to the count of Luxembourg, who yielded her to the Duke of
Burgundy, who surrendered her to the English, who delivered
her to the Inquisition, by which she was tried, condemned and
burned to death, at Rouen, as a witch (May 30, 1431). "It was
a complex crime, in which each party got rid of
responsibility, but in which the accusation rests with Paris
[the University of Paris was foremost among the pursuers of
the wonderful Maid], the cowardice with Luxembourg, the
sentence with the Inquisition, the blame and punishment with
England, and the disgrace and ingratitude with France. This
bartering about Joan by her enemies, of whom the fiercest were
her countrymen, had lasted six months. ... During these six
months, the influence of this goddess of war upon the troops
of Charles VII.--her spirit, which still guided the camp and
council of the king--the patriotic, though superstitious,
veneration of the people, which her captivity only
doubled,--and, lastly, the absence of the Duke of Burgundy,
... all these causes had brought reverse after reverse upon
the English, and a series of successes to Charles VII. Joan,
although absent, triumphed everywhere."
A. de Lamartine,
Memoirs of Celebrated Characters: Joan of Arc.
"It seems natural to ask what steps the King of France had
taken ... to avert her doom. If ever there had been a
sovereign indebted to a subject, that sovereign was Charles
VII., that subject Joan of Arc. ... Yet, no sooner was she
captive than she seems forgotten. We hear nothing of any
attempt at rescue, of any proposal for ransom; neither the
most common protest against her trial, nor the faintest threat
of reprisals; nay, not even after her death, one single
expression of regret! Charles continued to slumber in his
delicious retreats beyond the Loire, engrossed by dames of a
very different character from Joan's, and careless of the
heroine to whom his security in that indolence was due. Her
memory on the other hand was long endeared to the French
people, and long did they continue to cherish a romantic hope
that she might still survive.
{1177}
So strong was this feeling, that in the year 1436 advantage
was taken of it by a female imposter, who pretended to be Joan
of Arc escaped from her captivity. She fixed her abode at
Metz, and soon afterwards married a knight of good family, the
Sire des Armoises. Strange to say, it appears from a contemporary
chronicle, that Joan's two surviving brothers acknowledged
this woman as their sister. Stranger still, other records
prove that she made two visits to Orleans, one before and one
after her marriage, and on each occasion was hailed as the
heroine returned. ... The brothers of Joan of Arc might
possibly have hopes of profit by the fraud; but how the people
of Orleans, who had seen her so closely, who had fought side
by side with her in the siege, could be deceived as to the
person, we cannot understand, nor yet what motive they could
have in deceiving. The interest which Joan of Arc inspires at
the present day extends even to the house where she dwelt, and
to the family from which she sprung. Her father died of grief
at the tidings of her execution; her mother long survived it,
but fell into great distress. Twenty years afterwards we find
her in receipt of a pension from the city of Orleans; three
francs a month; 'to help her to live.' Joan's brothers and
their issue took, the name of Du Lis from the Lily of France,
which the King had assigned as their arms. ... It will be easy
to trace the true character of Joan. ... Nowhere do modern
annals display a character more pure--more generous--more
humble amidst fancied visions and undoubted victories--more
free from all taint of selfishness--more akin to the champions
and martyrs of old times. All this is no more than justice and
love of truth would require us to say. But when we find some
French historians, transported by an enthusiasm almost equal
to that of Joan herself, represent her us filling the part of
a general or statesman--as skilful in leading armies, or
directing councils--we must withhold our faith. Such skill,
indeed, from a country girl, without either education or
experience, would be, had she really possessed it, scarcely
less supernatural than the visions which she claimed. But the
facts are far otherwise. In affairs of state, Joan's voice was
never heard; in affairs of war, all her proposals will be
found to resolve themselves into two--either to rush headlong
upon the enemy, often in the very point where he was
strongest, or to offer frequent and public prayers to the
Almighty. We are not aware of any single instance in which her
military suggestions were not these, or nearly akin to these.
... Of Joan's person no authentic resemblance now remains. A
statue to her memory had been raised upon the bridge at
Orleans, at the sole charge ... of the matrons and maids of
that city: this probably preserved some degree of likeness,
but unfortunately perished in the religious wars of the
sixteenth century. There is no portrait extant; the two
earliest engravings are of 1606 and 1612, and they greatly
differ."
Lord Mahon,
Historical Essays,
pages 53-57.
"A few days before her death, when urged to resume her woman's
dress, she said: 'When I shall have accomplished that for
which I was sent from God, I will take the dress of a woman.'
Yet, in one sense her mission did end at Rheims. The faith of
the people still followed her, but her enemies--not the
English, but those in the heart of the court of Charles--began
to be too powerful for her. We may, indeed, conceive what a
hoard of envy and malice was gathering in the hearts of those
hardened politicians at seeing themselves superseded by a
peasant girl. They, accustomed to dark and tortuous ways,
could not comprehend or coalesce with the divine simplicity of
her designs and means. A successful intrigue was formed
against her. It was resolved to keep her still in the camp as
a name and a figure, but to take from her all power, all voice
in the direction of affairs. So accordingly it was done. ...
Her ways and habits during the year she was in arms are
attested by a multitude of witnesses. Dunois and the Duke of
Alençon bear testimony to what they term her extraordinary
talents for war, and to her perfect fearlessness in action;
but in all other things she was the most simple of creatures.
She wept when she first saw men slain in battle, to think that
they should have died without confession. She wept at the
abominable epithets which the English heaped upon her; but she
was without a trace of vindictiveness. 'Ah, Glacidas, Glacidas!'
she said to Sir William Glasdale at Orleans, 'you have called
me foul names; but I have pity upon your soul and the souls of
your men. Surrender to the King of Heaven!' And she was once
seen, resting the head of a wounded Englishman on her lap,
comforting and consoling him. In her diet she was abstemious
in the extreme, rarely eating until evening, and then for the
most part, only of bread and water sometimes mixed with wine.
In the field she slept in her armour, but when she came into a
city she always sought out some honourable matron, under whose
protection she placed herself; and there is wonderful evidence
of the atmosphere of purity which she diffused around her, her
very presence banishing from men's hearts all evil thoughts
and wishes. Her conversation, when it was not of the war, was
entirely of religion. She confessed often, and received
communion twice in the week. 'And it was her custom,' says
Dunois, 'at twilight every day, to retire to the church and
make the bells be rung for half an hour, and she gathered the
mendicant religious who followed the King's army, and made
them sing an antiphon of the Blessed Mother of God.' From
presumption, as from superstition, she was entirely free. When
women brought her crosses and chaplets to bless, she said:
'How can I bless them? Your own blessing would be as good as
mine.'"
J. O'Hagan,
Joan of Arc,
pages 61-66.
"What is to be thought of her? What is to be thought of the
poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine,
that--like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests
of Judea--rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety,
out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral
solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more
perilous station at the right hand of kings? The Hebrew boy
inaugurated his patriotic mission by an act, by a victorious
act, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of
Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw
her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no
pretender; but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the
voices of all who saw them from a station of good-will, both
were found true and loyal to any promises involved in their
first acts. Enemies it was that made the difference between
their subsequent fortunes.
{1178}
The boy rose to a splendour, and a noonday prosperity, both
personal and public, that rang through the records of his
people, and became a by-word amongst his posterity for a
thousand years, until the sceptre was departing from Judah.
The poor, forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself
from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. ...
This pure creature--pure from every suspicion of even a
visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in senses more
obvious--never once did this holy child, as regarded herself,
relax from her belief in the darkness that was travelling to
meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her
death; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of
the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end on every road
pouring into Rouen as to a coronation, the surging smoke, the
volleying flames, the hostile faces all around, the pitying
eye that lurked but here and there, until nature and
imperishable truth broke loose from artificial
restraints;--these might not be apparent through the mists of
the hurrying future. But the voice that called her to death,
that she heard for ever."
T. De Quincey,
Joan of Arc (Collected Writings, volume 5).
A discussion of doubts that have been raised concerning the
death of Joan at the stake will be found in
Octave Delepierre's
Historical Difficulties and Contested Events,
chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 10.
E. de Monstrelet,
Chronicles (Johnes' translation),
book 2, chapters 57-105.
H. Parr,
Life and Death of Joan of Arc.
J. Tuckey,
Joan of Arc.
Mrs. A. E. Bray,
Joan of Arc.
FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453.
The English expelled.
"In Joan of Arc the English certainly destroyed the cause of
their late reverses. But the impulse had been given, and the
crime of base vengeance could not stay it. Fortune declared
every where and in every way against them. In vain was Henry
VI. brought to Paris, crowned at Notre Dame, and made to
exercise all the functions of royalty in court and parliament.
The duke of Burgundy, disgusted with the English, became at
last reconciled to Charles; who spared no sacrifice to win the
support of so powerful a subject. The amplest possible amends
were made for the murder of the late duke. The towns beyond
the Somme were ceded to Burgundy, and the reigning duke [but
not his successors] was exempted from all homage towards the
king of France. Such was the famous treaty of Arras [September
21, 1435], which restored to Charles his throne, and deprived
the English of all hopes of retaining their conquests in the
kingdom. The crimes and misrule of the Orleans faction were
forgotten; popularity ebbed in favour of Charles. ... One of
the gates of Paris was betrayed by the citizens to the
constable and Dunois [April, 1436]. Willoughby, the governor,
was obliged to shut himself up in the Bastile with his
garrison, from whence they retired to Rouen. Charles VII.
entered his capital, after twenty years' exclusion from it, in
November, 1437. Thenceforward the war lost its serious
character. Charles was gradually established on his throne,
and the struggle between the two nations was feebly carried
on, broken merely by a few sieges and enterprises, mostly to
the disadvantage of the English. ... There had been frequent
endeavours and conferences towards a peace between the French
and English. The demands on either side proved irreconcilable.
A truce was however concluded, in 1444, which lasted four
years; it was sealed by the marriage of Henry VI. with
Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Réné, and granddaughter of
Louis, who had perished while leading an army to the conquest
of Naples. ... In 1449 the truce was allowed to expire. The
quarrels of York and Lancaster had commenced, and England was
unable to defend her foreign possessions. Normandy was
invaded. The gallant Talbot could not preserve Rouen with a
disaffected population, and Charles recovered without loss of
blood [1449] the second capital of his dominions. The only
blow struck by the English for the preservation of Normandy
was at Fourmigny near Bayeux. ... Normandy was for ever lost
to the English after this action or skirmish. The following
year Guyenne was invaded by the count de Dunois. He met with
no resistance. The great towns at that day had grown wealthy,
and their maxim was to avoid a siege at all hazards." Lord
Talbot was killed in an engagement at Castillon (1450), and
"with that hero expired the last hopes of his country in
regard to France. Guyenne was lost [A. D. 1453] as well as
Normandy, and Calais remained to England the only fruit of so
much blood spilt and so many victories achieved."
E. E. Crowe,
History of France,
volume 1, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 11.
E. de Monstrelet,
Chronicles (Johnes' translation),
book 2, chapter 109, book 3, chapter 65.
See, also,
AQUITAINE: A. D. 1360-1453.
FRANCE: A. D. 1438.
Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII.
Reforming decrees of the Council of Basel adopted for the
Gallican church.
After the rupture between the reforming Council of Basel and
Pope Eugenius IV. (see PAPACY: A. D. 1431-1448), Charles VII.
of France "determined to adopt in his own kingdom such of the
decrees of the Council as were for his advantage, seeing that
no opposition could be made by the Pope. Accordingly a Synod
was summoned at Bourges on May 1, 1438. The embassadors of
Pope and Council urged their respective causes. It was agreed
that the King should write to Pope and Council to stay their
hands in proceeding against one another; meanwhile, that the
reformation be not lost, some of the Basel decrees should be
maintained in France by royal authority. The results of the
synod's deliberation were laid before the King, and on July 7
were made binding as a pragmatic sanction on the French
Church. The Pragmatic Sanction enacted that General Councils
were to be held every ten years, and recognised the authority
of the Council of Basel. The Pope was no longer to reserve any
of the greater ecclesiastical appointments, but elections were
to be duly made by the rightful patrons. Grants to benefices
in expectancy, 'whence all agree that many evils arise,' were
to cease, as well as reservations. In all cathedral churches,
one prebend was to be given to a theologian who had studied
for ten years in a university, and who was to lecture or
preach at least once a week. Benefices were to be conferred in
future, one-third on graduates, two-thirds on deserving
clergy. Appeals to Rome, except for important causes, were
forbidden. The number of Cardinals was to be 24, each of the
age of 30 at least. Annates and first-fruits were no longer to
be paid to the Pope, but only the necessary legal fees on
institution. Regulations were made for greater reverence in
the conduct of Divine service; prayers were to be said by the
priest in an audible voice; mummeries in churches were
forbidden, and clerical concubinage was to be punished by
suspension for three months. Such were the chief reforms of
its own special grievances, which France wished to establish.
It was the first step in the assertion of the rights of
national Churches to arrange for themselves the details of
their own ecclesiastical organisation."
M. Creighton,
History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation,
book 3, chapter 9 (volume 2).
{1179}
FRANCE: A. D. 1447.
Origin of the claims of the house of Orleans to the duchy of
Milan.
See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.
FRANCE: A. D. 1453-1461.
The reconstructed kingdom.
The new plant of Absolutism.
"At the expulsion of the English, France emerged from the
chaos with an altered character and new features of
government. The royal authority and supreme jurisdiction of
the parliament were universally recognised. Yet there was a
tendency towards insubordination left among the great
nobility, arising in part from the remains of old feudal
privileges, but still more from that lax administration which,
in the convulsive struggles of the war, had been suffered to
prevail. In the south were some considerable vassals, the
houses of Foix, Albret, and Armagnac, who, on account of their
distance from the seat of empire, had always maintained a very
independent conduct. The dukes of Britany and Burgundy were of
a more formidable character, and might rather be ranked among
foreign powers than privileged subjects. The princes, too, of
the royal blood, who, during the late reign, had learned to
partake or contend for the management, were ill-inclined
towards Charles VII., himself jealous, from old recollections
of their ascendancy. They saw that the constitution was
verging rapidly towards an absolute monarchy, from the
direction of which they would studiously be excluded. This
apprehension gave rise to several attempts at rebellion during
the reign of Charles VII., and to the war, commonly entitled,
for the Public Weal ('du bien public'), under Louis XI. Among
the pretenses alleged by the revolters in each of these, the
injuries of the people were not forgotten; but from the people
they received small support. Weary of civil dissension, and
anxious for a strong government to secure them from
depredation, the French had no inducement to intrust even
their real grievances to a few malcontent princes, whose
regard for the common good they had much reason to distrust.
Every circumstance favoured Charles VII. and his son in the
attainment of arbitrary power. The country was pillaged by
military ruffians. Some of these had been led by the dauphin
to a war in Germany, but the remainder still infested the high
roads and villages. Charles established his companies of
ordonnance, the basis of the French regular army, in order to
protect the country from such depredators. They consisted of
about nine thousand soldiers, all cavalry, of whom fifteen
hundred were heavy-armed; a force not very considerable, but
the first, except mere body-guards, which had been raised in
any part of Europe as a national standing army. These troops
were paid out of the produce of a permanent tax, called the
taille; an innovation still more important than the former.
But the present benefit cheating the people, now prone to
submissive habits, little or no opposition was made, except in
Guienne, the inhabitants of which had speedy reason to regret
the mild government of England, and vainly endeavoured to
return to its protection. It was not long before the new
despotism exhibited itself in its harshest character. Louis
XI., son of Charles VII., who during his father's reign, had
been connected with the discontented princes, came to the
throne greatly endowed with those virtues and vices which
conspire to the success of a king."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 1, part 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1458-1461.
Renewed submission of Genoa to the King, and renewed revolt.
See GENOA: A. D. 1458-1464.
FRANCE: A. D. 1461.
Accession of King Louis XI.
Contemporary portrait of him by Commines.
"Of all the princes that I ever knew, the wisest and most
dexterous to extricate himself out of any danger or difficulty
in time of adversity, was our master King Louis XI. He was the
humblest in his conversation and habit, and the most painful
and indefatigable to win over any man to his side that he
thought capable of doing him either mischief or service:
though he was often refused, he would never give over a man
that he wished to gain, but still pressed and continued his
insinuations, promising him largely, and presenting him with
such sums and honours as he knew would gratify his ambition;
and for such as he had discarded in time of peace and
prosperity, he paid dear (when he had occasion for them) to
recover them again; but when he had once reconciled them, he
retained no enmity towards them for what had passed, but
employed them freely for the future. He was naturally kind and
indulgent to persons of mean estate, and hostile to all great
men who had no need of him. Never prince was so conversable,
nor so inquisitive as he, for his desire was to know everybody
he could; and indeed he knew all persons of any authority or
worth in England, Spain, Portugal and Italy, in the
territories of the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretagne, and among
his own subjects; and by those qualities he preserved the
crown upon his head, which was in much danger by the enemies
he had created to himself upon his accession to the throne.
But above all, his great bounty and liberality did him the
greatest service: and yet, as he behaved himself wisely in
time of distress, so when he thought himself a little out of
danger, though it were but by a truce, he would disoblige the
servants and officers of his court by mean and petty ways,
which were little to his advantage; and as for peace, he could
hardly endure the thoughts of it. He spoke slightingly of most
people, and rather before their faces, than behind their
backs, unless he was afraid of them, and of that sort there
were a great many, for he was naturally somewhat timorous.
When he had done himself any prejudice by his talk, or was
apprehensive he should do so, and wished to make amends, he
would say to the person whom he had disobliged, 'I am sensible
my tongue has done me a great deal of mischief; but, on the
other hand, it has sometimes done me much good; however, it is
but reason I should make some reparation for the injury.' And
he never used this kind of apologies to any person, but he
granted some favour to the person to whom he made it, and it
was always of considerable amount. It is certainly a great
blessing from God upon any prince to have experienced
adversity as well as prosperity, good as well as evil, and
especially if the good outweighs the evil, as it did in the
king our master.
{1180}
I am of opinion that the troubles he was involved in, in his
youth, when he fled from his father, and resided six years
together with Philip Duke of Burgundy, were of great service
to him; for there he learned to be complaisant to such as he
had occasion to use, which was no slight advantage of
adversity. As soon as he found himself a powerful and crowned
king, his mind was wholly bent upon revenge; but he quickly
found the inconvenience of this, repented by degrees of his
indiscretion, and made sufficient reparation for his folly and
error, by regaining those he had injured, as shall be related
hereafter. Besides, I am very confident that if his education
had not been different from the usual education of such nobles
as I have seen in France, he could not so easily have worked
himself out of his troubles; for they are brought up to
nothing but to make themselves ridiculous, both in their
clothes and discourse; they have no knowledge of letters; no
wise man is suffered to come near them, to improve their
understandings; they have governors who manage their business,
but they do nothing themselves."--Such is the account of Louis
XI. which Philip de Commines gives in one of the early
chapters of his delightful Memoirs. In a later chapter he
tells naively of the king's suspicions and fears, and of what
he suffered, at the end of his life, as the penalty of his
cruel and crafty dealings with his subjects: "Some five or six
months before his death, he began to suspect everybody,
especially those who were most capable and deserving of the
administration of affairs. He was afraid of his son, and
caused him to be kept close, so that no man saw or discoursed
with him, but by his special command. At last he grew
suspicious of his daughter, and of his son-in-law the Duke of
Bourbon, and required an account of what persons came to speak
with them at Plessis, and broke up a council which the Duke of
Bourbon was holding there, by his order. ... Behold, then, if
he had caused many to live under him in continual fear and
apprehension, whether it was not returned to him again; for of
whom could he be secure when he was afraid of his son-in-law,
his daughter, and his own son? I speak this not only of him,
but of all other princes who desire to be feared, that
vengeance never falls on them till they grow old, and then, as
a just penance, they are afraid of everybody themselves; and
what grief must it have been to this poor King to be tormented
with such terrors and passions? He was still attended by his
physician, Master James Coctier, to whom in five months' time
he had given fifty-four thousand crowns in ready money,
besides the bishopric of Amiens for his nephew, and other
great offices and estates for himself and his friends; yet
this doctor used him very roughly indeed; one would not have
given such outrageous language to one's servants as he gave
the King, who stood in such awe of him, that he durst not
forbid him his presence. It is true he complained of his
impudence afterwards, but he durst not change him as he had
done all the rest of his servants; because he had told him
after a most audacious manner one day, 'I know well that some
time or other you will dismiss me from court, as you have done
the rest; but be sure (and he confirmed it with a great oath)
you shall not live eight days after it'; with which expression
the King was so terrified, that ever after he did nothing but
flatter and bribe him, which must needs have been a great
mortification to a prince who had been humbly obeyed all his
life by so many good and brave men. The King had ordered
several cruel prisons to be made; some were cages of iron, and
some of wood, but all were covered with iron plates both
within and without, with terrible locks, about eight feet wide
and seven high; the first contriver of them was the Bishop of
Verdun, who was immediately put in the first of them that was
made, where he continued fourteen years. Many bitter curses he
has had since for his invention, and some from me as I lay in
one of them eight months together in the minority of our
present King. He also ordered heavy and terrible fetters to be
made in Germany, and particularly a certain ring for the feet,
which was extremely hard to be opened, and fitted like an iron
collar, with a thick weighty chain, and a great globe of iron
at the end of it, most unreasonably heavy, which engines were
called the King's Nets. ... As in his time this barbarous
variety of prisons was invented, so before he died he himself
was in greater torment, and more terrible apprehension than
those whom he had imprisoned; which I look upon as a great
mercy towards him, and as it part of his purgatory; and I have
mentioned it here to show that there is no person, of what
station or dignity soever, but suffers some time or other,
either publicly or privately, especially if he has caused
other people to suffer. The King, towards the latter end of
his days, caused his castle of Plessis-les-Tours to be
encompassed with great bars of iron in the form of thick
grating, and at the four corners of the house four
sparrow-nests of iron, strong, massy, and thick, were built.
The grates were without the wall on the other side of the
ditch, and sank to the bottom. Several spikes of iron were
fastened into the wall, set as thick by one another as was
possible, and each furnished with three or four points. He
likewise placed ten bow-men in the ditches, to shoot at any
man that durst approach the castle before the opening of the
gates; and he ordered they should lie in the ditches, but
retire to the sparrow-nests upon occasion. He was sensible
enough that this fortification was too weak to keep out an
army, or any great body of men, but he had no fear of such an
attack; his great apprehension was, that some of the nobility
of his kingdom, having intelligence within, might attempt to
make themselves masters of the castle by night. ... Is it
possible then to keep a prince (with any regard to his
quality) in a closer prison than he kept himself? The cages
which were made for other people were about eight feet square;
and he (though so great a monarch) had but a small court of
the castle to walk in, and seldom made use of that, but
generally kept himself in the gallery, out of which he went
into the chambers on his way to mass, but never passed through
the court. ... I have not recorded these things merely to
represent our master as a suspicious and mistrustful prince;
but to show, that by the patience which he expressed in his
sufferings (like those which he inflicted on other people),
they may be looked upon, in my judgment, as a punishment which
our Lord inflicted upon him in this world, in order to deal
more mercifully with him in the next, as well in regard to
those things before-mentioned as to the distempers of his
body, which were great and painful, and much dreaded by him
before they came upon him; and, likewise, that those princes
who may be his successors, may learn by his example to be more
tender and indulgent to their subjects, and less severe in
their punishments than our master had been: although I will
not censure him, or say I ever saw a better prince; for though
he oppressed his subjects himself he would never see them
injured by anybody else."
Philip de Commines,
Memoirs,
book 1, chapter 10,
and book 6, chapter 11.
{1181}
FRANCE: A. D. 1461-1468.
The character and reign of Louis XI.
The League of the Public Weal.
"Except St. Louis, he [Louis XI.] was the first, as, indeed
(with the solitary exception of Louis Philippe), he is still
the only king of France whose mind was ever prepared for the
duties of that high station by any course of severe and
systematic study. Before he ascended the throne of his
ancestors he had profoundly meditated the great Italian
authors, and the institutions and maxims of the Italian
republics. From those lessons he had derived a low esteem of
his fellowmen, and especially of those among them upon whom
wealth, and rank, and power had descended as an hereditary
birthright. ... He clearly understood, and pursued with
inflexible steadfastness of purpose the elevation of his
country and the grandeur of his own royal house and lineage;
but he pursued them with a torpid imagination, a cold heart,
and a ruthless will. He regarded mankind as a physiologist
contemplates the living subjects of his science, or as a
chess-player surveys the pieces on his board. ... It has been
said of Louis XI., that the appearance of the men of the
Revolution of 1789 first made him intelligible. ... Louis was
the first of the terrible Ideologists of France--of that class
of men who, to enthrone an idolized idea, will offer whole
hecatombs of human sacrifices at the shrine of their idol. The
Idea of Louis was that of levelling all powers in the state,
in order that the administration of the affairs, the
possession of the wealth, and the enjoyment of the honours of
his kingdom might be grasped by himself and his successors as
their solitary and unrivalled dominion. ... Before his
accession to the throne, all the great fiefs into which France
had been divided under the earlier Capetian kings had, with
the exception of Bretagne, been either annexed to the royal
domain, or reduced to a state of dependence on the crown. But,
under the name of Apanages, these ancient divisions of the
kingdom into separate principalities had reappeared. The
territorial feudalism of the Middle Ages seemed to be reviving
in the persons of the younger branches of the royal house. The
Dukes of Burgundy had thus become the rulers of a state [see
BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467] which, under the government of more
politic princes, might readily, in fulfillment of their
desires, have attained the rank of an independent kingdom. The
Duke of Bretagne, still asserting the peculiar privileges of
his duchy, was rather an ally than a subject of the king of
France. Charles, Duke of Berri, the brother of Louis, aspired
to the possession of the same advantages. And these three
great territorial potentates, in alliance with the Duc de
Bourbon and the Comte de St. Pol, the brothers-in-law of Louis
and of his queen, united together to form that confederacy
against him to which they gave the very inappropriate title of
La Ligue du Bien Public. It was, however, a title which
recognized the growing strength of the Tiers Étât, and of that
public opinion to which the Tiers Étât at once gave utterance
and imparted authority. Selfish ambition was thus compelled to
assume the mask of patriotism. The princes veiled their
insatiable appetite for their own personal advantages under
the popular and plausible demands of administrative
reforms--of the reduction of imposts--of the government of
the people by their representatives--and, consequently, of the
convocation of the States-General. To these pretensions Louis
was unable to make any effectual resistance." An indecisive
but bloody battle was fought at Montlehery, near Paris (July
16, 1465), from which both armies retreated with every
appearance of defeat. The capital was besieged ineffectually
for some weeks by the League; then the king yielded, or seemed
to do so, and the Treaty of Conflans was signed. "He assented,
in terms at least, to all the demands of his antagonists. He
granted to the Duke of Berri the duchy of Normandy as an
apanage transmissible in perpetuity to his male heirs. ... The
confederates then laid down their arms. The wily monarch bided
his time. He had bestowed on them advantages which he well
knew would destroy their popularity and so subvert the basis
of their power, and which he also knew the state of public
opinion would not allow them to retain. To wrest those
advantages from their hands, it was only necessary to comply
with their last stipulation, and to convene the
States-General. They met accordingly, at Tours, on the 6th of
April, 1468." As Louis had anticipated--or, rather, as he had
planned--the States-General cancelled the grant of Normandy to
the Duke of Berri (which the king had been able already to
recover possession of, owing to quarrels between the dukes of
Berri and Brittany) and, generally, took away from the princes
of the League nearly all that they had extorted in the Treaty
of Conflans. On the express invitation of the king they
appointed a commission to reform abuses in the
government--which commission "attempted little and effected
nothing"--and, then, having assisted the cunning king to
overcome his threatening nobles, the States-General were
dissolved, to meet no more while Louis XI. occupied the
throne. In a desperate situation he had used the dangerous
weapon against his enemies with effect; he was too prudent to
draw it from the sheath a second time.
Sir J. Stephen,
Lectures on the History of France,
lecture 11.
"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