DEATH OF FRANCIS I

 

THE emperor’s dread of the hostile intentions of the pope and French king did not proceed from any imaginary or ill-grounded suspicion. Paul had already given the strongest proofs both of his jealousy and enmity.

Charles could not hope that Francis, after a rivalship of so long continuance, would behold the great advantages which he had gained over the confederate protestants, without feeling his ancient emulation revive. He was not deceived in this conjecture. Francis had observed the rapid progress of his arms with deep concern, and though hitherto prevented by circumstances which have been mentioned, from interposing in order to check them, he was now convinced that, if he did not make some extraordinary and timely effort, Charles must acquire such a degree of power as would enable him to give law to the rest of Europe. This apprehension, which did not take its rise from the jealousy of rivalship alone, but was entertained by the wisest politicians of the age, suggested various expedients which might serve to retard the course of the emperor's victories, and to form by degrees such a combination against him as might put a stop to his dangerous career.

With this view, Francis instructed his emissaries in Germany to employ all their address in order to revive the courage of the confederates, and to prevent them from submitting to the emperor. He made liberal offers of his assistance to the elector and landgrave, whom he knew to be the most zealous as well as the most powerful of the whole body; he used every argument and proposed every advantage which could either confirm their dread of the emperor's designs, or determine them not to imitate the inconsiderate credulity of their associates, in giving up their religion and liberties to his disposal. While he took this step towards continuing the civil war which raged in Germany, he endeavored likewise to stir up foreign enemies against the emperor. He solicited Solyman to seize this favorable opportunity of invading Hungary, which had been drained of all the troops necessary for its defence, in order to form the army against the confederates of Smalkalde. He exhorted the pope to repair, by a vigorous and seasonable effort, the error of which he had been guilty in contributing to raise the emperor to such a formidable height of power. Finding Paul, both from the consciousness of his own mistake, and his dread of its consequences, abundantly disposed to listen to what he suggested, he availed himself of this favorable disposition which the pontiff began to discover, as an argument to gain the Venetians. He endeavored to convince them that nothing could save Italy, and even Europe, from oppression and servitude, but their joining with the pope and him, in giving the first begin­ning to a general confederacy, in order to humble that ambitious potentate, whom they had all equal reason to dread.

Having set on foot these negotiations, in the southern courts, he turned his attention next towards those in the north of Europe. As the king of Denmark had particular reasons to be offended with the emperor, Francis imagined that the object of the league which he had projected would be highly acceptable to him: and lest considerations of caution or prudence would restrain him from joining in it, he attempted to overcome these, by offering him the young queen of Scots in marriage to his son. As the ministers who governed England in the name of Edward VI had openly declared themselves converts to the opinions of the reformers, as soon as it became safe upon Henry's death to lay aside that disguise which his intolerant bigotry had forced them to assume, Francis flattered himself that their zeal would not allow them to remain inactive spectators of the overthrow and destruction of those who professed the same faith with themselves. He hoped, that notwithstanding the struggles of faction incident to a minority, and the prospect of an approaching rupture with the Scots, he might prevail on them likewise to take part in the common cause.

While Francis employed such a variety of expedients, and exerted himself with such extraordinary activity, to rouse the different states of Europe against his rival, he did not neglect what depended on himself alone. He levied troops in all parts of his dominions; he collected military stores; he contracted with the Swiss cantons for a considerable body of men; he put his finances in admirable order; he remitted considerable sums to the elector and landgrave; and took all the other steps necessary towards commencing hostilities on the shortest warning, and with the greatest vigour.

Operations so complicated, and which required the putting so many instruments in motion, did not escape the emperor's observation. He was early informed of Francis’s intrigues in the several courts of Europe, as well as of his domestic preparations; and sensible how fatal an interruption a foreign war would prove to his designs in Germany, he trembled at the prospect of that event. The danger, however, appeared to him as unavoidable as it was great. He knew the insatiable and well directed ambition of Solyman, and that he always chose the season for beginning his military enterprises with prudence equal to the valor with which he conducted them. The pope, as he had good reason to believe, wanted not pretexts to justify a rupture, nor inclination to begin hostilities. He had already made some discovery of his sentiments, by expressing a joy altogether unbecoming the head of the church, upon receiving an account of the advantage which the elector of Saxony had gained over Albert of Brandenburg; and as he was now secure of finding, in the French king, an ally of sufficient power to support him, he was at no pains to conceal the violence and extent of his enmity. The Venetians, Charles was well assured, had long observed the growth of his power with jealousy, which, added to the solicitations and promises of France, might at last quicken their slow counsels, and overcome their natural caution. The Danes and English, it was evident, had both peculiar reason to be disgusted, as well as strong motives to act against him. But above all, he dreaded the active emulation of Francis himself, whom he considered as the soul and mover of any confederacy that could be formed against him; and as that monarch had afforded protection to Verrina, who sailed directly to Marseilles upon the miscarriage of Fiesco’s conspiracy, Charles expected every moment to see the commencement of those hostile operations in Italy, of which he conceived the insurrection in Genoa to have been only the prelude.

But while he remained in this state of suspense and solicitude, there was one circumstance which afforded him some prospect of avoiding the danger. The French king’s health began to decline. A disease, which was the effect of his intemperance and inconsiderate pursuit of pleasure, preyed gradually on his constitution. The preparations for war, as well as the negotiations in the different courts, began to languish, together with the monarch who gave spirit to both. The Genoese, during that interval [March] reduced Montobbio, took Jerome Fiesco prisoner, and having put him to death, together with his chief adherents, extinguished all remains of the conspiracy. Several of the Imperial cities in Germany, despairing of timely assistance from France, submitted to the emperor. Even the landgrave seemed disposed to abandon the elector, and to bring matters to a speedy accommodation, on such terms as he could obtain. In the mean time, Charles waited with impatience the issue of a distemper, which was to decide whether he must relinquish all other schemes, in order to pre­pare for resisting a combination of the greater part of Europe against him, or whether he might proceed to invade Saxony, without interruption or fear of danger.

The good fortune, so remarkably propitious to his family, that some historians have called it the Star of the House of Austria, did not desert him on this occasion. Francis died at Rambouillet, on the last day of March, in the fifty-third year of his age, and the thirty-third of his reign. During twenty-eight years of that time, an avowed rivalship subsisted between him and the emperor, which involved not only their own dominions, but the greater part of Europe, in wars, which were prosecuted with more violent animosity, and drawn out to a greater length, than had been known in any former period. Many circumstances contributed to this. Their animosity was founded in opposition of interest, heightened by personal emulation, and exasperated not only by mutual injuries, but by reciprocal insults. At the same time, whatever advantage one seemed to possess towards gaining the ascendant, was wonderfully balanced by some favorable circumstance peculiar to the other.

The emperor's dominions were of greater extent, the French king's lay more compact; Francis governed his kingdom with absolute power; that of Charles was limited, but he supplied the want of authority by address : the troops of the former were more impetuous and enterprising; those of the latter better disciplined, and more patient of fatigue. The talents and abilities of the two monarchs were as different as the advantages which they possessed, and contributed no less to prolong the contest between them. Francis took his resolutions suddenly, prosecuted them at first with warmth, and pushed them into execution with a most adventurous courage; but being destitute of the perseverance necessary to surmount difficulties, he often abandoned his designs, or relaxed the vigor of pursuit, from impatience, and sometimes from levity. Charles deliberated long, and determined with coolness; but having once fixed his plan, he adhered to it with inflexible obstinacy, and neither danger nor discouragement could turn him aside from the execution of it. The success of their enterprises was suitable to the diversity of their characters, and was uniformly influenced by it. Francis, by his impetuous activity, often disconcerted the emperor’s best laid schemes; Charles, by a more calm but steady prosecution of his designs, checked the rapidity of his rival’s career, and baffled or repulsed his most vigorous efforts. The former, at the opening of a war or of a campaign broke in upon his enemy with the violence of a torrent, and carried all before him; the latter, waiting until he saw the force of his rival begin to abate, recovered in the end not only all that he had lost, but made new acquisitions. Few of the French monarch's attempts towards conquest, whatever promising aspect they might wear at first, were conducted to a happy issue; many of the emperor’s enterprises, even after they appeared desperate and impracticable, terminated in the most prosperous manner. Francis was dazzled with the splendor of an undertaking; Charles was allured by the prospect of its turning to his advantage.

The degree, however, of their comparative merit and reputation has not been fixed either by a strict scrutiny into their abilities for government, or by an impartial consideration of the greatness and success of their undertakings; and Francis is one of those monarchs who occupies a higher rank in the temple of Fame, than either his talents or performances entitle him to hold. This pre-eminence he owed to many different circumstances.

The superiority which Charles acquired by the victory of Pavia, and which from that period he preserved through the remainder of his reign, was so manifest, that Francis’s struggle against his exorbitant and growing dominion was viewed by most of the other powers, not only with the partiality which naturally arises for those who gallantly maintain an unequal contest, but with the favor due to one who was resisting a common enemy, and endeavoring to set bounds to a monarch equally formidable to them all. The characters of princes, too, especially among their contemporaries, depend not only upon their talents for government, but upon their qualities as men. Francis, notwithstanding the many errors conspicuous in his foreign policy and domestic administration, was nevertheless humane, beneficent, and generous. He possessed dignity without pride; affability free from meanness; and courtesy exempt from deceit. All who had access to him, and no man of merit was ever denied that privilege, respected and loved him. Captivated with his personal qualities, his subjects forgot his defects as a monarch, and admiring him as the most accomplished and amiable gentleman in his dominions, they hardly murmured at acts of maladministration, which, in a prince of less engaging dispositions, would have been deemed unpardonable.

This admiration, however, must have been temporary only, and would have died away, with the courtiers who bestowed it; the illusion arising from his private virtues must have ceased, and posterity would have judged of his public conduct with its usual impartiality; but another circumstance prevented this, and his name hath been transmitted to posterity with increasing reputation. Science and the arts had, at that time, made little progress in France. They were just beginning to advance beyond the limits of Italy, where they had revived, and which had hitherto been their only seat. Francis took them immediately under his protection, and vied with Leo himself, in the zeal and munificence with which he encouraged them. He invited learned men to his court, he conversed with them familiarly, he employed them in business, he raised them to offices of dignity, and honored them with his confidence. That order of men, not more prone to complain when denied the respect to which they conceive themselves entitled, than apt to be pleased when treated with the distinction which they consider as their due, thought they could not exceed in gratitude to such a benefactor, and strained their invention, and employed all their ingenuity in panegyric. Succeeding authors, warmed with their descriptions of Francis’s bounty, adopted their encomiums, and even added to them. The appellation of Father of Letters bestowed upon Francis, hath rendered his memory sacred among historians and they seem to has e regarded it as a sort of impiety to uncover his infirmities, or to point out his defects. Thus Francis, notwithstanding his inferior abilities, and want of success, hath more than equaled the fame of Charles. The good qualities which he possessed as a man, have entitled him to greater admiration and praise than have been bestowed upon the extensive genius and fortunate arts of a more capable, but less amiable rival.

 

THE BATTLE OF MUHLBERG