separate centre of initiative power. The châteaux of the country nobles boasted the treasures which had fallen to the share of their lords at Genoa or at Naples; and the great women of the court were eager to divide the spoil. The contagion spread rapidly. Even in the most fantastic moment of Gothic inspiration, the French artist gave evidence that his right hand obeyed a national instinct for order, for balance, for completeness, and that his eye preferred, in obedience to a national predilection, the most refined harmonies of colour. Step by step he had been feeling his way; now, the broken link of tradition was again made fast; the workmen of Paris and the workmen of Athens joined hands, united by the genius of Italy. It must not, however, be supposed that no intercourse had previously existed between France and Italy. The roads by Narbonne and Lyons were worn by many feet. The artists of Tours and Poitiers, the artists of Paris and Dijon, were alike familiar with the path to Rome. But an intercourse, hitherto restricted, was rendered by the wars of Charles VIII. all but universal. ... Cruelly as the Italians had suffered at the hands of Charles VIII. they still looked to France for help; they knew that though they had been injured they had not been betrayed. But the weak and generous impulses of Charles VIII. found no place in the councils of his successors. ... The doom of Italy was pronounced. Substantially the compact was this. Aided by Borgia, the French were to destroy the free cities of the north, and in return France was to aid Borgia in breaking the power of the independent nobles who yet resisted Papal aggression in the south. In July 1499 the work began. At first the Italians failed to realise what had taken place. When the French army entered the Milanese territory the inhabitants fraternised with the troops, Milan, Genoa, Pavia opened their gates with joy. But in a few months the course of events, in the south, aroused a dread anxiety. There, Borgia, under the protection of the French king, and with the assistance of the French arms, was triumphantly glutting his brutal rage and lust, whilst Frenchmen were forced to look on helpless and indignant. Milan, justly terrified, made an attempt to throw herself on the mercy of her old ruler. To no purpose. Louis went back over the Alps, leaving a strong hand and a strong garrison in Milan, and dragging with him the unfortunate Louis Sforza, a miserable proof of the final destruction of the most brilliant court of Upper Italy. ... By the campaign of 1507, the work, thus begun, was consummated. The ancient spirit of independence still lingered in Genoa, and Venice was not yet crushed. There were still fresh laurels to be won. In this Holy War the Pope and the Emperor willingly joined forces with France. ... The deathblow was first given to Genoa. She was forced, Marot tells us, 'la corde au coul, la glaive sous la gorge, implorer la clémence de ce prince.' Venice was next traitorously surprised and irreparably injured. Having thus brilliantly achieved the task of first destroying the lettered courts, and next the free cities of Italy, Louis died, bequeathing to François I. the shame of fighting out a hopeless struggle for supremacy against allies who, no longer needing help, had combined to drive the French from the field. There was, indeed, one other duty to be performed. The shattered remains of Italian civilisation might be collected, and Paris might receive the men whom Italy could no longer employ. The French returned to France empty of honour, gorged with plunder, satiated with rape and rapine, boasting of cities sacked, and garrisons put to the sword. They had sucked the lifeblood of Italy, but her death brought new life to France. The impetus thus acquired by art and letters coincided with a change in political and social constitutions. The gradual process of centralisation which had begun with Louis XI. transformed the life of the whole nation. ... The royal court began to take proportions hitherto unknown. {1185} It gradually became a centre which gathered together the rich, the learned, and the skilled. Artists, who had previously been limited in training, isolated in life, and narrowed in activity by the rigid conservative action of the great guilds and corporations, were thus brought into immediate contact with the best culture of their day. For the Humanists did not form a class apart, and their example incited those with whom they lived to effort after attainments as varied as their own, whilst the Court made a rallying point for all, which gave a sense of countenance and protection even to those who might never hope to enter it. ... Emancipation of the individual is the watchword of the sixteenth century; to the artist it brought relief from the trammels of a caste thraldom, and the ceaseless efforts of the Humanists find an answer even in the new forms seen slowly breaking through the sheath of Gothic art."

_Mrs. Mark Pattison, The Renaissance of Art in France, volume 1, chapter 1._

FRANCE: 16th Century. Renaissance and Reformation.