LOUIS XII. 



549 



classes. His cruelties were often studied. The 

 children of the duke of Nemours were placed under 

 the scaffold, in such a manner that their father's blood 

 flowed upon them ; they were then thrown into dun- 

 geons, where they were exposed to great suffering, 

 and their teeth were pulled out at intervals. There 

 was no great man in his reign, and no virtue. Fear 

 supplanted every other feeling. The people were as 

 submissive as galley slaves. On the other hand, he 

 encouraged commerce as much as the ignorance of 

 his times allowed, was extremely active, and attended 

 to everything. The contradictory traits of his char- 

 acter occasioned a singular opposition in his tastes 

 and feelings. He was, at the same time, confiding 

 and suspicious, avaricious and lavish, audacious ami 

 timid, mild and cruel. " Towards the end of his 

 life," says Chateaubriand, " Louis XI. shut himself 

 up in Plessis-les-Tours, devoured by fear and ennui. 

 He dragged himself from one end of a long gallery to 

 the other, surrounded by grates, chains, and avenues 

 of gibbets leading to the castle. The only man who 

 was seen in these avenues was Tristan, chief hang- 

 man, and the companion of Louis. Fights between 

 cats and rats, and dances of young peasant boys and 

 girls, served to amuse the tyrant. It is said that he 

 drank the blood of young children to restore his 

 strength. De terribleset de merveilleuses medecines, 

 say the chronicles, were compounded for him. Yet 

 his efforts could not avertdeath. Louis XI. was the 

 first French monarch who had the title of most Chris- 

 tian king." The principal counsellors of this prince 

 were Philip de Comines, and John du Lude, called, 

 by his master, Jean dcs Habiletes. 



LOUIS XII., king of France from 1498 to 1515, 

 called by his subjects le pcre du peuple, was born in 

 1462. Before his accession to the throne, which 

 took place after the death of Charles VIII., he was 

 duke of Orleans, and first prince of the blood. The 

 lessons of his German mother, Mary of Cleves, and 

 the misfortunes which he underwent at a later 

 period, corrected the faults of his education, which 

 had been purposely neglected, in compliance with the 

 will of Louis XL, (q. v.) On ascending the throne, 

 he pardoned the wrongs which he had suffered be- 

 fore his accession. " The king of France," said he, 

 " must not revenge the injuries done to the duke of 

 Orleans." He showed himself grateful towards his 

 friends. The ambitious Georges d'Amboise, his 

 minister, archbishop of Rouen, and cardinal Legate, 

 enjoyed his full confidence. After the death of this 

 minister, in 1510, Louis took the reins himself. He 

 re-established discipline in the army, and brought 

 the turbulent students of Paris to order a task 

 which was not without difficulty, on account of their 

 great number, and the privileges which they enjoyed. 

 He much improved the administration of justice, 

 lessened the taxes, and would never consent to 

 increase them, though he was engaged in many 

 wars. The expense of these he supplied by mak- 

 ing a number of offices venal, and selling some 

 crown estates. He united the duchy of Brittany 

 for ever with the crown, by marrying, in 1499, the 

 widow of Charles VIII., the beautiful Anne, duchess 

 of Brittany, the object of his love even before his 

 separation from the excellent, but extremely plain 

 Jeanne, daughter of Louis XL, whom he had been 

 forced to marry, and who had born him no children. 

 In order to enforce the rights which he inherited 

 from his grandmother, Valentina Visconti, to the 

 duchy of Milan, against Louis Sforza, called Moro 

 (see Sforza), he sent, in 1499, an army over the 

 Alps, which conquered the duchy of Milan within 

 twelve days ; after which Genoa also surrendered to 

 him. In vain did Louis Moro attempt to maintain 

 himself bv the assistance of the Swiss ; he was taken 



prisoner, iu 1500, at Novara, and died, in 1510, in 

 confinement at Loches in France. In 1500, Louis 

 XII. concluded a treaty with Ferdinand the Catholic, 

 by which the kingdom of Naples was divided be- 

 tween them. King Frederic of Naples proceeded to 

 France, where Louis gave him a considerable annu- 

 ity. But Ferdinand possessed himself of the whole 

 kingdom of Naples, and retained it by the treaty of 

 1505. Louis had promised to marry his daughter 

 Claude to the grandson of the German emperor, 

 Charles of Luxemburg, afterwards Charles V., and 

 to give her Brittany, Burgundy, and Milan as a 

 dowry. But the estates assembled in 1506, at Tours, 

 begged on their knees the father of his people, 

 as they called him, to marry his daughter to Francis, 

 count of Angoul6me, of the family of Valois. Louis 

 consented ; the estates declared the first contract of 

 marriage void, and contrary to the fundamental laws 

 of the realm, and Francis married Claude. Louis 

 now devoted himself particularly to the education of 

 this prince, who was to succeed him (see Francis I.), 

 but at first with so little success, that on one occa- 

 sion he sorrowfully exclaimed, " Nous travaillons en 

 vain ; ce gros garqon gdtera tout. The league of 

 Cambray (see League"), established by pope Julius 

 II. against Venice, in 1508, involved France in a 

 new war. Louis now commanded the army in person, 

 and was victorious over the Venetians, at Agnadello, 

 in 1509, where he fought with great bravery. Julius 

 II., however, fearing the power of France in Italy, 

 concluded the holy league (see League) with Venice, 

 Switzerland, Spain, and England, against Louis XII., 

 in 1510. In vain did the king, in conjunction with 

 the emperor Maximilian, assemble, in 1511, a coun- 

 cil at Pisa, in order to reform the church, in its head 

 and members, and to depose Julius II. ; the pope 

 laid an interdict on France, in 1512, and declared 

 Louis XII. to have forfeited his crown. The French 

 armies could not maintain themselves after the death 

 of their general, Gaston de Foix ; they were beaten 

 by the Swiss at Novara, in 1513, and retreated over 

 the Alps ; after which Maximilian, son of Louis 

 Moro, took possession of Milan, and Genoa made 

 herself independent of France. The Swiss, at the 

 same time, penetrated into France as far as Dijon, 

 and Henry VIII. of England defeated the French, in 



1513. at Guinegate (Journee des Espcrons, because 

 the French made more use of their spurs in flight, 

 than of their swords in fight). Ferdinand the Catho- 

 lic, also, in 1512, had taken Upper Navarre, which, 

 until then, belonged, together with Lower Navarre, 

 in France, to the house of Albert. Louis XII. now 

 renounced the provinces on the other side of the 

 Alps and the Pyrenees, became reconciled with Leo 

 X., the successor of Julius II., and concluded, in 



1514, a general peace with Henry VIII., whose 

 sister Mary he married, after the death of Anne, 

 after which he united his second daughter, Renee, to 

 the archduke Charles (Charles V.) From love to 

 his beautiful wife (only sixteen years old), Louis 

 (then fifty-three years of age), changed his whole 

 mode of life, to the injury of his health, and thus 

 accelerated his death. He died January 1,1515. 

 Louis XII. possessed many of the qualities of a good 

 ruler. He was open, honest, economical, just, kind 

 hearted, and magnanimous ; he was a friend of 

 science, and attracted learned men to his country, 

 particularly from Italy ; and France owes to him its 

 first scientific collections. He loved to read Cicero's 

 De Offictis, De Senectute, and De Amicitia. Trajan 

 was his model. France enjoyed, under him, a degree 

 of prosperity and security which it had never pos- 

 sessed before. In regard to the foreign relations 

 of the country, Louis hnd not sufficient talent to 

 oppose the crafty Julius II.. Ferdinand thft Catholic, 



