do. He suspected him of keeping a correspondence with the enemy; and asked him whether it was so or not? Brezé, who turned every thing into pleasantry, came off by an answer in that strain. He had the command of the vanguard at the battle of Montleheim, which had been the subject of the deliberation; and, whether he was exasperated by some reproach, or because he was naturally brave, he charged the enemy with so little caution, that he was one of the first who was killed. He left a son, James de Brezé, count de Maulevrier, great seneschal of Normandy, who married one of the natural daughters of Charles VII., by Agnes Sorel, and caused her to be killed at Romiers, near Dourdan. From that marriage came Lewis de Brezé, count de Maulevrier, great seneschal of Normandy, who married the famous Diana of Poictiers, mistress of Francis I., and afterwards of Henry II.

LEWIS XI., king of France, son of Charles VII., was born in 1423. From his youth he displayed considerable talents, but united with a dark and turbulent disposition. At the age of seventeen he joined a party of discontented nobles, who excited a petty war, entitled, la Praguerie, which was soon suppressed, and the prince was obliged to submit. He afterwards recovered the royal favour, and gained great reputation by relieving Harfleur, invested by the English, and reducing the count of Armagnac, who had revolted. He was then sent with a body of troops to assist the duke of Austria against the Swiss, and obtained some advantages over them; they were, however, succeeded by a negociation with the cantons, in which he concluded the first treaty made between them and the crown of France. Without asking his father's leave, he contracted himself to a daughter of the duke of Savoy; his first wife, Margaret of Scotland, having died in 1445. His conduct gave Charles so much uneasiness, that he resolved to get possession of his person; but Lewis escaped, and found an asylum at the court of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy. That prince treated him with great generosity, but refused to aid him in his seditious projects. Meantime, the king brought back the government of Dauphine to its ancient form, and kept a watchful eye over his son's motions. So little confidence had he in his filial affection, that the fear of being poisoned by his contrivance was the cause of his death.

Lewis, in 1461, received the news of his accession to the throne of France; and his noble host Philip, with his son the duke of Charolois, accompanied him to Rheims, where his coronation was performed. He dismissed his father's ministers, and liberated the duke of Alençon and the count of Armagnac, who had been imprisoned for their treasonable practices. He immediately appeared to have adopted a despotic system of domestic government, and a foreign policy founded on disre

gard to treaties and obligations, and dictated merely by present interest. He was constituted mediator in a dispute between the kings of Castile and Arragon, and had an interview with the former, in which he gave an instance of the singularity of his disposition; for while the Spanish monarch and his attendants displayed the greatest magnificence in their apparel, he appeared dressed in coarse cloth, with an old hat upon his head, upon which was stuck a leaden image. This contrast inspired them with mutual contempt, but Lewis, who had the ministers of all the neighbouring powers in his pay, relied little upon their good will. It was a great object of his policy to reduce the formidable power of the house of Burgundy; and his first step was to redeem the towns on the Somme from duke Philip by paying a large sum of money, as he was entitled to do by treaty. Some disputes, however, ensued in the execution of this business; and, soon after, Lewis was suspected of a plot for the seizure of the persons of the duke and his son. In return, the count of Charolois, who hated the king, joined the duke of Brittany in caballing with his discontented nobles, and formed a confederacy called the league for the public good, in which the king's own brother, the duke of Berri, entered. The revolters took up arms, and the count of Charolois attempting to surprise Paris, an engagement took place at Monttheri, in which the victory remained undecided. Paris was, however, besieged by the revolters; and the king, in order to avert the danger, followed the advice of Sforza, duke of Milan, which was to break the league by liberal promises, and trust to events for eluding the execution of them. He therefore agreed to a disgraceful treaty, in 1465, by which he ceded the duchy of Normandy to his brother, and granted lands out of royal domains to others of the leaders. Some disputes between the dukes of Brittany and Normandy, gave him the opportunity of recovering all the strong places in the latter province, and he procured an assembly of the states to declare Normandy inseparable from the crown of France; so that his brother was divested of that which he before possessed.

The accession of the count of Charolois, Charles the Bold, to the dukedom of Burgundy, on the death of his father, in 1467, was a circumstance which gave Lewis much uneasiness. The fiery temper of that prince, and his being a declared enemy to the king, were likely soon to involve them in hostilities. Lewis acted the double part of endeavouring to excite the people of Liege to revolt from the duke, and at the same time, to cajole him by negociations. At the instigation of his treacherous minister, cardinal Balne, he determined to give Charles a proof of confidence in his honour, by visiting him with a small retinue at his town of Peronne. The duke received him with great respect, and lodged him in the castle, VOL. IV. D

but during their conference, intelligence was received of the revolt of the Liegois, and of the secret practices of the king. Charles in his rage was inclined to proceed to extremities against Lewis; he was however persuaded by his ministers to be content with dictating the terms of a treaty to him, and he obliged the king to accompany him in an expedition against Liege, in which he witnessed the severe chastisement of his allies. Soon after, he discovered the treasonable correspondence of Balne and the bishop of Verdun with the duke of Burgundy, which he punished by confining them many years in iron cages, the original invention of one of these prelates.

The peace between the king and duke did not continue long, and war was renewed in 1470, which ended to the advantage of Lewis. An invasion of France by the duke's ally, Edward IV., of England, threatened great danger, but Lewis adhering to his maxim of rather diverting than confronting a storm, lavished his treasures upon the English ministers and generals, and allured Edward himself by a promised pension of 50,000 crowns for life; by which means a treaty between them was concluded at Pecquiny, in 1475, before hostilities had commenced. It was to Lewis's honour that the liberation of the unfortunate queen Margaret of Anjou was one of the conditions. The duke of Burgundy made a separate peace soon af terwards. Lewis having thus extricated himself from foreign foes, indulged his severe disposition in taking vengeance on domestic traitors. The constable St. Pal, who had betrayed both him and the duke of Burgundy, was beheaded, as was likewise the duke of Nemours, of the house of Armagnac. Though the latter well deserved his fate, the cruelty of making his children stand under the scaffold at his execution, that they might be sprinkled with their father's blood, inspired universal horror. In 1476 he was delivered from his most dangerous and inveterate enemy, Charles the Bold, who fell before Nanci, the victim of passion and unprincipled ambition. Lewis felt no scruple in making all possible advantage of this event to the prejudice of the heiress, Charles's only daughter, Mary of Burgundy. By the law of apanages, part of his possessions reverted to the crown of France in default of a male heir. Lewis instantly marched an army, which occupied Burgundy and some other places, but Flanders and Artois declared for the duchess. Lewis's further object was to compel Mary to marry the young dauphin, but his hostile procedure had the effect of throwing her into the arms of Maximilian, archduke of Austria; an event which proved the fertile source of wars for centuries. A war was the immediate consequence of this alliance, but mutual convenience soon brought about a suspension of arms. One of the last public events of the reign of Lewis was the fortunate union of Provence to the crown of France, by the

bequest of Charles, count of Maine, the last prince of the house of Anjou. Lewis was now in a state of external prosperity, regarded throughout Europe for his power and policy, and feared by those who did not love him. But the manifest decline of his health filled him with jealousies and suspicions relative to his temporal authority, and with terror as to his future lot. He died in August, 1483, in the sixtieth year of his age, and twenty-third of his reign. Lewis XI., has been transmitted to posterity in the blackest colours, and has obtained the title of the Tiberius of France. He had, indeed, the dark dissimulation, and unfeeling severity of that emperor, with perhaps less regard to equity. He was a bad son, a bad husband, a bad father, a bad master, and a tyrannical sovereign. He had also much whimsical caprice in his temper, which derogated from the good sense he displayed on many occasions. He took such a pleasure in deceiving, that he often lost the fruit of it. His policy, upon the whole, was highly useful to the nation, for he saw that his own interest and that of his people in general, coincided. He depressed the nobles, and promoted the lower orders, freely admitting merchants and men of talents to his table and conversation. His aversion to war, though it led him to some dishonourable compliances, promoted the welfare of his dominions, and no French king ever made more valuable additions to the crown at less cost. His favourite ministers were chosen from the lowest classes, and therefore were entirely devoted to his will. Francis I., said of him, that it was he who first put kings "horse de page," out of tutelage; but it was by means which will for ever brand his name with the stamp of tyranny. He was the author of several useful establishments, and the administration of justice was generally pure, where he was not himself concerned. This prince instituted the order of St. Michael, and was the first French king who bore the title of most Christian.

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JOHN DE LA VAQUERIE, first president in the liament of Paris, in the reign of Lewis XI., had been pensionary in the city of Arras. He was deputed by that city in 1476, when they were obliged to answer the deputies of that prince, who demanded the submission of the inhabitants to him, as their lawful sovereign, after the death of the duke of Burgundy. The king's deputies declared that his majesty pretended to have Arras and Artois by way of confiscation, and that if the citizens did not open the gates, it would be in danger of being taken by force. La Vaquerie replied, that the county of Artois belonged to the princess of Burgundy, daughter of duke Charles, on whom it devolved in a direct line, from Margaret, countess of Flanders, the consort of Philip the first duke of Burgundy; and he supplicated his majesty, that he would be pleased to observe the truce between him and the late duke

Charles. This answer was to no purpose, Arras was obliged to submit to the yoke of France. La Vaquerie is justly celebrated for the firmness of his address to Lewis XI., when he wished to enforce some unpopular taxes. Sire," exclaimed he, at the head of the parliament, "we resign our offices into your hands, determined rather to endure the severity of your displeasure, than wound our consciences."

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PETER, CHEVALIER de GHIE, ROHAN, a brave Frenchman, descended from the ancient princes of Rohan, flourished under Lewis XI., who, for his valour, made him marshal of France, in 1475. He was one of the four lords who governed the kingdom during that king's illness, in 1484. In 1486, he defended Picardy against the archduke of Austria. He commanded the vanguard at the battle of Fornuovo, in 1495; and Lewis XII., appointed him prime counsellor, and general of the army in Italy. But all his merits were disregarded by the queen, Anne of Austria, who taking an umbrage at him for having stopped her equipage, persecuted him with the most unrelenting violence, and subjected him by an iniquitous process to damages of 31,000 livres. This brave, but ill-used general, died April 22, 1513.

FRANCES D'AMBOISE, duchess of Brittany, daughter of Lewis d'Amboise, viscount de Thouars, and prince of Talmond, was brought up at the court of Brittany, and married to Peter, brother to the reigning duke, a man of a violent and jealous temper; but the heroic patience and gentleness of the duchess at length made him ashamed of the excesses into which his passions transported him; he demanded pardon for his injustice, and they ever after lived perfectly happy. Some time after their reconciliation, the death of his brother called Peter II. to the throne. Frances used her influence and authority only for the happiness of the people. The reform of luxury in dress, was the first object of her attention. She herself practised the most perfect simplicity; and the ladies of the court following her example, it soon spread through all ranks. The duke wished to profit by this economy of his subjects, to impose new taxes; but the duchess persuaded him to relinquish his design. She engaged him to solicit the canonization of Vincent Ferrier, who was called the Apostle of Brittany; and to erect a house in the city of Nantz, for the nuns of the order of St. Clair. While this house was building, the duke fell dangerously ill, of a malady to which the physicians could give no name. Ignorance attributed it to some magician, who, gained by his enemies, had reduced him to this situation. The greater part of the courtiers said a more able sorcerer should be sought, to counteract the charms of the first; but, whether the good sense of the duchess led her to disbelieve the efficacy of this expedient, or her piety revolted from using unlawful means for