extraordinary commissions, to reduce to a powerful unity, with
parliaments to crown all, that multitude of jurisdictions which were
degenerate and corrupt products of the feudal system in its decay, such
was the constant aim of the states-general of 1484.  They saw that a
judicial hierarchy would be vain without fixity of laws; and they
demanded a summarization of customs and a consolidation of ordinances in
a collection placed within reach of all.  Lastly they made a claim, which
they were as qualified to make as they were intelligent in making, for
the removal of the commercial barriers which divided the provinces and
prevented the free transport of merchandise.  They pointed out the
repairing of the roads and the placing of them in good condition as the
first means of increasing the general prosperity.  Not a single branch of
the administration of the kingdom escaped their conscientious scrutiny:
law, finance, and commerce by turns engaged their attention; and in all
these different matters they sought to ameliorate institutions, but never
to usurp power.  They did not come forward like the shrievalty of the
University of Paris in 1413, with a new system of administration; the
reign of Louis XI. had left nothing that was important or possible, in
that way, to conceive; there was nothing more to be done than to glean
after him, to relax those appliances of government which he had stretched
at all points, and to demand the accomplishment of such of his projects
as were left in arrear and the cure of the evils he had caused by the
frenzy and the aberrations of his absolute will."

We do not care to question the merits of the states-general of 1484; we
have but lately striven to bring them to light, and we doubt not but that
the enduring influence of their example and their sufferings counted for
much in the progress of good government during the reign of Louis XII.
It is an honor to France to have always resumed and pursued from crisis
to crisis, through a course of many sufferings, mistakes, and tedious
gaps, the work of her political enfranchisement and the foundation of a
regimen of freedom and legality in the midst of the sole monarchy which
so powerfully contributed to her strength and her greatness.  The
states-general of 1484, in spite of their rebuffs and long years after
their separation, held an honorable place in the history of this
difficult and tardy work; but Louis XII.'s personal share in the good
home-government of France during his reign was also great and
meritorious.  His chief merit, a rare one amongst the powerful of the
earth, especially when there is a question of reforms and of liberty, was
that he understood and entertained the requirements and wishes of his
day; he was a mere young prince of the blood when the states of 1484 were
sitting at Tours; but he did not forget them when he was king, and, far
from repudiating their patriotic and modest work in the cause of reform
and progress, he entered into it sincerely and earnestly with the aid
of Cardinal d'Amboise, his honest, faithful, and ever influential
councillor.  The character and natural instincts of Louis XII. inclined
him towards the same views as his intelligence and moderation in politics
suggested.  He was kind, sympathetic towards his people, and anxious to
spare them every burden and every suffering that was unnecessary, and to
have justice, real and independent justice, rendered to all.  He reduced
the talliages a tenth at first and a third at a later period.  He refused
to accept the dues usual on a joyful accession.  When the wars in Italy
caused him some extraordinary expense, he disposed of a portion of the
royal possessions, strictly administered as they were, before imposing
fresh burdens upon the people.  His court was inexpensive, and he had no
favorites to enrich.  His economy became proverbial; it was sometimes
made a reproach to him; and things were carried so far that he was
represented, on the stage of a popular theatre, ill, pale, and surrounded
by doctors, who were holding a consultation as to the nature of his
malady: they at last agreed to give him a potion of gold to take; the
sick man at once sat up, complaining of nothing more than a burning
thirst.  When informed of this scandalous piece of buffoonery, Louis
contented himself with saying, "I had rather make courtiers laugh by my
stinginess than my people weep by my extravagance."  He was pressed to
punish some insolent comedians; but, "No," said he, "amongst their
ribaldries they may sometimes tell us useful truths let them amuse
themselves, provided that they respect the honor of women."  In the
administration of justice he accomplished important reforms, called for
by the states-general of 1484 and promised by Louis XI. and Charles
VIII., but nearly all of them left in suspense.  The purchase of offices
was abolished and replaced by a two-fold election; in all grades of the
magistracy, when an office was vacant, the judges were to assemble to
select three persons, from whom the king should be bound to choose.  The
irremovability of the magistrates, which had been accepted but often
violated by Louis XI., became under Louis XII. a fundamental rule.  It
was forbidden to every one of the king', magistrates, from the premier-
president to the lowest provost to accept any place or pension from any
lord, under pain of suspension from their office or loss of their salary.
The annual Mercurials (Wednesday-meetings) became, in the supreme courts,
a general and standing usage.  The expenses of the law were reduced.  In
1501, Louis XII. instituted at Aix in Provence a new parliament; in 1499
the court of exchequer a Rouen, hitherto a supreme but movable and
temporary court became a fixed and permanent court, which afterwards
received under Francis I., the title of parliament.  Being convinced
before long, by facts themselves, that these reforms were seriously meant
by their author, and were practically effective, the people conceived, in
consequence, towards the king and the magistrates a general sentiment of
gratitude and respect.  In 1570 Louis made a journey from Paris to Lyons
by Champaigne and Burgundy; and "wherever he passed," says St. Gelais"
men and women assembled from all parts, and ran after him for three or
four leagues.  And when they were able to touch his mule, or his robe, or
anything that was his, they kissed their hands .  .  .  with as great
devotion as they would have shown to a reliquary.  And the Burgundians
showed as much enthusiasm as the real old French."

Louis XII.'s private life also contributed to win for him, we will not
say the respect and admiration, but the good will of the public.  He was
not, like Louis IX., a model of austerity and sanctity; but after the
licentious court of Charles VII., the coarse habits of Louis XI., and the
easy morals of Charles VIII., the French public was not exacting.  Louis
XII. was thrice married.  His first wife, Joan, daughter of Louis XI.,
was an excellent and worthy princess, but ugly, ungraceful, and
hump-backed.  He had been almost forced to marry her, and he had no child
by her.  On ascending the throne, he begged Pope Alexander VI. to annul
his marriage; the negotiation was anything but honorable, either to the
king or to the pope; and the pope granted his bull in consideration of
the favors shown to his unworthy son, Caesar Borgia, by the king.  Joan
alone behaved with a virtuous as well as modest pride, and ended her life
in sanctity within a convent at Bourges, being wholly devoted to pious
works, regarded by the people as a saint, spoken of by bold preachers as
a martyr, and "still the true and legitimate Queen of France," and
treated at a distance with profound respect by the king who had put her
away.  Louis married, in 1499, his predecessor's widow, Anne, Duchess of
Brittany, twenty-three years of age, short, pretty, a little lame, witty,
able, and firm.  It was, on both sides, a marriage of policy, though
romantic tales have been mixed up with it; it was a suitable and
honorable royal arrangement, without any lively affection on one side
or the other, but with mutual esteem and regard.  As queen, Anne was
haughty, imperious, sharp-tempered, and too much inclined to mix in
intrigues and negotiations at Rome and Madrid, sometimes without regard
for the king's policy; but she kept up her court with spirit and dignity,
being respected by her ladies, whom she treated well, and favorably
regarded by the public, who were well disposed towards her for having
given Brittany to France.  Some courtiers showed their astonishment that
the king should so patiently bear with a character so far from agreeable;
but "one must surely put up with something from a woman," said Louis,
"when she loves her honor and her husband."  After a union of fifteen
years, Anne of Brittany died on the 9th of January, 1514, at the castle
of Blois, nearly thirty-seven years old.  Louis was then fifty-two.  He
seemed very much to regret his wife; but, some few months after her
death, another marriage of policy was put, on his behalf, in course of
negotiation.  It was in connection with Princess Mary of England, sister
of Henry VIII., with whom it was very important for Louis XII. and for
France to be once more at peace and on good terms.  The Duke de
Longueville, made prisoner by the English at the battle of Guinegate,
had, by his agreeable wit and his easy, chivalrous grace, won Henry
VIII.'s favor in London; and he perceived that that prince, discontented
with his allies, the Emperor of Germany and the King of Spain, was
disposed to make peace with the King of France.  A few months, probably
only a few weeks, after Anne of Brittany's death, De Longueville, no
doubt with Louis XII.'s privity, suggested to Henry VIII. the idea of a
marriage between his young sister and the King o France.  Henry liked to
do sudden and striking things: he gladly seized the opportunity of
avenging himself upon his two allies, who, in fact, had not been very
faithful to him, and he welcomed De Longueville's idea.  Mary was
sixteen, pretty, already betrothed to Archduke Charles of Austria, and,
further passionately smitten with Charles Brandon, the favorite of Henry
VIII., who had made him Duke of Suffolk, and, according to English
historians, the handsomest nobleman in England.  These two difficulties
were surmounted: Mary herself formally declared her intention of breaking
a promise of marriage which had been made during her minority, and which
Emperor Maximilian had shown himself in no hurry to get fulfilled; and
Louis XII. formally demanded her hand.  Three treaties were concluded on
the 7th of August, 1514, between the Kings of France and England, in
order to regulate the conditions of their political and matrimonial
alliance; on the 13th of August, the Duke de Longueville, in his
sovereign's name, espoused the Princess Mary at Greenwich; and she,
escorted to France by brilliant embassy, arrived on the 8th of October at
Abbeville where Louis XII. was awaiting her.  Three days afterwards the
marriage was solemnized there in state, and Louis, who had suffered from
gout during the ceremony, carried off his young queen to Paris, after
having had her crowned at St. Denis Mary Tudor had given up the German
prince, who was destined to become Charles V., but not the handsome
English nobleman she loved.  The Duke of Suffolk went to France to see
her after her marriage, and in her train she had as maid of honor a young
girl, a beauty as well, who was one day to be Queen of England--Anne
Boleyn.

Less than three months after this marriage, on the 1st of January, 1515,
"the death-bell-men were traversing the streets of Paris, ringing their
bells and crying, 'The good King Louis, father of the people, is dead.'"
Louis XII., in fact, had died that very day, at midnight, from an attack
of gout and a rapid decline.  "He had no great need to be married, for
many reasons," says the Loyal Serviteur of Bayard, "and he likewise had
no great desire that way; but, because he found himself on every side at
war, which he could not maintain without pressing very hard upon his
people, he behaved like the pelican.  After that Queen Mary had made her
entry, which was mighty triumphant, into Paris, and that there had taken
place many jousts and tourneys, which lasted more than six weeks, the
good king, because of his wife, changed all his manner of living: he had
been wont to dine at eight, and he now dined at midday; he had been wont
to go to bed at six in the evening, and he often now went to bed at
midnight.  He fell ill at the end of December, from the which illness
nought could save him.  He was, whilst he lived, a good prince, wise and
virtuous, who maintained his people in peace, without pressing hard upon
them in any way, save by constraint.  He had in his time much of good and
of evil, whereby he got ample knowledge of the world.  He obtained many
victories over his enemies; but towards the end of his days Fortune gave
him a little turn of her frowning face.  He was borne to his grave at St.
Denis amongst his good predecessors, with great weeping and wailing, and
to the great regret of his subjects."

"He was a gentle prince," says Robert de la Marck, lord of Fleuranges,
"both in war and otherwise, and in all matters wherein he was required to
take part.  It was pity when this malady of gout attacked him, for he was
not an old man."

To the last of his days Louis XII.  was animated by earnest sympathy and
active solicitude for his people.  It cost him a great deal to make with
the King of England the treaties of August 7, 1514, to cede Tournai to the
English, and to agree to the payment to them of a hundred thousand crowns a
year for ten years.  He did it to restore peace to France, attacked on
her own soil, and feeling her prosperity threatened.  For the same reason
he negotiated with Pope Leo X., Emperor Maximilian, and Ferdinand the
Catholic, and he had very nearly attained the same end by entering once
more upon pacific relations with them, when death came and struck him
down at the age of fifty-three.  He died sorrowing over the concessions
he had made from a patriotic sense of duty as much as from necessity, and
full of disquietude about the future.  He felt a sincere affection for
Francis de Valois, Count of Angouleme, his son-law and successor; the
marriage between his daughter Claude and that prince had been the chief
and most difficult affair connected with his domestic life; and it was
only after the death of the queen, Anne of Brittany, that he had it
proclaimed and celebrated.  The bravery, the brilliant parts, the amiable
character, and the easy grace of Francis I. delighted him, but he dreaded
his presumptuous inexperience, his reckless levity, and his ruinous
extravagance; and in his anxiety as a king and father he said, "We are
laboring in vain; this big boy will spoil everything for us."

END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.