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Read Ebook: A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume 4 by Guizot Fran Ois Neuville Alphonse Marie De Illustrator Black Robert Translator
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Ebook has 195 lines and 167357 words, and 4 pages
LIST OF STEEL ENGRAVINGS:
FRANCIS I 137
GALLERY HENRY II 230
DIANA DE POITIERS 243
MARY STUART 270
HENRY OF LORRAINE 332
Cardinal Ximenes 14
All Night a-horseback 19
Bayard Knighting Francis I 19
Anthony Duprat 24
The Field of the Cloth of Gold 45
The Constable de Bourbon 53
The Death of Bayard 76
Louise of Savoy and Marguerite de Valois 102
The Duke of Orleans and Charles V 128
Claude de Lorraine, Duke of Guise 130
St. Thomas Aquinas and Abelard 140
Clement Marot 162
Rabelais 171
The First Protestants 178
William Farel 181
The Castle of Pau 183
Burning of Reformers at Meaux 188
Erasmus 194
Berquin released by John de la Barre 198
Heretic Iconoclasts 201
Massacre of the Vaudians 218
Calvin 222
Anne de Montmorency 235
Guise at Metz 244
Catherine de' Medici 255
Archers of the Body-guard 268
Death of La Renaudie 283
After-dinner Diversions 284
Mary Stuart 284
Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condo 285
Francis de Lorraine, Duke of Aumale and of Guise 302
Massacre of Protestants 305
The Duke of Guise waylaid 315
Conde at the Ford 328
Parley before the Battle of Moncontour 337
Admiral Gaspard de Coligny 346
Henry de Guise and the Corpse of Coligny 369
The Queen of Navarre and the Huguenot 372
Chancellor Michael de l'Hospital 376
The St. Bartholomew 383
Henry le Balafre 400
The Castle of Blois 428
Henry of Navarre and the Scotch Guard 448
A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES.
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. 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,--
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