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however, was throughout skilful and paternal; and the historians have surnamed him both the Good and the Wise.

In this fourteenth century an almost imperceptible progress was made by the human mind. While the capuchins were disputing, and even fighting on the question, whether their scourges should be made round or pointed, a Neapolitan invented the compass, and a Swiss cordelier gun-powder. Charles encouraged learning; he collected 900 volumes, which, however, treated of little else than astrology. Universities were multiplied, but they were only occupied in the study of theology and logic. At this time Sallust and Cæsar were translated into French, and a few other Latin works preserved in the monasteries. Some curious particulars of the domestic life of this prince are on record: he always rose at six o'clock; and having performed his private devotions, as well as attended mass, he gave audience to all who presented themselves, rich and poor, receiving their petitions, and reading them himself. At ten o'clock he dined, spending but a very short time at table, and eating only of one dish; he always diluted his wine with a considerable portion of water. During dinner he listened to the discourse of some learned man. After dinner he gave audience to foreign ambassadors, and then admitted his own ministers, to learn from them the state of the kingdom. At one o'clock he retired into his chamber and reposed himself; an hour afterwards his chamberlains entered and entertained him with light conversation; at three he attended vespers, and afterwards walked in his garden. On his return the queen brought in his children, whom he examined respecting their progress in education. In winter, instead of walking, he employed himself, it is said, in reading the Holy Scriptures. He took little supper, and early went to bed. Though he spent his time at home, in this plain and simple manner, he always appeared in public with considerable splendor. His dress was magnificent; the gens d'armes preceded him; his squires carried his ermine mantle, his sword, and his regal hat; and he walked always by himself, his brothers and the princes of the blood following him at some distance. He seems to have been fond of literature, and no present was more acceptable to him than books.

We now again come to one of the most unfortunate reigns in this history, that of Charles VI. He was a minor; his uncles, the former king's brothers, disputed for the regency, and the duke of Anjou, who obtained it, took the opportunity to enrich himself by a system of rapine. He had completely plundered the treasury, when the king came to age. The Parisians, however, rose, and refused to pay the taxes; when the government, intimidated, pretended to suppress them by an ordinance, and convened the states. These granted some subsidies; but, when the court wished to obtain others by arbitrary means, the people murdered the collectors. This is what is called the insurrection of the swaddlers. The king returning out of Flanders, where a revolt against the duke had been suppressed by the carnage of Rosbeck, entered VOL. IX.

Paris at the head of his army, caused the richest of the citizens to be arrested, executed several, among whom is mentioned a venerable magistrate of seventy years old, declared that the whole of them deserved death, and was satisfied only by the payment of an enormous sum. in the fourteenth century an end was put to the resistance of the Flemish and French communes against arbitrary power.

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The war continued in Flanders; and was on the point of being carried into Brittany, to revenge the sudden arrest of the constable Clisson, when the king, passing through the forest of Mans, a man clothed in white, and of a hideous form, issuing from a thicket, seized his horse, and cried out, King, go no farther; you are betrayed.' This was sufficient to drive Charles out of his senses; he became raving mad. Some time after, having recovered the use of his reason, he relapsed at a masked ball, at which the fire had caught his clothes. It was in vain that a pretended magician endeavoured to cure him; he had but another lucid interval, and his madness became the signal of the most frightful discord. It was during this period, that Richard II. of England married the daughter of Charles VI.

Two monks, who had boasted that they could cure the king, but who had only increased his malady, were executed on the Place de Grève, because they had given rise to atrocious suspicions about the duke of Orleans, his only brother. These suspicions were afterwards revived; the duchess, who was a Milanese, was accused of having attempted to poison the dauphin; and the duke was said to have employed enchantments against his brother, and to maintain a criminal correspondence with the queen, Isabella of Bavaria. This princess, on her side, had the king entirely under her influence, and treated him most unworthily; he was often, together with his children, deprived of the necessaries of life. About this time, the duke of Orleans having been named lieutenant-general of the kingdom, John, surnamed the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, became jealous of him. A dreadful enmity was excited between these two princes, and two furious parties were formed. The duke proposed a new tax; John, who was present at the council, opposed it, in order to make himself popular; he left Paris, and returned with some troops to support his views. The queen and the duke fled, while John kept possession of the dauphin. These two enemies afterwards appeared to be reconciled; they consulted together; they shared the same bed; but on a sudden the duke of Orleans was surrounded by assassins and sacrificed. The perfidious John, forced to acknowledge his guilt, at first left Paris, and occupied himself in subjugating the people of Liege who had risen against their bishop, but entered it again at the head of his army, and behaved with the utmost haughtiness. No one regretted the duke; he was generally detested, and a cordelier was found, who made an apology for the assassination, alleging, that it was lawful to kill a tyrant, a doctrine that the Jesuits have since often revived.

But the young duke of Orleans, assisted by the count of Armagnac, his father-in-law, raised 20

the standard of revolt to revenge his father's of regent, transferred the parliament from Paris death, and various battles ensued in different parts of France. The two parties were known as the Armagnians and Burgundians. A third faction, the Cabochians, allies of John, at the same time desolated Paris; while the king, during an interval of reason, took part against the latter, and headed an army against him.

France at this time was the theatre of the exploits of factious nobles, and all the interests of the people were forgotten in the strife. Untaught as yet by an experience that had still been severe, they became in fact subservient as dupes or victims to those passions of their rulers which they foolishly shared, and were driven to and fro like the inert mass, struck by the hammer, and repelled by the anvil, until they became the ready prize of a foreign conqueror.

Henry V., king of England, disembarked an army in France, with which he passed the Somme in the autumn of 1415. The French, much superior in numbers, gave him battle at Agincourt in a very unfavorable situation, and were defeated. (See our article AGINCOURT). But this victory was of no consequence to the English at the time; too weak to proceed, they again crossed the channel. The factions now revived: D'Armagnac entered into a treaty with Henry V., acknowledging him king of France, while the queen went over to the side of John, who had delivered her from prison, and the latter, entering Paris, again put his enemies to the sword. Villaret relates, that 3500 persons were massacred in three days in the prisons, the streets, and the court of the palace. 2000 nobles, men in arms, presided at these Septembrisades; and their chiefs, the Luxembourgs, the Harcourts, the Chevreuses, &c., enriched themselves with the spoils of their victims. It was during this time that Henry V. seized upon Normandy.

But the course of the despot John was hastening to a close. One day the dauphin had an interview with him on the bridge of Montereau, and the latter was assassinated. The queen (A. D. 1419) joined the son of John against the dauphin, when Henry went to them at Troyes, and was there proclaimed regent. He entered Paris with great magnificence, married one of the daughters of Charles VI., and committed to prison a French marshal, who had failed in respect to him. He died soon after, and Charles VI. speedily followed him, lamented, it is said, by the people, as an unfortunate, if not a meritorious prince.

The parliament, which before had been appointed only for a year, now became permanent; the counsellors even possessed the right of presenting the new members to the king for instalment. Thus commenced the power of this body of men, who were becoming respected for their integrity; we shall soon see how quickly they abused their influence. At this time of confusion, the university of Paris also exercised a species of independent power. By virtue of one of its liberties, which was an abuse, crimes committed by its members were not cognizable by the civil courts, and impunity often was the result. The dauphin (Charles VII.) proscribed by the queen and by Henry V., had, in the character

to Poitiers. At the death of the two kings, he began to rally his party, and Marshal de la Fayette had gained for him the battle of Baugé, against the English. On the other side, the duke of Bedford caused himself to be declared at Paris, regent of France for Henry VI., now an infant The English had possession of more than half the kingdom: they had for their allies the powerful duke of Burgundy, and the duke of Brittany; and though Charles VII. was brave, he was weak and voluptuous, suffering himself to be governed by his debauched companions and mistresses. At first partially successful, and attended by the valiant knights Dunois, Lahire, and Tremoile, he lost the battle of Verneuil, and all his commanders were bad generals. Orleans, now besieged, was on the point of surrendering, when a young shepherdess, gifted with a lofty imagination, persuaded herself that she was destined by heaven to save France, and undertook to do it. She spoke like an inspired person, and communicated her enthusiasm to others. Covered with armour, and with a banner in her hands, she marched at the head of the army and raised the siege. Possessed with the idea that her mission was to go to Rheims, to crown the king, she traversed with him eighty leagues of the enemy's country, and accomplished her astonishing enterprise. For once, religious insanity produced a signal benefit; but her good fortune abandoned the heroine personally: wounded and taken by the English, she was condemned by some infamous judges and burnt at Rouen. Thus perished Joan of Arc, whose only crime was that of having saved her country. The tribunal that condemned her was composed of nine doctors of the Sorbonne, and thirty-five abbots and monks; at the head of it was brother Martin, vicar of the inquisition, and Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais, both Frenchmen!

Henry VI., however, was crowned at Paris, and Charles VII. consumed his limited resources in festivals. No one can lose a kingdom more gaily,' said Lahire to him. But events took another turn, and his character rose with them. The duke of Burgundy, weary of the despotism of Bedford, and ashamed of being in alliance with a foreigner against his relation, entered into a treaty with Charles. Paris opened its gates to him; the English evacuated it, and the king entered in triumph. Agnes Sorel, his mistress, had reanimated his courage, and he signalised himself at Montereau. Normandy was conquered; Talbot was vanquished; and the English were driven out of France. The nation having now recovered its energies, and found that union was its strength, the king applied himself to the reestablishment of order, being thwarted only by the unnatural revolt of the dauphin, afterwards called Louis XI. Already had the latter drawn into his treasonable designs the old friends of the king, and retired into Dauphiny, then under the dominion of the duke of Burgundy. Other French princes also endeavoured, about this time, to treat with the English, and the king died full of trouble and mortification. His mother, the infamous Isabella, died in misery at Paris, during the residence of the English.

Some important changes in the political condition and the manners of the nation were produced in this reign. The royal power was extended and consolidated; the knights and nobles assisting in this, because it gave scope for their exploits. The gendarmerie, or body of permanent cavalry, was formed, and a corps of foot archers. Formerly, when these veterans required their arrears of pay, some of the communes were resigned to them as garrisons: this was called living on the people. Now a perpetual tax was raised for the payment of the troops by the royal authority. According to Philip of Comines, 'Charles VII. was the first who gained this point of raising taxes without the consent of the states. To this the nobles of France consented, for certain pensions, which were promised to them in consideration of the money which should be raised on their estates.' Thus then it was the nobles who bartered this important right of the nation, and it is a noble who records it! Now also were reduced to form the customs of every province, and fresh parliaments, like that of Paris, were established with a view of extending the royal jurisdiction in France. The council of Basle, in 1431, had set limits to the power of the popes, and an assembly of the clergy, at Bourges, composed, with this intention, the famous Pragmatic Sanction, the charter of the liberties of the Gallican church. It also abolished the reserves and the annats, re-established the election of bishops, and stopped the abuses of appeals to the holy see. The parliament registered this decree. Under the following reign, this law, odious to the court of Rome, was formally abolished; but it nevertheless continued partially to be observed.

Every thing in Europe, and especially in France, now tended to a central monarchy; and in Louis XI. appeared a prince who, more than any other, assisted this movement. The example of this prince became fatal, and was a direful school for tyranny. Many princes, such as Richard III., and Borgia, took Louis for their model.

The feudal sovereignty, relieved by the apanages, or the present assignment of an estate or province, in lieu of the future right of succession to the whole, was still in force: the king conceived the design of overthrowing it, and in this the interests of the nation were for once consistent with his own. But the nobles formed a league against him, which was called 'The league for the public good :' an expression used by all the factions. Charles the Rash, heir of Burgundy, duke of Brittany, and the dukes of Bourbon and Berry united, yielded to the king at the bloody and undecisive battle of Montlheri, and Louis finished the war by negociations, in order to gain time. Soon after he resumed Normandy, which he had granted in apanage to his brother, the states, which he had convened at Tours, supporting him by a unanimous decision.

Some time afterwards the king was taken in a snare laid by himself. During an interview, in which he was caressing and betraying Charles the Rash, the latter was informed that French emissaries had been sent to raise the prople of Liege against him. Charles, therefore, boldly

seized the perfidious Louis, and compelled him to march with him against the Liegese. On Liege being reduced, Louis was permitted to depart for his own dominions. During the remainder of his reign, this monarch continued to act with his habitual duplicity. He first excited his people to rebel, and then, having crushed them, divided their possessions with his ministers, equally infamous with himself. At last they almost universally conspired against him. His brother Charles was poisoned; the constable St. Paul, his brother-in-law the count of Armagnac, and the dukes of Alençon and Nemours, were beheaded; and the children of the last named nobleman were sent to the Bastile sprinkled with the warm blood of their father.

England at this period, as well as France, had been for a long time the prey of factions. In an interval of repose its king endeavoured to renew the old claims on France, and Louis only maintained peace by engaging to pay a tribute. He lost, however, nothing by this; but gained an opportunity to accomplish other objects. Having a great wish to obtain the dominions of René of Anjou, earl of Provence and king of Sicily, the latter entered into negociations with the duke of Burgundy, upon which Louis threatened the good René, his uncle, with a citation before the parliament: René yielded, and Anjou was united to the crown. Not long after Provence was ceded by the will of Rene's heir.

Louis XI. made many conquests by his pen and his knavery; his cunning, however, was deceived by the marriage of the heiress of Burgundy with Maximilian of Austria, the emperor's son. This alliance raised up a powerful enemy for France. Burgundy, according to the law of apanage, was restored to the crown; but Flanders refused to submit to Louis, and a war ensued; in which the French conquered Franche-Comté, and some time after a treaty united to it Artois. Thus fell the monarchy of Burgundy, which had caused so many evils to France.

The last years of Louis XI. were disturbed by terrors and crimes. Shut up in a fortress he was afraid of his subjects, his servants, his own son, and even his physician. While, an impostor in his superstition, he wore relics over his dirty linen, and perjured himself without ceasing. He wished to deceive even the saints,' say the lively French writers. With respect to the people, if this prince was the author of some useful and popular measures, it seems only to have been with the view of rendering himself more despotic. He encouraged industry, for instance, as the great means of his own aggrandisement: he wished to see the people prosperous only that he might lay on them the heavier taxes; and if he first established posts in France, as Buonaparte afterwards formed military roads, it was only that he might the more readily clutch the victims of an iron despotism. He took the title of the most Christian king,' while his ruling maxim was, 'He who knows not how to dissemble knows not how to reign.' A clause of one of his charters, however, granted for the organisation of the communes, deserves particular notice: No citizen shall be detained in prison if he can give bail for his appearance

before the court. This is exactly, says a French historian, the habeas corpus of the English, We find it also in the institutions of St. Louis, and the capitularies of Charlemagne.

Charles VIII. was thirteen years old at the time of his father's death: his eldest sister was regent. The duke of Orleans, a descendant of Charles V., ambitiously sought her in marriage, and made great efforts to obtain her: but the states were assembled at Tours and he lost his cause. Some doubts were entertained of the competency of the states on this occasion: To whom does it belong to decide this question,' said Pot, a deputy of the nobility, if not to the same people, who first elected their kings, who conferred on them all the authority with which they are invested, and in whom, definitively, the sovereign power resides? When I say the people, I mean the assembly of all the citizens, of whatever rank they may be.' Such language was new, and must have produced a deep impression. The states consulted on the miseries of the people, which the records describe in energetic terms: they were wandering about in the forests without food; men, women, and children, harnessed themselves to the plough in the night, through fear of being extorted upon during the day by the tax-gatherers and military. The states now, therefore, decreed the reduction of two-thirds of the taxes, with which Louis XI. had burdened the nation. The ministers objected, that they were paring the nails of the king; they replied, that the interest of the king was that of the people, and to cherish the one is to serve the other.' But they afterwards showed themselves very tractable.

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On the duke of Orleans appearing to raise a party in Brittany, he was worsted at St. Aubin by that of the court; and Maximilian, the suitor of Anne, the heiress of Brittany, being rejected, she was married to Charles VIII. Brittany being thus united to France, the duke of Orleans was restored to favor. The young king now thought he would become a conqueror; and remembering that he held, by the succession of Sicilian Anjou, some pretended rights over Naples, he marched thither (1494) with an illequipped army. At Rome he was alternately flattered and betrayed by the execrable Borgia, pope Alexander VI. Naples, however, was conquered in haste, and fêtes and tournaments were given by him in the capital; while a powerful league was formed against him in Lombardy. The French army repassed the Appennines, and 8000 men in less than an hour beat 30,000 Italians at Fornova. The conquest of Naples, however, was already lost; Ferdinand, king of Spain, who appeared in that country with the French as an ally, caused the rest of the army to be driven out by Gonsalvo of Cordova. The French gained nothing by this expedition but a dreadful malady, and Charles died of an apoplexy. Comines describes him as having a good heart but a bad head.

We are now arrived at the end of the fifteenth century. The Genevese Columbus had discovered America; the Portuguese Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope; the compass had opened the way to the new world, and commerce had

proceeded thither as well as ambition. Speculations, until this time confined within narrow limits, extended themselves over the two hemispheres. Voyages informed the minds of men and banished their prejudices. A German, by the invention of printing, had rendered a still more important service to the human mind. In the mean time men disputed, as they will always dispute, and the realists and the nominalists contended with one another to know whether they ought to employ themselves about words or things. The sum of observation and experience, however, increased; dogmas became less imperious and creeds less exclusive; men began to think more of laboring to some useful purpose, and of knowing, in order to enjoy.

The reign of which we have now to speak is described, by the French historians, as the happiest in their history, yet without much appearance of external policy. Louis XII. was perhaps the best of the kings of France. He had a real and ardent love for the people, of whom he was called the father, and restrained the great, without ill-treating them. The king of France,' said he, ‘does not avenge the injuries of the duke of Orleans.' For it was he, whom we have seen disputing for the regency in his youth, as the first prince of the blood; but age had matured him. Unfortunately the mania of conquest, however, pervaded the nation; and he yielded to the infatuation. At that time civil relations began to be more extensive in Europe. That ridiculous feudal policy, unknown to the ancients, which treats a nation as a dowry, an inheritance, an indemnity, and which makes the fate of nations depend on a bad administration, prevailed more than ever. Louis divorced his wife in order to marry the widow of Charles VIII., and to retain possession of Brittany. He had some claims on the Milanese in right of his grand-father, and he set out with an army (A D. 1501) to assert them. The Milanese were conquered in twenty days; Naples soon followed; and, always the dupes of Ferdinand's perfidy, the French, beaten at Carignoles, were again driven out of Naples. Louis by a treaty was about to give his daughter, with a third part of France as her dowry, to this treacherous ally, when the states, which he assembled at Tours, diverted him from it.

He afterwards had to contend with Julius II. the pope who made war in person, and mounted the breach. It was then that almost the whole of Europe entered into a league at Cambray against Venice, a powerful republic founded by poor fishermen. Louis marched first against the Venetians. Until betrayed by the pope and the Spaniards, forsaken by the Swiss, who were no longer the men of Morat, and fought only for those who would pay them best, he assembled the clergy, who decided on a war against the pope, and furnished a subsidy. The battle of Ravenna was gained over the Spaniards by Gaston de Foix, who perished in it. Money was now wanted, and the French were obliged to withdraw from the Milanese, notwithstanding the prowess of the famous Bayard. La Tremouille, however, re-entered that territory, and was defeated by the Swiss at Navarre. At the same time the English, united to the Imperialists, b

the French in Picardy. The Swiss penetrated as far as Dijon; in fine, after entering into a treaty with Henry VIII. king of England, whose sister he married as his second wife, Louis XII. died, the victim of numerous disappointments. He was economical and diminished the taxes; he knew how to search out merit in obscurity; protected the laborer and the artisan; watched over the administration of justice, and wished the law to be sovereign. It must be remembered, however, that at that time the law was nothing else than the will of the monarch. Unfortunately, in this reign, the states general only acted in appearance: the sole authority which seemed to plead the cause of the nation, was the parliament, which, according to its constitution, should have meddled with nothing but the judgment of suits. The people, however, deprived of the states, saw with pleasure a permanent and respected body becoming their defenders, although it was to give importance to itself. These judges sometimes resisted the royal power, refusing the formality of registering its edicts, and they shared the privilege of a veto with the legislative authority. Perhaps it was well that there should be the image of a deliberative assembly, which might struggle with the nobles; but it was often only the advocate of despotism. The parliament was at least useful in reducing arbitrary power within certain forms and regulations.

Louis XII. was called the plebeian king; Francis I. was the king of the gentlemen. He was also a descendant of Charles V. by another branch, and was a prince of handsome person, brave, prodigal, gallant, with high ideas of honor, a very brilliant knight, but a bad politician. "We are laboring in vain,' said Louis XII., "this great boy will spoil all;' his prediction was just. In order to carry on the war in Italy, the king began by selling the fees of the courts of justice, and setting out to gain over the Swiss in the pay of the emperor at the battle of Marignan; he beat them during two days. He then concluded a concordat with Leo X., which, annulling the Pragmatic sanction, and abolishing the elections of the clergy, transferred to the pope and the king the rights of the church of France: the Chancellor Duprat made this wretched treaty, because he wished to be a cardinal. The imperial throne being now vacant the king wished to compete with the emperor's heir and king of Spain, who, however, obtained the dignity and became Charles the Fifth. This rival of her prince was a terrible enemy to France, opposing the most refined policy to imprudence the most self conceited. Francis entered into alliance with Henry VIII; but Charles prevailed to disunite them; while another enemy, Leo X., assisted the emperor to deprive the French of the Milanese, where they had rendered themselves hated. All Europe was now therefore leagued against France, and one of her best and noblest warriors, the constable of Bourbon, being discontented, entered into the service of her enemies. Francis was not intimidated; he passed over into Italy, Charles's attempt upon Provence having been repulsed: but here slighting the advice of his oldest generals, he 'fought and lost the fatal battle of Pavia, and being made prisoner, after

exhibiting prodigies of valor, graced the return of his conqueror to Madrid. Francis now agreed to ransom himself by the cession of Burgundy; but the treaty was not executed, the states of Burgundy refusing to pass under a foreign yoke. The king of France, however, obtained his liberty; and leagued against Charles with a new pope, Henry VIII. and the Venetians, he re-passed the Alps and laid seige to Naples. But here the plague broke out in his army, and he again evacuated Italy. On a definitive treaty of peace being signed at Cambray, his ransom was finally settled at 2,000,000 of gold crowns.

About this time the duke of Bourbon, not having the means of paying his imperialists, led them on to pillage Rome: on which the pope, who was taken prisoner, also paid a great ransom to Charles V., who begged pardon of him for this violence; but kept the money.

At this same period a new religious schism,' as our French neighbours call it, was preparing for the emancipation of the human mind, and for great political changes. Leo X., wanting money to build St. Peter's at Rome, commanded the preaching of indulgences; and when the Dominicans fulfilled this mission in Germany, and publicly sold in the ale-houses seats in Paradise, the Augustinians were much discontented at being deprived of all share of the profits. One of these monks, named Luther, say the historians whom we follow in this article, a fiery theologian, preached against the Dominicans, the pope, and all the clergy. The scandals of which he complained, were open, and served to support his discourses. He then attacked with the Scriptures, the doctrine and discipline of the church; he rejected the confession, broke the monastic vows, claimed for every man the right of praying to God in the language that he understood, and demanded the reform of Christianity. The pope excommunicated him; but in opposition to some juggling tricks, which might have made a few dupes in a credulous age, this reformer converted the whole of the north of Germany. Henry VIII., excommunicated for having changed his wife, and on account of the delay of a courier, separated from Rome through private pique, and constituted himself the regulator of the protestants of England; the reformed were so called, because they had protested against the diet of Spires, which condemned them. Charles V., after persecuting them, managed them with prudence. Francis, who had entered into alliance with them in Germany, burned them in a slow fire in France, with the approbation of the parliament and for the amusement of his court.

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Sforza, the duke of Milan, having furnished a pretext, the king again asserted his claims to that territory. The emperor, on his side, undertook to invade France but without success. Being accused of poisoning the dauphin, he was cited before the parliament, which confiscated Artois and Flanders by a decree of default, and after this the king contracted an alliance with the sultan Soliman; with whom we have already seen the pope in alliance. The concerted plan failed; the cunning Charles obtained a truce, and a passage through France to go to

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