A Popular History of France From the Earliest Times, Volume 4

Volume Iv.

CONTENTS:

XXVIII. FRANCIS I. AND CHARLES V. 9

XXIX. FRANCIS I. AND THE RENAISSANCE. 137

XXX. FRANCIS I. AND THE REFORMATION. 179

XXXI. HENRY II. (1547-1559.) 230

XXXII. FRANCIS II. JULY 10, 1559--DECEMBER 5, 1560 269

XXXIII. CHARLES IX. AND THE RELIGIOUS WARS. (1560-1574.) 296

XXXIV. HENRY III. AND THE RELIGIOUS WARS. (1574-1589.) 388

LIST OF STEEL ENGRAVINGS:

THE CASTLE OF CHAIIIBORD. FRONTISPIECE.

FRANCIS I 137

GALLERY HENRY II 230

DIANA DE POITIERS 243

MARY STUART 270

HENRY OF LORRAINE (DUKE OF GUISE) 332

LIST OF WOOD-CUT ILLUSTRATIONS:

Cardinal Ximenes 14

All Night a-horseback 19

Bayard Knighting Francis I 19

Leo X. 21

Anthony Duprat 24

Charles V. 39

Francis I. surprises Henry VIII 44

The Field of the Cloth of Gold 45

The Constable de Bourbon 53

The Death of Bayard 76

Capture of Francis I. 91

Louise of Savoy and Marguerite de Valois 102

Francis I. 115

The Duke of Orleans and Charles V 128

Claude de Lorraine, Duke of Guise 130

St. Thomas Aquinas and Abelard 140

Clement Marot 162

Francis I. waits for Robert Estienne 168

Rabelais 171

The First Protestants 178

William Farel 181

The Castle of Pau 183

Burning of Reformers at Meaux 188

Erasmus 194

Berquin released by John de la Barre 198

Heretic Iconoclasts 201

Massacre of the Vaudians 218

Calvin 222

Henry II. 235

Anne de Montmorency 235

Guise at Metz 244

Francis II. and Mary Stuart love making. 251

Catherine de’ Medici (in her young days) 255

Joust between Henri II. and Count de Montgomery 268

Archers of the Body-guard 268

Francis II. 269

Death of La Renaudie 283

After-dinner Diversions 284

Mary Stuart 284

Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condo 285

Coligny at the Death-bed of Francis II. 295

Francis de Lorraine, Duke of Aumale and of Guise 302

Massacre of Protestants 305

The Duke of Guise waylaid 315

Conde at the Ford 328

Parley before the Battle of Moncontour 337

Admiral Gaspard de Coligny 346

Charles IX. and Catherine de’ Medici 354

Henry de Guise and the Corpse of Coligny 369

The Queen of Navarre and the Huguenot 372

Chancellor Michael de l’Hospital 376

The St. Bartholomew 383

Henry III. 388

Indolence of Henry III. 390

Henry le Balafre 400

The Castle of Blois 428

Henry III. and the Murder of Guise 437

Henry of Navarre and the Scotch Guard 448

A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES.

Chapter Xxviii.----Francis I. and Charles V.

The closer the study and the wider the contemplation a Frenchman bestows upon his country’s history, the deeper will be his feelings of patriotic pride, dashed with a tinge of sadness. France, in respect of her national unity, is the most ancient amongst the states of Christian Europe. During her long existence she has passed through very different regimens, the chaos of barbarism, the feudal system, absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, and republicanism. Under all these regimens she has had no lack of greatness and glory, material power and intellectual lustre, moral virtues and the charms of social life. Her barbarism had its Charlemagne; her feudal system St. Louis, Joan of Arc, and Bayard; her absolute monarchy Henry IV. and Louis XIV. Of our own times we say nothing. France has shone in war and in peace, through the sword and through the intellect: she has by turns conquered and beguiled, enlightened and troubled Europe; she has always offered to the foreigner a spectacle or an abode full of the curious and the attractive, of noble pleasures and of mundane amusements. And still, after so many centuries of such a grand and brilliant career, France has not yet attained the end to which she ever aspired, to which all civilized communities aspire, and that is, order in the midst of movement, security and liberty united and lasting. She has had shortcomings which have prevented her from reaping the full advantage of her merits; she has committed faults which have involved her in reverses. Two things, essential to political prosperity amongst communities of men, have hitherto been to seek in her; predominance of public spirit over the spirit of caste or of profession, and moderation and fixity in respect of national ambition both at home and abroad. France has been a victim to the personal passions of her chiefs and to her own reckless changeability.

We are entering upon the history of a period and a reign during which this intermixture of merits and demerits, of virtues and vices, of progress and backsliding, was powerfully and attractively exhibited amongst the French. Francis I., his government and his times commence the era of modern France, and bring clearly to view the causes of her greatnesses and her weaknesses.

Francis I. had received from God all the gifts that can adorn a man: he was handsome and tall and strong; his armor, preserved in the Louvre, is that of a man six feet high; his eyes were brilliant and soft, his smile was gracious, his manners were winning. From his very childhood he showed that he had wits, enterprise, skill, and boldness. He was but seven years old when, “on the day of the conversion of St. Paul, January 25, 1501, about two P. M., my king, my lord, my Caesar, and my son, was run away with, near Amboise, by a hackney which had been given him by Marshal de Gye; and so great was the danger that those who were present thought it was all over; howbeit God, the protector of widowed women and the defender of orphans, foreseeing things to come, was pleased not to forsake me, knowing that, if accident had so suddenly deprived me of my love, I should have been too utter a wretch.” Such is the account given of this little incident by his mother, Louise of Savoy, who was at that time habitually kept, by Anne of Brittany’s jealousy, at a distance from Paris and the court. [Journal de Louise de Savoie in the Petitot collection of Memoires sur l’Histoire de France, Series I. t. xvi. p. 390.] Some years later the young prince, who had become an ardent huntsman, took the fancy into his head one day to let loose in the courtyard of the castle of Amboise a wild boar which he had just caught in the forest. The animal came to a door, burst it open with a blow of his snout, and walked up into the apartments. Those who were there took to their heels; but Francis went after the boar, came up with him, killed him with a swordthrust, and sent him rolling down the staircase into the courtyard. When, in 1513, Louis XII. sent for the young Duke of Angouleme and bade him go and defend Picardy against the English, Francis had scarcely done anything beyond so employing his natural gifts as to delight the little court of which he was the centre; an estimable trait, but very insufficient for the government of a people.

When, two years afterwards, on the 1st of January, 1515, he ascended the throne before he had attained his one and twentieth year, it was a brilliant and brave but spoiled child that became king. He had been under the governance of Artus Gouffier, Sire de Boisy, a nobleman of Poitou, who had exerted himself to make his royal pupil a loyal knight, well trained in the moral code and all the graces of knighthood, but without drawing his attention to more serious studies or preparing him for the task of government. The young Francis d’Angouleme lived and was moulded under the influence of two women, his mother, Louise of Savoy, and his eldest sister, Marguerite, who both of them loved and adored him with passionate idolatry. It has just been shown in what terms Louise of Savoy, in her daily collection of private memoranda, used to speak to herself of her son, “My king, my lord, my Caesar, and my son!” She was proud, ambitious, audacious, or pliant at need, able and steadfast in mind, violent and dissolute in her habits, greedy of pleasure and of money as well as of power, so that she gave her son neither moral principles nor a moral example: for him the supreme kingship, for herself the rank, influence, and wealth of a queen-mother, and, for both, greatness that might subserve the gratification of their passions--this was all her dream and all her aim as a mother. Of quite another sort were the character and sentiments of Marguerite de Valois. She was born on the 11th of April, 1492, and was, therefore, only two years older than her brother Francis; but her more delicate nature was sooner and more richly cultivated and developed. She was brought up with strictness by a most excellent and most venerable dame, in whom all the virtues, at rivalry one with another, existed together. [Madame de Chatillon, whose deceased husband had been governor to King Charles VIII.] As she was discovered to have rare intellectual gifts and a very keen relish for learning, she was provided with every kind of preceptors, who made her proficient in profane letters, as they were then called. Marguerite learned Latin, Greek, philosophy, and especially theology. “At fifteen years of age,” says a contemporary, “the spirit of God began to manifest itself in her eyes, in her face, in her walk, in her speech, and. generally in all her actions.” “She had a heart,” says Brantome, “mighty devoted to God, and she loved mightily to compose spiritual songs. . . . She also devoted herself to letters in her young days, and continued them as long as she lived, loving and conversing with, in the time of her greatness, the most learned folks of her brother’s kingdom, who honored her so that they called her their Maecenas.” Learning, however, was far from absorbing the whole of this young soul. “She,” says a contemporary, “had an agreeable voice of touching tone, which roused the tender inclinations that there are in the heart.” Tenderness, a passionate tenderness, very early assumed the chief place in Marguerite’s soul, and the first object of it was her brother Francis. When mother, son, and sister were spoken of, they were called a Trinity, and to this Marguerite herself bore witness when she said, with charming modesty,--

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