Volume I Part 5 (1/2)

[Footnote 8: ”Dopo il papa che e universal capo della religione, e la signoria di Venezia, che, come e nata, s'e conservata sempre cristiana.”

Suriano, _ubi supra_, i. 472.]

[Footnote 9: This was in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Dec.

15, 1559, MSS. British Museum. I use the summary in the Calendar of State Papers (Stevenson), p. 197, note.]

[Footnote 10: Marino Cavalli stated, in 1546, that this systematic policy of continually incorporating and never alienating had been pursued for eighty years. So successful had it proved, that everything had been absorbed by confiscation, succession, or purchase. There was, perhaps, no longer a single prince in the kingdom with an income of 20,000 crowns; while even their scanty resources and straitened estates the princes possessed simply as ordinary proprietors, from whose actions an appeal was open to the king. Relazioni Venete (Alberi, Firenze), serie 1, i. 234, 235.]

[Footnote 11: Yet the old prejudice against city life had not fully died out. So late as in 1527, Cha.s.sanee wrote: ”Galliae omnis una est n.o.bilium norma. Nam rura et praedia sua (dicam potius castra) incolentes _urbes fugiunt, in quibus habitare n.o.bilem turpe ducitur_. Qui in illis degunt, ign.o.biles habentur a n.o.bilibus.” Catalogus Gloriae Mundi, fol. 200.]

[Footnote 12: Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Ven., i. 488.]

[Footnote 13: Mignet, _ubi supra_, ii. 160, etc.]

[Footnote 14: Rel. dell' Amb. Marino Cavalli (1546), _ubi supra_, i.

229.]

[Footnote 15: It would seem that the Venetian amba.s.sadors were never free from apprehension lest their admiration of what they had seen abroad might be construed as disparagement of their own island city.

Hence, Marino Giustiniano (A. D. 1535), after making the statement which we have given in the text, is careful to add: ”_Pur non arriva di richezza ad una gran gionta quanto Venezia; ne anco ha maggior popolo_, per mio giudizio, di che loro si gloriano.” Rel. Venete (Alberi, Firenze), serie 1, i. 148.]

[Footnote 16: The lowest estimate, which is that of Guicciardini (Belgiae Descriptio, apud Prescott, Philip II., i. 367), is probably nearest the mark; the highest, 800,000, is that of Davila, Storia delle Guerre Civili, 1. iii. (Eng. trans., p. 79). Marino Cavalli, in 1546, says 500,000; Michel Suriano, in 1561, between 400,000 and 500,000. M.

Dulaure is even more parsimonious than Guicciardini, for he will allow Paris, in the sixteenth century, not more than 200,000 to 210,000 souls!

Histoire de Paris, iv. 384. Some of the exaggerated estimates may be errors of transcription. At least Ranke a.s.serts that this is the case with the 500,000 of Fran. Giustiniani in 1537, where the original ma.n.u.script gives only 300,000. Franzosische Geschichte, v. (Abschn. 1), 76.]

[Footnote 17: See, for example, the MS. receipt, from which it appears that, in 1516, Sieur Imbert de Baternay pledged his entire service of plate to help defray the expenses of the war. Capefigue, Francois Premier et la Renaissance, i. 141.]

[Footnote 18: Marino Giustiniano (1535), Rel. Venete (Alberi), i, 185, Francois de Rabutin, Guerres de Belgique (Ed. Pantheon), 697.]

[Footnote 19: Marino Giustiniano, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 20: M. A. Boullee (in his Histoire complete des etats-Generaux, i. 181, etc.) and other writers give the character of States General to the gathering of princes, clergy, etc., at Tours, in May, 1506. This was the a.s.sembly from which Louis XII. obtained the welcome advice to break an engagement to give his daughter Claude, heiress of Brittany, in marriage to Charles, the future emperor of Germany, in order that he might be free to bestow her hand on Francis of Angouleme. M. Boullee is also inclined to call the a.s.sembly after the battle of St. Quentin, January 5, 1558, a meeting of the States General.

But Michel Suriano is correct in stating (Rel. des Amb. Ven., Tommaseo, i. 512-514) that between Louis XI.'s time and 1560 the only States General were those of 1483. Chancellor L'Hospital's words cited below are conclusive.]

[Footnote 21: Some of Louis XI.'s successors imbibed his aversion for these popular a.s.semblies, and would, like Louis, have treated any one as a rebel who dared to talk of calling them. Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb.

Ven. (Tommaseo), i. 512-514.]

[Footnote 22: Chancellor L'Hospital's remarkable words were: ”Or, messieurs, parceque nous reprenons l'ancienne coustume de tenir les estats _ja delaisses par le temps de quatre-vingts ans ou environ, ou n'y a memoire d'homme qui y puisse atteindre_, je diray en peu de paroles que c'est que tenir les estats, pour quelle cause Fon a.s.sembloit les estats, la facon et maniere, et qui y presidoit, quel bien en vient au roy, quel au peuple, et mesmes s'il est utile au roy de tenir les estats, ou non.” The address in full in La Place, Commentaires de l'Estat de la Republique, etc. (Ed. Pantheon), 80.]

[Footnote 23: Michel Suriano, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 24: ”Tellement que sous ces beaux et doux appasts, l'on n'ouvre jamais telles a.s.semblees que le peuple n'y accoure, ne les embra.s.se, et ne s'en esiouysse infiniement, ne considerant pas qu'il n'y a rien qu'il deust tant craindre, _comme estant le general refrain d'iceux, de tirer argent de luy_.... Au contraire jamais on ne feit a.s.semblee generale des trois Estats en cette France, sans accroistre les finances de nos Roys a la diminution de celles du peuple.” Pasquier, Recherches de la France, l. ii. c. 7, p. 82.]

[Footnote 25: ”Il re di Francia _e re d'asini_, perche il suo popolo supoorta ogni sorte di peso, senza rechiamo mai.” Michel Suriano, Commentarii (Rel. des Amb. Ven., Tommaseo), i. 486.]

[Footnote 26: Guerres de Belgique (ed. Pantheon), 585.]

[Footnote 27: ”Egli pu riputar poi tutti li danari della Francia esser suoi; perche nelli suoi bisogni, sempre che li dimanda, gli sono portati molto volontariamente _per la incomparabil benevolenza di essi popoli_.”

Relaz. Ven. (Alberi), ii. 172.]