RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



people, of realising these dreams of adventure. An expedition was 

 organised to make good his title to Naples and lord it over the cities 

 which lay along his route. A great host, including the flower of the 

 nobility and gentry, gathered round the king at Lyons in the spring of 

 1494. The Alps were crossed, and the French began a triumphal pro- 

 gress through Italy. Within a year, and almost without striking a blow, 



Charles was master 

 of his southern 

 kingdom. But his 

 triumph was short- 

 lived. Before 1495 

 was out he was 

 forced to retreat 

 northward, gaining 

 the barren victory 

 of Fornovo, in 

 which he lost his 

 baggage containing 

 the spoils of Naples 

 and many art treas- 

 ures valued at about 

 half a million ster- 

 ling. 



Charles did not 

 long survive the war, 

 dying childless at 

 Amboise in 1498, 

 and was succeeded 

 by his cousin, Louis 

 of Orleans, who in- 

 herited his entangle- 

 ments in Italian 

 affairs and married 

 his widow in order 

 to retain her duchy. 

 REIGN OF Louis 



XII. Louis XII. ("Father of the People") endeared himself to his 

 subjects as much by his simple life and bottrgeois tastes as by his 

 interest in their welfare and the reduction of taxation, resulting from 

 economical finance. He united his duchy of Orleans and county of 

 Blois to the royal domains. To his predecessor's pretensions to Naples 

 he added claims of his own to Milan, and, to enforce them, waged 

 wars throughout Italy from 1499 to 1504. Later he attacked Venice, 



6. 



CHAPEL OF ST LAZARUS, MARSEILLES. 



By Francesco Laurana (1479-81). 



