Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/727

 FRANCIS too late to permit of its being followed up by an advance into Italy; f:&amp;gt;r in the July following, the emperor from Champagne and the king of England from Picardy were marching to join their forces before the walls of Paris. The siege of Boulogne by the English gave Francis, however, sufficient time to make a show of defence such as convinced Charles of the doubtful nature of the enterprise ; and with out consulting the king of England he sent to Francis from Crespy terms of peace, which were signed 17th September. By this treaty France retained Burgundy and resigned its claims on Flanders, Artois, and Naples, while the duchy of Milan was promised to the duke of Orleans on his marrying one of the imperial princesses an arrangement, however, which his death in 1545 rendered nugatory. For some time afterwards the English king continued the war in Picardy, but a treaty of peace was signed in June 1546. As soon as peace was concluded with the emperor, the prosecution of the Protestants in France was renewed, and in 1545 an edict was passed for the expulsion of the Waldenses from Provence. The health of Francis had for several years been completely undermined, and he succumbed to an acute attack of disease, 31st May 1547. In the reign of Francis were combined most of the faults and excellences which have been specially prominent in the subsequent history of his country. He was in a sense the creator of a new political and intellectual era. As regards government, he was virtually the founder of the &quot; ancient regime,&quot; whose final result and overthrow was the great Revolution ; he gave its death blow to feudalism ; he de prived the parlements of all independent power; under the auspices of the minister Du Prat he confirmed and extended the system of corruption in civil and ecclesiastical appoint ments ; and he turned the efforts of statesmanship away from the paths of constitutional progress, and into those of military renown. His reign in its social and intellectual results was more beneficial, for if he sanctioned by his example licentiousness of manners, he at the same time gave a great impulse to refinement in taste and to intel lectual progress by fostering in his country the offshoots of the Italian Renaissance. He founded in 1530 the college of France for the study of the three languages ; he was himself a writer of verses, and a special friend and bene factor of artists and men of letters ; and by the purchase of the great masterpieces of Italian painting and sculptur-:, and in the magnificent structures of Chamford, Azai-le- Rerleau, Amboise, and Fontainebleau he left behind him a permanent influence on French art. Compared with his great rival Charles V., he was open, impulsive, and gener ous, but he was less actuated by consistent principles ; he was hopelessly inferior in diplomacy, and in sagacity and comprehensiveness of purpose; he had perhaps equal abilities as a general, but his occasional victories were more than counterbalanced by the results of his own indo lence and by the blunders of his subordinates ; and while able to defend France against all external attacks, he was compelled to content himself with a place second to that of the emperor in the sphere of European politics. See, besides the usual French histories, La Vic de Chevalier Bayard, Boucliet s La Vie et Ics Gcstcs de Louis de la TrcmoiUe and Lf.s Triomphcs die roi tres Chretien Francois I., Viclleville s Mtmoircs, Fleuran^e s L Histoire des choscs memorablcs advenues da 1499 (I 1531, and Du Bellay s Memoircs historiqucs de 1513 a 1547, all contained in the Collection universelle ; Montluc, Commcntaircs (1st ed. 1592, afterwards printed both in Italian and F.nglish); Va- rillas, Hixtoirc de Francois /., 1685 ; Gaillard, Histoirc dc Francois I., 1766-17C9, 7 vols. ; Rbderer, Louis XII. et Francois I. 1825; Cape- figue, Francois I. ct la Renaissance, 1844; De La Barre-Duparcq, Francois I. et ses actions dc guerre, 18/2 ; Mignet, Rivalittdc Fran cois I. el dc Cluirlcs-Quint, 2 vols., Paris, 1875 ; Herman, Franz I., Leipsic, 1825 ; Life and Times of Francis the First, London, 1829. FRANCIS II. (1543-1560), king of France, eldest son of Henry II. and of Catherine de Medici, was born at Fontaine bleau, 19th January 1543. He married the famous Mary Stuart, daughter of James V. of Scotland, 25th April 1558, and ascended the French throne 10th July 1559. During his short reign he was the mere tool of his uncles, the duke of Guise and the cardinal of Lorraine, into whose hands he virtually delivered the reins of government. The exclusiveness with which they were favoured, and their high-handed proceedings, awakened the resentment of the princes of the blood, Anthony king of Navarre and Louis prince of Conde 1, who gave their countenance to a conspiracy with the Protestants against the house of Guise. It was, however, discovered shortly before the time fixed for its execution in March 1560, and an ambush having been pre pared, most of the conspirators were either killed or taken prisoners. Its leadership and organization had been en trusted to Godfrey du Barry, lord of la Renaudie ; and the prince of Cond6, who was not present, disavowed all con nexion with the plot. The duke of Guise was now named lieutenant-general of the kingdom, but his Catholic leanings were somewhat held in check by the chancellor Michel do 1 Hopital, through whose mediation the edict of Romoran- tin, 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 follow ing, the prince of Conde, after being arrested, was con demned to death, and extreme measures were being enacted against the Huguenots ; but the deliberations of the As sembly were broken off, and the prince saved from execu tion, by the king s somewhat sudden death, on the 5th of the month, from an abscess in the ear. Varillas, Histoirc dc Francois II. ; Memoire de Conde; Renault, Francois II. roi dc France, 1748; De La Barre-Duparcq, Histoire de Francois II., 1867. FRANCIS I. (1708-1765), head of the Holy Roman Empire, the eldest son of Leopold, duke of Lorraine, was born on the 8th of December 1708. His full name was Francis Stephen. At the age of fifteen he was sent to Viema, where he received the Silesian duchy of Teschsn. In 1735, in return for Lorraine, which Charles VI., at the end of the ^ar of the Polish succession, gave to Stanislaus Lesrxzynsk 1, Francis Stephen obtained the reversion to the duchy of Tnscimy, to which he succeeded in 1737. The ye0r before the letter date he married Maria Theresa, the daughter of the emperor Charles VI., and after the em peror s tieai Ji in 1740 he was declared by his wife joint r j;;enfc of her duminions. He was elected emperor after the death of Charles VII, and crowned at Frankfort on the 4th of October 1745. He carried on extensive trading opera tions, and was an enthusiastic collector of works of art; but he had no energy of character, and was quite willing that the empress-quesn, Maria Theresa, should do all the real work of government. When Austria and France, laying aside the animosities of two centuries, were coming to an understanding before the Seven Years War, he was shrewd enough to see the difficulties which would inevitably arise from such an alliance. Maria Theresa, however, although she sincerely loved him, had no respect for the political judgment of her good-natured husband, and he quietly acquiesced in her will. He suddenly died at Innsbruck on the 18th of August 1765, falling into the arms of his second son Leopold, who succeeded him as duke of Tuscany, and ultimately (after the death of Joseph II.) became emperor. FRANCIS II. (1768-1835), the last Holy Roman Em peror, and, as Francis I., first emperor of Austria, was born in Florence on the 12th Feburary 1768. He was the son of the emperor Leopold II., after whose death, in 1792, he suc ceeded to the hereditary dominions of the house of Austria, being crowned emperor in the same year. Before this time he had gained some experience of war during the conflict of