Part 13 (1/2)
[Sidenote: France]
Though, at the opening of the sixteenth century, the French may have attained to no greater degree of national self-consciousness than had the Germans, they had gone much farther in the construction of a national state. The significance of this evolution, one of the strongest tendencies of modern history, is that it squares the outward political condition of the people with their inward desires. When once a nation has come to feel itself such, it cannot be happy until its polity is united in a h.o.m.ogeneous state, though the reverse is also true,--that national feeling is sometimes the result as well as the cause of political union. With the growth of a common language and of common ideals, and with the improvement of the methods of communication, the desire of the people for unity became stronger and stronger, until it finally overcame the centrifugal forces of feudalism and of particularism. These were so strong in Germany that only a very imperfect federation could be formed by way of national government, but in France, though they were still far from moribund, external pressure and the growth of the royal power had forged the various provinces into a nation such as it exists today. The most independent of the old provinces, Brittany, was now united to the crown by the marriage of its d.u.c.h.ess Anne to Louis XII. [Sidenote: Louis XII, 1498-1515]
{183}
Anne ==_Louis XII_ Charles, Count==Louise d.u.c.h.ess of | _1498-1515_ of Angouleme | of Savoy Brittany | | | | | | | | +---------+-------------+ | |2 1|| Renee==Hercules II, Claude==(1)_Francis I_ Margaret==(1)Charles, Duke of | _1515-47_ Duke of Ferrara | (2)==Eleanor, Alencon | sister of ==(2)Henry II, | Emperor | King of | Charles V | Navarre | | _Henry II_==Catharine de' | _1547-59_ | Medici d. 1589 Joan ==Anthony | d'Albret| of | | Bourbon | | Duke of | | Vendome +--------+------+------+----+-+----------------+ | | | | | | | | _Francis II_, | _Henry III_ | Elizabeth (1)Margaret==_Henry IV_, _1559-60_ | _1574-89_ | ==(3)Philip II (2)Mary de' 1589-1610 ==Mary, Queen | | King of Spain Medici of Scots | | | | _Charles IX_ Francis, Duke _1560-74_ of Alencon and Anjou, d. 1584
[Transcriber's note: ”d.” has been used here as a subst.i.tute for the ”dagger” symbol (Unicode U+2020) that signifies the person's year of death.]
Geographically, France was nearly the same four hundred years ago as it is today, save that the eastern {184} frontier was somewhat farther west. The line then ran west of the three Bishoprics, Verdun, Metz and Toul, west of Franche Comte, just east of Lyons and again west of Savoy and Nice.
Politically, France was then one of a group of semi-popular, semi-autocratic monarchies. The rights of the people were a.s.serted by the States General which met from time to time, usually at much longer intervals than the German Diets or the English Parliaments, and by the Parlements of the various provinces. These latter were rather high courts of justice than legislative a.s.semblies, but their right to register new laws gave them a considerable amount of authority. The Parlement of Paris was the most conspicuous and perhaps the most powerful.
[Sidenote: Concordat, 1516]
The power of the monarch, resting primarily on the support of the bourgeois cla.s.s, was greatly augmented by the Concordat of 1516, which made the monarch almost the supreme head of the Gallican church. For two centuries the crown had been struggling to attain this position.
It was because so large a degree of autonomy was granted to the national church that the French felt satisfied not to go to the extreme of secession from the Roman communion. It was because the king had already achieved a large control over his own clergy that he felt it unnecessary or inadvisable to go to the lengths of the Lutheran princes and of Henry VIII. In that one important respect the Concordat of Bologna took the place of the Reformation.
[Sidenote: Francis I, 1515-47]
Francis I was popular and at first not unattractive. Robust, fond of display, ambitious, intelligent enough to dabble in letters and art, he piqued himself on being chivalrous and brave. But he wasted his life and ruined his health in the pursuit of pleasure. His face, as it has come down to us in contemporary paintings, is disagreeable. He was, as with unusual candor a {185} contemporary observer put it, a devil even to the extent of considerably looking it.
While to art and letters Francis gave a certain amount of attention, he usually from mere indolence allowed the affairs of state to be guided by others. Until the death of his mother, Louise of Savoy, [Sidenote: 1531] he was ruled by her. Thereafter the Constable Anne de Montmorency was his chief minister. The policy followed was the inherited one which was, to a certain point, necessary in the given conditions. In domestic affairs, the king or his advisors endeavored to increase the power of the crown at the expense of the n.o.bles. The last of the great va.s.sals strong enough to a.s.sert a quasi-independence of the king was Charles of Bourbon. [Sidenote: 1523-4] He was arrested and tried by the Parlement of Paris, which consistently supported the crown. Fleeing from France he entered the service of Charles V, [Sidenote: 1526] and his restoration was made an article of the treaty of Madrid. His death in the sack of Rome closed the incident in favor of the king. [Sidenote: May, 1527]
The foreign policy of France was a constant struggle, now by diplomacy, now by arms, with Charles V. The princ.i.p.al remaining powers of Europe, England, Turkey and the pope, threw their weight now on one side now on the other of the two chief antagonists. Italy was the field of most of the battles. Francis began his reign by invading that country and defeating the Swiss at Marignano, thus conquering Milan. [Sidenote: September 14-15, 1515] The campaigns in Italy and Southern France culminated in the disastrous defeat of the French at Pavia. [Sidenote: February 24, 1525] Francis fought in person and was taken prisoner.
”Of all things nothing is left me but honor and life,” he wrote his mother.
Francis hoped that he would be freed on the payment of ransom according to the best models of chivalry. He found, however, when he was removed to {186} Madrid in May, that his captor intended to exact the last farthing of diplomatic concession. Discontent in France and the ennui and illness of the king finally forced him to sign a most disadvantageous treaty, [Sidenote: January 14, 1526] renouncing the lands of Burgundy, Naples and Milan, and ceding lands to Henry VIII.
The king swore to the doc.u.ment, pledged his knightly honor, and as additional securities married Eleanor the sister of Charles and left two of his sons as hostages.
Even when he signed it, however, he had no intention of executing the provisions of the treaty which, he secretly protested, had been wrung from him by force. The deputies of Burgundy refused to recognize the right of France to alienate them. Henry VIII at once made an alliance against the ”tyranny and pride” of the emperor. Charles was so chagrined that he challenged Francis to a duel. This opera bouffe performance ended by each monarch giving the other ”the lie in the throat.”
Though France succeeded in making with new allies, the pope and Venice, the League of Cognac, [Sidenote: May, 1526] and though Germany was at that time embarra.s.sed by the Turkish invasion, the ensuing war turned out favorably to the emperor. The ascendancy of Charles was so marked that peace again had to be made in his favor in 1529. The treaty of Cambrai, as it was called, was the treaty of Madrid over again except that Burgundy was kept by France. She gave up, however, Lille, Douai and other territory in the north and renounced her suzerainty over Milan and Naples. Francis agreed to pay a ransom of two million crowns for his sons. Though he was put to desperate straits to raise the money, levying a 40 per cent. income tax on the clergy and a 10 per cent. income tax on the n.o.bles, he finally paid the money and got back his children in 1530.
By this time France was so exhausted, both in {187} money and men, that a policy of peace was the only one possible for some years.
Montmorency, the princ.i.p.al minister of the king, continued by an active diplomacy to stir up trouble for Charles. While suppressing Lutherans at home he encouraged the Schmalkaldic princes abroad, going to the length of inviting Melanchthon to France in 1535. With the English minister Cromwell he came to an agreement, notwithstanding the Protestant tendencies of his policy. An alliance was also made with the Sultan Suleiman, secretly in 1534, and openly proclaimed in 1536.
In order to prepare for the military strife destined to be renewed at the earliest practical moment, an ordinance of 1534 reorganized and strengthened the army.
Far more important for the life of France than her incessant and inconclusive squabbling with Spain was the transformation pa.s.sing over her spirit. It is sometimes said that if the French kings brought nothing else back from their campaigns in Italy they brought back the Renaissance. [Sidenote: Reformation] There is a modic.u.m of truth in this, for there are some traces of Italian influence before the reign of Francis I. But the French spirit hardly needed this outside stimulus. It was awakening of itself. Scholars like William Bude and the Estiennes, thinkers like Dolet and Rabelais, poets like Marot, were the natural product of French soil. Everywhere, north of the Alps no less than south, there was a spontaneous efflorescence of intellectual activity.
The Reformation is often contrasted or compared with the Renaissance.
In certain respects, where a common factor can be found, this may profitably be done. But it is important to note how different in kind were the two movements. One might as well compare Darwinism and Socialism in our own time. The one was a new way of looking at things, a fresh {188} intellectual start, without definite program or organization. The other was primarily a thesis: a set of tenets the object of which was concrete action. The Reformation began in France as a school of thought, but it soon grew to a political party and a new church, and finally it evolved into a state within the state.
[Sidenote: Christian Renaissance]
Though it is not safe to date the French Reformation before the influence of Luther was felt, it is possible to see an indigenous reform that naturally prepared the way for it. Its harbinger was Lefevre d'etaples. This ”little Luther” wished to purify the church, to set aside the ”good works” thereof in favor of faith, and to make the Bible known to the people. He began to translate it in 1521, publis.h.i.+ng the Gospels in June 1523 and the Epistles and Acts and Apocalypse in October and November. The work was not as good as that of Luther or Tyndale. It was based chiefly on the Vulgate, though not without reference to the Greek text. Lefevre prided himself on being literal, remarking, with a side glance at Erasmus's _Paraphrases_, that it was dangerous to try to be more elegant than Scripture. He also prided himself on writing for the simple, and was immensely pleased with the favorable reception the people gave his work. To reach the hearts of the poor and humble he inst.i.tuted a reform of preaching, instructing his friends to purge their homilies of the more grossly superst.i.tious elements and of the scholastic theology. Instead of this they were to preach Christ simply with the aim of touching the heart, not of dazzling the mind.
Like-minded men gathering around Lefevre formed a new school of thought. It was a movement of revival within the church; its leaders, wis.h.i.+ng to keep all the old forms and beliefs, endeavored to infuse into them a new spirit. To some extent they were in conscious reaction against the intellectualism of Erasmus {189} and the Renaissance. On the other hand they were far from wis.h.i.+ng to follow Luther, when he appeared, in his schism.
Among the most famous of these mystical reformers were William Briconnet, Bishop of Meaux, and his disciple, Margaret d'Angouleme, sister of Francis I. Though a highly talented woman Margaret was weak and suggestible. She adored her dissolute brother and was always, on account of her marriages, first with Charles, duke of Alencon, [Sidenote: 1509] and then with Henry d'Albret, king of Navarre, [Sidenote: 1527] put in the position of a suppliant for his support.
She carried on an a.s.siduous correspondence with Briconnet as her spiritual director, being attracted first by him and then by Luther, chiefly, as it seems, through the wish to sample the novelty of their doctrines. She wrote _The Mirror of the Sinful Soul_ in the best style of penitent piety. [Sidenote: 1531] Its central idea is the love of G.o.d and of the ”debonnaire” Jesus. She knew Latin and Italian, studied Greek and Hebrew, and read the Bible regularly, exhorting her friends to do the same. She coquetted with the Lutherans, some of whom she protected in France and with others of whom in Germany she corresponded. She was strongly suspected of being a Lutheran, though a secret one. Capito dedicated to her a commentary on Hosea; Calvin had strong hopes of winning her to an open profession, but was disappointed. Her house, said he, which might have become the family of Jesus Christ, harbored instead servants of the devil. Throughout life she kept the accustomed Catholic rites, and wrote with much respect to Pope Paul III. But fundamentally her religious idealism was outside of any confession.