FRANCIS I. FRANCISCANS. 



305 



Mimrtl (decree of August 11, and proclamation of 

 December 7, 1804) the title of hereditary emperor of 

 Austria ; and, on the establishment of the confeder- 

 acy of the Rhine (July 1806), he abdicated the crown 

 of Roman emperor and German king, and resigned 

 the government of the German empire. 



Francis I. was a man of very little intellectual 

 strength, but a friend to justice! In the following 

 sketch of the principal features of his reign, but little 

 must be attributed to him personally, as is generally 

 the case with monarchs. He was educated, at first, 

 under the eyes of his father, at Florence, and after- 

 wards of his uncle, the emperor Joseph II., at Vien- 

 na. At the age of twenty, Francis accompanied his 

 uncle on a campaign against the Turks, and in the 

 following year received the chief command of the 

 army, in which he was united with Laudon. 



After the death of Joseph (1790), he engaged in 

 the administration of the government until the arrival 

 of his father, on whose death, in 1792, he became 

 emperor. France declared war against him (April 

 20, 1792), as king of Hungary and Bohemia. (See 

 Germany.) Prussia at first took part with him, but 

 afterwards concluded a separate peace with the re- 

 public. Still, however, he continued the war with 

 energy. In 1794, he placed himself at the head of 

 the army of the Netherlands. Animated by the pre- 

 sence of the monarch, they defeated the French 

 (April 26) at Gateau and Landrecy, which they cap- 

 tured, and gained the bloody battle of Tournay 

 (June 22). The states of Brabant, however, refused 

 to grant him troops and money, and, apprehending 

 the misfortunes that afterwards befell him, he left 

 Brussels, June 13, to return to Vienna. The peace 

 of Campo-Formio (October 17, 1797) procured him 

 a temporary repose. In 1799, he entered into a new 

 coalition with England and Russia against the repub- 

 lic ; but, in 1801, Russia and Austria were compelled 

 to conclude the peace of Luneville. In 1805, war 

 jisjain broke out between Austria and France. But, 

 after the battle of Austerlitz (q. v.), December 2, 

 1805, the terms of an armistice and basis of a treaty 

 were settled in a personal interview between Francis 

 I. and the emperor of France, at the bivouac of the 

 latter, and the peace of Presburg was signed on the 

 26th of the same month. In 1806 and 1807, during 

 the war between France on the one side, and Russia 

 and Prussia on the other, Francis I. observed the 

 most exact neutrality, and offered (April 3, 1807) his 

 mediation between the contending parties, but in 

 vain. However, the proclamation of Francis, ad- 

 dressed to the people of Austria, April 8, 1809, the 

 call on all Germany in his name, his declaration of 

 war against France, March 27, 1809, and the estab- 

 lishing of a militia throughout his empire, showed 

 plainly that Francis was never more anxious to pre- 

 pare himself for war than after the peace of Tilsit, 

 between Alexander and Napoleon. 



Although the year 1809 was a period of reverses, 

 yet his losses appeared to be the foundation of a per- 

 manent peace with the gigantic power of France. 

 The peace of Vienna restored to the Austrian mon- 

 ;irch his capital. By the marriage of his eldest 

 daughter, Maria Louisa, to Napoleon, a strong tie 

 was formed between the two imperial houses. His 

 second wife was Maria Theresa, daughter of Ferdi- 

 nand IV., king of the Two Sicilies. He had, by her, 

 thirteen children, of whom seven are still living, and 

 among them Ferdinand Charles (born in 1793) now 

 emperor of Austria. By his first marriage with 

 Elizabeth, princess of Wurtemberg, and by his third, 

 with Maria Louisa Beatrix, youngest daughter of 

 his uncle Ferdinand, archduke of Austria, duke of 

 Modena and Brisgau, concluded in 1808, he had no 

 children. His fourth wife was Charlotte, second 



daughter of Maximilian Joseph, king of Bavaria 

 (divorced from her first husband, the king of \Vur- 

 temberg, in January, 1816, and married to the em- 

 peror Francis in November, 1816). The family tie, 

 that was to bind Austria and France, could not ap- 

 pease the ambition of his son-in-law ; and, although 

 the emperor Francis, at the memorable interview at 

 Dresden, in 1812, united with him, yet this union 

 was of short duration. In 1813, Francis I. entered 

 into an alliance with Russia and Prussia against 

 France, and was present to the close of the contest. 

 During a space of eight months (from October, 1814, 

 to May, 1815), the greater part of the European 

 sovereigns were assembled at the congress in his 

 capital. By the treaties of peace concluded in Paris, 

 and the treaty concluded with Bavaria, April 14, 

 1816, Francis I. became the sovereign of a country 

 such as none of his ancestors ever swayed. He died 

 on the 3d of March, 1835. 



FRANCISCANS, or MINORITES (fratres mino- 

 res, as they were called by their founder, in token 

 of humility), are the members of the religious order 

 established by St Francis of Assisi (q. v.), in 1208, 

 by collecting followers near the church of Porticella 

 or Portiuncula, at Assisi, in Naples. The order was 

 distinguished by vows of absolute poverty, and a 

 renunciation of the pleasures of the world, and was 

 intended to serve the church by its care of the 

 religious state of the people, so neglected by the 

 secular clergy of that time. Learning and intel- 

 lectual accomplishments its members were not to 

 aim after. St Francis likewise strictly prohibited 

 his followers from possessing any property whatever. 

 The rule of the order, sanctioned by the pope, in 

 1210 and 1223, destined them to beg and to preach. 

 The popes granted them extensive privileges, which 

 soon became equally burdensome to the laity and 

 clergy, particularly as they were subject to no autho- 

 rity out that of the pope. They often encroached on 

 the rights of the regular pastors. Indulgences were 



granted to them more freely than to any other order ; 

 ence the expression Portiuncula indulgence. The 

 order soon comprised thousands of monasteries, all 

 established by alms and contributions. The rule of 

 poverty, so strictly enjoined by their founder, was 

 somewhat relaxed, and the monasteries were permit- 

 ted to hold property. This change, however, was not 

 effected without divisions within the order itself. 

 Learning, also, did not long remain excluded from 

 their monasteries, and distinguished scholars, as 

 Bonaventura, Alexander de Hales, Duns Scotus, 

 Roger Bacon and others obtained a celebrity which 

 justified the admission of the Minorites to the chairs of 

 the universities. They defended the immaculate con- 

 ception of the Virgin Mary against the Dominicans ; 

 their animosity against whom has been maintained 

 even down to a late period, in the disputes between 

 the Scotists (Franciscans) and Thomists (Dominicans.) 

 With their rivals, they were, from the thirteenth to 

 the sixteenth century, the confessors of princes and 

 the rulei-s of the Christian world. They were then 

 superseded by the Jesuits ; but by a prudent com- 

 promise with them, they retained more influence 

 than the Dominicans. Several Franciscans have 

 risen to the highest offices of the church ; the popes 

 Nicholas IV., Alexander V., Sixtus IV., and V., and 

 Clement XIV. were from this order. Some members 

 of the order declared this to be an unpardonable 

 deviation from its rules, and therefore formed par- 

 ticular fraternities, such as the Caesarinians and 

 Celestines in the, thirteenth century/ 4 the Spirituals in 

 the fourteenth century. In 1363, the dissidents 

 were united, by St Paul, in the fraternity of the 

 Soccolanti, or sandal-wearers. In 1415, they were 

 constituted, by the pope, a separate branch of the 



