named nobleman, by an unheard-of piece of barbarity, were sprinkled with their father's blood, yet reeking from his veins, and sent in that condition to the Bastiles.

With the ignominious but politic treaty of Lewis with Edward IV. by which he purchased the retreat of that monarch, you are already acquainted. He was always engaged, either in war or negociations, with his natural enemy the duke of Burgundy, till the death of that prince, who fell in an ambitious and unprovoked attempt upon the liberty of the Swiss. This was a fortunate event for Lewis, A. D. 1477. and he endeavoured to make the most of it. The duke left no male issue, and but one daughter, the sole heiress of his extensive dominions, which comprehended not only the duchy of Burgundy, but Franche-Comte, Artois, Flanders, and almost all the Netherlands. Lewis proposed a marriage between this princess and his son Charles, the dauphin, a boy only seven years old. In the mean time he seized Burgundy, as a male fief, and made himself master of Artois, Benzancon, and several other places, by the most atrocious acts of treachery and cruelty'. This was the way to make sure of something, but surely not to bring about a marriage treaty: the rapacity of this arch-politician, notwithstanding all his penetration, once more betrayed him. The princess, Mary, was filled with diffidence, and her Flemish subjects with detestation. By their advice she married the archduke Maximilian, son of the emperor Frederick III. and hence arose new wars, which long desolated the Low Countries, and bred an implacable hatred between the houses of France and Austria,

Lewis

5. Du Tillet. The king ordered, says Mezeray, that the two sons of the duke of Nemours, yet infants, should be placed beneath the scaffold on which he was executed, that their father's blood might fall on their heads. Abrege Chronol. de Hist. de France.

6. Phil. de Com. liv. v. chap. xv. Du Clos. Hist. Lewis XI. 7. There is reason however to believe, that the heiress of Burgundy was influenced, in her choice, by other motives than those of policy; for we are

told

A. D. 1480.

Lewis, however, put a stop to these wars (as he did, as soon as possible, to all in which he was engaged) by a truce; and though he could not boast of his success in arms, he retained Burgundy, and all the other places he had seized. Anjou, Maine, Provence, and Bar, were soon after left him by Charles count du Maine, the last prince of the house of Anjou, who died without issue. He united to the crown Roussillon and Cerdagne, under pretence of mortgage, and the county of Boulogne by purchase. Thus Lewis, amid all his crimes, and after all his struggles, and all his blunders, saw his kingdom much enlarged, his subjects in obedience, and his government revered at home and abroad. But he had only a glimpse of that agreeable prospect; for he was suddenly seized with a fit of the apoplexy, which threw him into a lingering illness; and he expected death with all those horrors, which a life of such complicated guilt deserved. It at last overtook him; but not before he had suffered more severe tortures than any criminal punished during his reign3.

A. D. 1483.

The

told by Philip de Comines, that while her marriage with the dauphin was under deliberation, madame Hallewin, first lady of the bedchamber to that princess, gave it as her opinion, “That there was more need of a man than "a boy!" (Mem. liv. vi. chap. iii.) Admitting this to be the case, and the marriage with the dauphin impracticable, Lewis might still have prevented the dominions of Burgundy from being conveyed to a rival power, by favouring the suit of the count of Angouleme, a prince of the blood-royal of France, and father of Francis I. towards a match with whom the princess Mary had indicated her good will. (Comines ubi sup.) But the rapacious disposition and intriguing spirit of the French monarch, which obscured his naturally clear and sound understanding, with his jealous dread of so highly exalting a subject, made him discourage that alliance, and pursue a line of insidious policy, disgraceful even to Lewis XI. and which contributed, eventually, to raise up in the house of Austria a rival power that thwarted all the measures, opposed the arms, and checked, during two centuries, the progress of the successors of a prince who first united the interior force of France, and established it on such a footing as to render it formidable to the rest of Europe.

8. Phil. de Com. liv. 6. chap. xxi. xxii. Du Clos. Hist. Louis XI. The picture drawn by these two writers, of the last scene of this monarch's life, in contrast with his cruelties, is deeply shaded with horror. He put

to

The character of Lewis XI. is one of the most complicated in history. He obtained the end which he proposed by his policy, but at the expence of his peace and reputation. His life was a jumble of crimes and contradictions. Absolute, without dignity, popular (because he humbled the great), without generosity; unjust by system, yet zealous for

to death, we are told, more than four thousand persons, by different kinds of torture, and without any form of trial; that he was usually present himself at their execution, in beholding which he seemed to enjoy a barbarous satisfaction or triumph; that many of the nobility were, by his order, confined in iron cages, invented by the ministers of his tyrannies, and carried about like wild beasts; while others were loaded with heavy and galling fetters, with a ring of a particular construction for the feet, called the King's Nets! (Comines et Du Clos, ubi sup.) In consequence of these barbarities, and a dread of future punishment, he became greatly afraid of death; and during his illness suspicious of every one around him, not excepting his own son, his daughter, and his son-in-law, the lord of Beaujeau, afterwards duke of Bourbon, though in the two last he placed more confidence than in all the others. After often shifting his residence and his domestics, under pretence that nature delights in change, he took up his abode at the castle of Plessiz-les-Tours, which he ordered to be encompassed with large bars of iron, in the form of a grate, with four watchtowers of iron at the four corners of the building. The grates were without the wall, on the further side of the ditch, and went to the bottom; spikes of iron, set as thick as possible, were fastened into the wall; and cross-bow men were placed in the ditches and in the watch-towers, to shoot at any man, who dared approach the castle till the opening of the gate. The gate was never opened, nor the draw-bridge let down before eight in the morning, when the courtiers were permitted to enter. Through the day the captains were ordered to guard their several posts, with a main guard in the middle of the court, as in a town closely besieged. (Phil. de Com. liv. vi. chap. xii.) Nor was this all. Every secret of medicine, every allurement of sensuality and every sacrifice of superstition, was exhausted, in order to protract the tyrant's miserable existence, and set at a distance the ills he feared. The pope sent him the vest which St. Peter wore when he said mass; the sacred phial was brought from Rheims to re-anoint him; and he invited a holy hermit from Calabria, at whose feet he kneeled, and whose intercession with Heaven he attempted to buy, by building him two convents: the most beautiful country girls were procu red to dance around him to the sound of music; he paid his physician, whom he feared, the enormous sum of ten thousand crowns a month; and the blood of infants i said to have been spilt in order to soften the acrimony of his scorbutic humours! Phil. de Com. et Du Clos, ubi sup. the

the administration of justice; living in open violation of the first principles of morals, but resigning himself to the most ridiculous superstitions; the tyrant of his subjects, and the timid slave of his physicians! he debased the royalty at the same time that he strengthened it. Yet this prince who rendered religion contemptible, and royalty disgraceful, assumed the title of Majesty and Most Christian, since given to his successors, and formerly not claimed by the kings of France.

Lewis was succeeded by his son, Charles VIII. a young prince ill-educated, rash, and incapable of application. As he had entered the fourteenth year of his age, he was no longer a minor by the law; but he was still so by nature; and Lewis had wisely entrusted the government, during the youth of the king, to his daughter Anne, lady of Beaujeau, a woman of great spirit and capacity. The administration however, was disputed by the duke of Orleans, first prince of the blood, and afterward the celebrated Lewis XII. who proving unsuccessful in his intrigues, betook himself to arms, and entered into a league with the duke of Britanny, and the archduke Maximilian. The Bretons were defeated in the battle of St. Aubin, and the duke of Orleans was taken prisoner9.

A. D. 1488.

The death of the duke of Britanny, which happened soon after this defeat, threw the affairs of that duchy into the ut most confusion, and seemed to threaten the state with final subjection. It was the only great fief which now remained disunited from the crown of France; and as the duke had died without male heirs, some antiquated claims to its dominion were revived by Charles VIII. But force is the best claim between princes; of that Charles was possessed; and the conquest of Britanny seemed inevitable, unless prevented by some foreign power.

9. Mezeray, tom. vi. Henault, tom. i. Could the duke of Orleans have flattered the passion of Anne of Beaujeau, he might, if we believe Brantome, not only have escaped this misfortune, but shared the administration.

The

The prince to whom the distressed Bretons looked up for aid was Henry VII. of England, who was highly interested in preventing the reduction of their country, as well as bound by ties of gratitude to return that protection to the young duchess, which had been generously yielded him by her father. But the parsimonious temper of Henry, which rendered him averse to all warlike enterprises, or distant expeditions, prevented him from sending them any effectual support. They therefore applied to Maximilian of Austria, now king of the Romans, whose wife, Mary of Burgundy, was lately dead, and offered him their duchess in marriage. The proposal was readily accepted; the nuptials A. D. 1489. were celebrated by proxy; and the duchess of Britanny assumed the august title of queen of the Romans. But this honour was all she gained by her marriage; for Maximilian, destitute of money and troops, and embarrassed by the continual revolts of the Flemings, was able to send no succours to his consort. The French made progress every day; yet the conquest of Britanny seemed still so distant, and accompanied with so many difficulties, that the court of France changed its measures, and by a master-stroke in policy astonished all Europe.

Charles VIII. had been affianced to Margaret, daughter of Maximilian. Though too young for the nuptial union, she had been sent to Paris to be educated, and at this time bore the title of queen of France. Engagements so solemnly entered into could not easily be set aside; but the marriage of Charles with the duchess of Britanny seemed necessary to re-annex that important fief to the crown; and, as a yet stronger motive for such alliance, the marriage of Maximilian with this princess, appeared destructive to the grandeur, and even to the security of the French monarchy. The only means of obviating every inconveniency, were therefore concluded to be, the dissolution of the two marriages, which had been celebrated but not consummated, and the espousal of the duchess of Britanny by the king of France.

The