moral virtues and the charms of social life. Her barbarism had its Charlemagne; her feudal system St. Louis, Joan of Arc, and Bayard; her absolute monarchy Henry IV. and Louis XIV. Of our own times we say nothing. France has shone in war and in peace, through the sword and through the intellect: she has by turns conquered and beguiled, enlightened and troubled Europe; she has always offered to the foreigner a spectacle or an abode full of the curious and the attractive, of noble pleasures and of mundane amusements. And still, after so many centuries of such a grand and brilliant career, France has not yet attained the end to which she ever aspired, to which all civilized communities aspire, and that is, order in the midst of movement, security and liberty united and lasting. She has had shortcomings which have prevented her from reaping the full advantage of her merits; she has committed faults which have involved her in reverses. Two things, essential to political prosperity amongst communities of men, have hitherto been to seek in her; predominance of public spirit over the spirit of caste or of profession, and moderation and fixity in respect of national ambition both at home and abroad. France has been a victim to the personal passions of her chiefs and to her own reckless changeability.

We are entering upon the history of a period and a reign during which this intermixture of merits and demerits, of virtues and vices, of progress and backsliding, was powerfully and attractively exhibited amongst the French. Francis I., his government and his times commence the era of modern France, and bring clearly to view the causes of her greatnesses and her weaknesses.

Francis I. had received from God all the gifts that can adorn a man: he was handsome and tall and strong; his armor, preserved in the Louvre, is that of a man six feet high; his eyes were brilliant and soft, his smile was gracious, his manners were winning. From his very childhood he showed that he had wits, enterprise, skill, and boldness. He was but seven years old when, "on the day of the conversion of St. Paul, January 25, 1501, about two P. M., my king, my lord, my Caesar, and my son, was run away with, near Amboise, by a hackney which had been given him by Marshal de Gye; and so great was the danger that those who were present thought it was all over; howbeit God, the protector of widowed women and the defender of orphans, foreseeing things to come, was pleased not to forsake me, knowing that, if accident had so suddenly deprived me of my love, I should have been too utter a wretch." Such is the account given of this little incident by his mother, Louise of Savoy, who was at that time habitually kept, by Anne of Brittany's jealousy, at a distance from Paris and the court. [Journal de Louise de Savoie in the Petitot collection of Memoires sur l'Histoire de France, Series I. t. xvi. p. 390.] Some years later the young prince, who had become an ardent huntsman, took the fancy into his head one day to let loose in the courtyard of the castle of Amboise a wild boar which he had just caught in the forest. The animal came to a door, burst it open with a blow of his snout, and walked up into the apartments. Those who were there took to their heels; but Francis went after the boar, came up with him, killed him with a swordthrust, and sent him rolling down the staircase into the courtyard. When, in 1513, Louis XII. sent for the young Duke of Angouleme and bade him go and defend Picardy against the English, Francis had scarcely done anything beyond so employing his natural gifts as to delight the little court of which he was the centre; an estimable trait, but very insufficient for the government of a people.

When, two years afterwards, on the 1st of January, 1515, he ascended the throne before he had attained his one and twentieth year, it was a brilliant and brave but spoiled child that became king. He had been under the governance of Artus Gouffier, Sire de Boisy, a nobleman of Poitou, who had exerted himself to make his royal pupil a loyal knight, well trained in the moral code and all the graces of knighthood, but without drawing his attention to more serious studies or preparing him for the task of government. The young Francis d'Angouleme lived and was moulded under the influence of two women, his mother, Louise of Savoy, and his eldest sister, Marguerite, who both of them loved and adored him with passionate idolatry. It has just been shown in what terms Louise of Savoy, in her daily collection of private memoranda, used to speak to herself of her son, "My king, my lord, my Caesar, and my son!" She was proud, ambitious, audacious, or pliant at need, able and steadfast in mind, violent and dissolute in her habits, greedy of pleasure and of money as well as of power, so that she gave her son neither moral principles nor a moral example: for him the supreme kingship, for herself the rank, influence, and wealth of a queen-mother, and, for both, greatness that might subserve the gratification of their passions—this was all her dream and all her aim as a mother. Of quite another sort were the character and sentiments of Marguerite de Valois. She was born on the 11th of April, 1492, and was, therefore, only two years older than her brother Francis; but her more delicate nature was sooner and more richly cultivated and developed. She was brought up with strictness by a most excellent and most venerable dame, in whom all the virtues, at rivalry one with another, existed together. [Madame de Chatillon, whose deceased husband had been governor to King Charles VIII.] As she was discovered to have rare intellectual gifts and a very keen relish for learning, she was provided with every kind of preceptors, who made her proficient in profane letters, as they were then called. Marguerite learned Latin, Greek, philosophy, and especially theology. "At fifteen years of age," says a contemporary, "the spirit of God began to manifest itself in her eyes, in her face, in her walk, in her speech, and. generally in all her actions." "She had a heart," says Brantome, "mighty devoted to God, and she loved mightily to compose spiritual songs. . . . She also devoted herself to letters in her young days, and continued them as long as she lived, loving and conversing with, in the time of her greatness, the most learned folks of her brother's kingdom, who honored her so that they called her their Maecenas." Learning, however, was far from absorbing the whole of this young soul. "She," says a contemporary, "had an agreeable voice of touching tone, which roused the tender inclinations that there are in the heart." Tenderness, a passionate tenderness, very early assumed the chief place in Marguerite's soul, and the first object of it was her brother Francis. When mother, son, and sister were spoken of, they were called a Trinity, and to this Marguerite herself bore witness when she said, with charming modesty,—

Marguerite it was for whom this close communion of three persons had the most dolorous consequences: we shall fall in with her more than once in the course of this history; but, whether or no, she was assuredly the best of this princely trio, and Francis I. was the most spoiled by it. There is nothing more demoralizing than to be an idol.

The first acts of his government were sensible and of good omen. He confirmed or renewed the treaties or truces which Louis XII., at the close of his reign, had concluded with the Venetians, the Swiss, the pope, the King of England, the Archduke Charles, and the Emperor Maximilian, in order to restore peace to his kingdom. At home Francis I. maintained at his council the principal and most tried servants of his