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Rh chancellor Michel de l’Hôpital, through whose mediation the edict of Romorantin, providing that all cases of heresy should be decided by the bishops, was passed in May 1560, in opposition to a proposal to introduce the Inquisition. At a meeting of the states-general held at Orleans in the December following, the prince of Condé, after being arrested, was condemned to death, and extreme measures were being enacted against the Huguenots; but the deliberations of the Assembly were broken off, and the prince was saved from execution, by the king’s somewhat sudden death, on the 5th of the month, from an abscess in the ear.

—“Lettres de Catherine de Médicis,” edited by Hector de la Ferrière (1880 seq.), and “Négociations ... relatives au règne de François II,” edited by Louis Paris (1841), both in the Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France; notice of Francis, duke of Guise, in the Nouvelle Collection des mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France, edited by J. F. Michaud and J. J. F. Poujoulat, series i. vol. vi. (1836 seq.); Mémoires de Condé servant d’éclaircissement ... à l’histoire de M. de Thou, vols. i and ii. (1743); Pierre de la Place, Commentaires de l’estat de la religion et de la république sous les rois Henri II, François II, Charles IX (1565); and Louis Régnier de la Planche, Histoire de ''l’estat de France ... sous ... François II (Panthéon littéraire'', new edition, 1884). See also Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France (vol. vi. by J. H. Mariéjol, 1904), which contains a bibliography.

FRANCIS I. (1777–1830), king of the Two Sicilies, was the son of Ferdinand IV. (I.) and Maria Carolina of Austria. He married Clementina, daughter of the emperor Leopold II. of Austria, in 1796, and at her death Isabella, daughter of Charles IV. of Spain. After the Bourbon family fled from Naples to Sicily in 1806, and Lord William Bentinck, the British resident, had established a constitution and deprived Ferdinand IV. of all power, Francis was appointed regent (1812). On the fall of Napoleon his father returned to Naples and suppressed the Sicilian constitution and autonomy, incorporating his two kingdoms into that of the Two Sicilies (1816); Francis then assumed the revived title of duke of Calabria. While still heir-apparent he professed liberal ideas, and on the outbreak of the revolution of 1820 he accepted the regency apparently in a friendly spirit towards the new constitution. But he was playing a double game and proved to be the accomplice of his father’s treachery. On succeeding to the throne in 1825 he cast aside the mask of liberalism and showed himself as reactionary as his father. He took little part in the government, which he left in the hands of favourites and police officials, and lived with his mistresses, surrounded by soldiers, ever in dread of assassination. During his reign the only revolutionary movement was the outbreak on the Cilento (1828), savagely repressed by the marquis Delcarretto, an ex-Liberal turned reactionary.

See Nisco, Il Reame di Napoli sotto Francesco I (Naples, 1893).

FRANCIS II. (1836–1894), king of the Two Sicilies, son of Ferdinand II. and Maria Cristina of Savoy, was the last of the Bourbon kings of Naples. His education had been much neglected and he proved a man of weak character, greatly influenced by his stepmother Maria Theresa of Austria, by the priests, and by the Camarilla, or reactionary court set. He ascended the throne on the death of his father (22nd of May 1859). As prime minister he at once appointed Carlo Filangieri, who, realizing the importance of the Franco-Piedmontese victories in Lombardy, advised Francis to accept the alliance with Piedmont proposed by Cavour. On the 7th of June a part of the Swiss Guard mutinied, and while the king mollified them by promising to redress their grievances, General Nunziante collected other troops, who surrounded the mutineers and shot them down. The incident resulted in the disbanding of the whole Swiss Guard, the strongest bulwark of the dynasty. Cavour again proposed an alliance to divide the papal states between Piedmont and Naples, the province of Rome excepted, but Francis rejected an idea which to him savoured of sacrilege. Filangieri strongly advocated a constitution as the only measure which might save the dynasty, and on the king’s refusal he resigned. Meanwhile the revolutionary parties were conspiring for the overthrow of the Bourbons in Calabria and Sicily, and Garibaldi was preparing for a raid in the south. A conspiracy in Sicily was discovered and the plotters punished with brutal severity, but Rosalino Pilo and Francesco Crispi had organized the movement, and when Garibaldi landed at Marsala (May 1860) he conquered the island with astonishing ease. These events at last frightened Francis into granting a constitution, but its promulgation was followed by disorders in Naples and the resignation of ministers, and Liborio Romano became head of the government. The disintegration of the army and navy proceeded apace, and Cavour sent a Piedmontese squadron carrying troops on board to watch events. Garibaldi, who had crossed the straits of Messina, was advancing northwards and was everywhere received by the people as a liberator. Francis, after long hesitations and even an appeal to Garibaldi himself, left Naples (6th of September) with his wife Maria Sophia, the court, the diplomatic corps (the French and English ministers excepted), and went by sea to Gaeta, where a large part of the army was concentrated. The next day Garibaldi entered Naples, was enthusiastically welcomed, and formed a provisional government. King Victor Emmanuel had decided on the invasion of the papal states, and after occupying Romagna and the Marche entered the Neapolitan kingdom. Garibaldi’s troops defeated the Neapolitan royalists on the Volturno (1st and 2nd of October), while the Piedmontese captured Capua. Only Gaeta, Messina, and Civitella del Tronto still held out, and the siege of the former by the Piedmontese began on the 6th of November 1860. Both Francis and Maria Sophia behaved with great coolness and courage, and even when the French fleet, whose presence had hitherto prevented an attack by sea, was withdrawn, they still resisted; it was not until the 12th of February 1861 that the fortress capitulated. Thus the kingdom of Naples was incorporated in that of Italy, and the royal pair from that time forth led a wandering life in Austria, France and Bavaria. Francis died on the 27th of December 1894 at Arco in Tirol. His widow survived him.

Francis II. was weak-minded, stupid and vacillating, but, although his short reign was stained with some cruel massacres and persecutions, he was less of a tyrant than his father. The courage and dignity he displayed during his reverses inspired pity and respect. But the fact that he protected brigandage in his former dominions and countenanced the most abominable crimes in the name of legitimism greatly diminished the sympathy which was felt for the fallen monarch.

—R. de Cesare, La Fine d’un regno, vol. ii. (Città di Castello, 1900) gives a detailed account of the reign of Francis II., while H. R. Whitehouse’s Collapse of the Kingdom of Naples (New York, 1899) may be recommended to English readers; Nisco’s Francesco II (Naples, 1887) should also be consulted. See under
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FRANCIS IV. (1779–1846) duke of Modena, was the son of the archduke Ferdinand, Austrian governor of Lombardy, who acquired the duchy of Modena through his wife Marie Beatrice, heiress of the house of Este as well as of many fiefs of the Malaspina, Pio da Carpi, Pico della Mirandola, Cibò, and other families. At the time of the French invasion (1796) Francis was sent to Vienna to be educated, and in 1809 was appointed governor of Galicia. Later he went to Sardinia, where the exiled King Victor Emmanuel I. and his wife Maria Theresa were living in retirement. The latter arranged a marriage between her daughter Marie Beatrice and Francis, and a secret family compact was made whereby if the king and his two brothers died without male issue, the Salic law would be changed so that Francis should succeed to the kingdom instead of Charles Albert of Carignano (N. Bianchi, Storia della diplomazia europea in Italia, i. 42-43). On the fall of Napoleon in 1814 Francis received the duchy of Modena, including Massa-Carrara and Lunigiana; his mother’s advice was “to be above the law ... never to forgive the Republicans of 1796, nor to listen to the complaints of his subjects, whom nothing satisfies; the poorer they are the quieter they are” (Silingardi, “Ciro Menotti,” in Rivista europea, Florence, 1880).

The duke was well received at Modena; inordinately ambitious, strong-willed, immensely rich, avaricious but not unintelligent, he soon proved one of the most reactionary despots in Italy.