A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 572 pages of information about A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4.

A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 572 pages of information about A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4.
to be made on the inside, and they conducted the negotiation with so much discretion, that the petty Italian princes who were interested in it did not know the results of it until peace was concluded on the 5th of August, 1529.  Francis I. yielded on all the Italian and Flemish questions; and Charles V. gave up Burgundy, and restored to liberty the King of France’s two sons, prisoners at Madrid, in consideration of a ransom put at two millions of crowns and of having the marriage completed between his sister Eleanor and Francis I. King Henry VIII. complained that not much account had been made of him, either during the negotiations or in the treaty; but his discontent was short-lived, and he none the less came to the assistance of Francis I. in the money-questions to which the treaty gave rise.  Of the Italian states, Venice was most sacrificed in this accommodation between the kings.  “The city of Cambrai,” said the doge, Andrew Gritti, “is the purgatory of the Venetians; it is the place where emperors and kings of France make the Republic expiate the sin of having ever entered into alliance with them.”  Francis went to Bordeaux to meet his sons and his new wife.  At Bordeaux, Cognac, Amboise, Blois, and Paris, galas, both at court and amongst the people, succeeded one another for six months; and Europe might consider itself at peace.

The peace of Cambrai was called the ladies’ peace, in honor of the two princesses who had negotiated it.  Though morally different and of very unequal worth, they both had minds of a rare order, and trained to recognize political necessities, and not to attempt any but possible successes.  They did not long survive their work:  Margaret of Austria died on the 1st of December, 1530, and Louise of Savoy on the 22d of September, 1531.  All the great political actors seemed hurrying away from the stage, as if the drama were approaching its end.  Pope Clement VII. died on the 26th of September, 1534.  He was a man of sense and moderation; he tried to restore to Italy her independence, but he forgot that a moderate policy is, above all, that which requires most energy and perseverance.  These two qualities he lacked totally; he oscillated from one camp to the other without ever having any real influence anywhere.  A little before his death he made France a fatal present; for, on the 28th of October, 1533, he married his niece Catherine de’ Medici to Francis I.’s second son, Prince Henry of Valois, who by the death of his elder brother, the Dauphin Francis, soon afterwards became heir to the throne.  The chancellor, Anthony Duprat, too, the most considerable up to that time amongst the advisers of Francis I., died on the 9th of July, 1535.  According to some historians, when he heard, in the preceding year, of Pope Clement VII.’s death, he had conceived a hope, being already Archbishop of Sens, and a cardinal, of succeeding him; and he spoke to the king about it.  “Such an election would cost too dear,” said Francis

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.