Chapter 42
CHAPTER XXVII. THE WARS OF ITALY. Louis XII. 1498-1515. PART VIII.
On hearing these sad tidings, Louis XII., though suffering from an attack of gout, had himself moved in a litter from Paris to Amiens, and ordered Prince Francis of Anglès, heir to the throne, to go and take command of the army, march it back to the defensive line of the Somme, and send a garrison to Tournai. It was one of that town's privileges to have no garrison, and the inhabitants were unwilling
to admit one, saying that Tournai had never turned and never would turn tail, and if the English came they would find some one to talk to them. How be it, says Florent, not a single captain was there, nor likewise the said Lord Duke, but understood well how it was with people besieged, as indeed came to pass, for at the days during which the people of Tournai were besieged, they treated for appointment, terms,
with the King of England. Other bad news came to Amiens. The Swiss, puffed up with their victory at Novara and egged on by Emperor Maximilian, had to the number of thirty thousand entered Burgundy, and on the 7th of September laid siege to Dijon, which was rather badly fortified.
La Tramoye, governor of Burgundy, shut himself up in the place and bravely repulsed a first assault, but sent post haste to warn the King to send him aid, whereto the King made no reply beyond that he could not send him aid, and that La Tramoye should do the best he could for the advantage and service of the kingdom. La Tramoye applied to the Swiss for a safe conduct, and without arms and scantily attended
he went to them to try whether, in consideration of a certain sum of money for the expenses of their army, they could be packed off to their own country without doing further displeasure or damage. He found them proud and arrogant of heart, for they styled themselves chastisers of princes, and all he could obtain from them was that the King should give up the Duchy of Milan,
and all the castles appertaining thereto, that he should restore to the Pope all the towns, castles, lands, and lordships which belonged to him, and that he should pay the Swiss four hundred thousand crowns, to wit, two hundred thousand down and two hundred thousand at Martinmas in the following winter. FOUR DIPLOMATIQUE DU DOIGT DES GENES by Dumont.
PART 1. page 175. As brave in undertaking a heavy responsibility as he was in delivering a battle, La Tramoye did not hesitate to sign, on the 13th of September, this harsh treaty. And as he had not two hundred thousand crowns down to give the Swiss, he prevailed upon
them to be content with receiving twenty thousand at once, and he left with them as hostages, his nephew, Rend d'Angers, lord of Messier, one of the boldest and discreetest knights in France. But for this honourable defeat the veteran warrior thought the kingdom of France had been then undone.
For assailed at all its extremities, with its neighbours for its foes, it could not, without great risk of final ruin, have borne the burden and defended itself through so many battles. La Tramoye sent one of the gentlemen of his house, the chevalier Reginald de Mussi, to the king, to give an account of what he had done and of his motives.
Some gentlemen about the persons of the king and queen had implanted some seeds of murmuring and evil thinking in the mind of the queen, and threw her in that of the king, who readily gave ear to her words because good and discreet was she. The said Reginald de Mussi, having warning of the fact, and without borrowing aid of a soul, for bold man was he by reason of his virtues, entered the king's chamber, and,
falling on one knee, announced, according to order, the service which his master had done, and without which the kingdom of France was in danger of ruin, whereof he set forth the reasons. The whole was said in presence of them who had brought the king to that evil way of thinking, and who knew not what to reply to the king when he said to them,
"'By the faith of my body I think and do know by experience that my cousin the lord of La Tramoy is the most faithful and loyal servant that I have in my kingdom, and the one to whom I am most bounden to the best of his abilities. Go, Reginald, and tell him that I will do all that he has promised, and if he has done well, let him do better.'
The queen heard of this kind answer made by the king, and was not pleased at it, but afterwards, the truth being known, she judged contrarywise to what she, through false report, had imagined and thought. Third was brought at the same time to Amiens that Tornay, invested on the 15th of September by the English, had capitulated, that Henry VIII had entered it on the 21st, and that
he had immediately treated it as a conquest of which he was taking possession, for he had confirmed it in all its privileges except that of having no garrison. Such was the situation in which France, after a reign of fifteen years and in spite of so many brave and devoted servants, had been placed by Louis XII's foreign policy. Had he managed the home affairs of his kingdom as badly and with as little success as he
had matters abroad, is it necessary to say what would have been his people's feelings towards him, and what name he would have left in history? Happily for France and for the memory of Louis XII, his home government was more sensible, more clear-sided, more able, more moral, and more productive of good result than his foreign policy was.
When we consider this reign from this point of view, we are at once struck by two facts. First, the great number of legislative and administrative acts that we meet with, bearing upon the general interests of the country—interest political, judicial, financial, and commercial. The Récours des Ordonnances des Rois de France contains forty-three important acts of this sort owing their origin to Louis XII.
It was clearly a government full of watchfulness, activity, and attention to good order and the public will. Second, the profound remembrance retaining in succeeding ages of this reign and its deserts—a remembrance which was manifested in 1560 amongst the states general of Orléans, in 1576 and 1578 amongst the states of Blois, in 1593 amongst the states of the Ligue, and even down to
1614 amongst the states of Paris. During more than a hundred years France called to mind, and took pleasure in calling to mind, the administration of Louis XII as the type of a wise, intelligent, and effective regiment. Confidence may be felt in a people's memory when it inspires them for so long afterwards, with sentiment of justice and gratitude.
If from the simple table of the acts of Louis XII's home government we pass to an examination of their practical results, it is claimed that they were good and salutary. A contemporary historian, earnest and truthful, though panegyrical, Claude Doucet-Sel, describes in the following terms the state of France at that time. It is, says he, a patent fact that the revenue of benefices, lands, and lordships has generally
much increased. And in like manner the proceeds of gobbles, turnpipes, loffies, and other revenues has been augmented very greatly. The traffic, too, in merchandise, whether by sea or land, has multiplied exceedingly. For by the blessing of peace, all folks, except the nobles, and even them I do not accept
altogether, engage in merchandise. For one trader that was, in Louis XI's time, to be found rich and portly at Paris, Rouen, Lyon, and other good towns of the kingdom, there are to be found in this reign more than fifty, and there are in the small towns greater number than the great and principal cities were wont to have, so much so that scarcely a house is made on any street without having
a shop for merchandise or for mechanical art. And less difficulty is now made about going to Rome, Naples, London, and elsewhere over sea than was made formally about going to Lyon or to Geneva, so much so that there are some who have gone by sea to seek, and have found, new homes. The renown and authority of the king, now reigning, are so great that his subjects are
honoured and upheld in every country, as well at sea as on land. Foreigners were not less impressed than the French themselves with this advance in order, and prosperity amongst the French community. Machiavelli admits it, and with the melancholy of an Italian politician acting in the midst of rivalries amongst the Italian republics, he attributes it, above all, to French unity,
superior to that of any other state in Europe. As to the question to whom reverts the honour of the good government at home under Louis XII, and of so much progress in the social condition of France, M. Georges Picot, in His Histoire des États-Generaux, p. 532 to 536, attributes it especially to the influence of the states assembled at Tours, in 1484, at the beginning of the reign of Charles VIII.
They employed, he says, the greatest efforts to reduce the figure of the impost. They claimed the voting of subsidies, and took care not to allow them, save by way of gift and grant. They did not hesitate to revise certain taxes, and when they were engaged upon the subject of collecting them, they energetically stood out for the establishment of a unique, classified
body of receivers' royal, and demanded the formation of all the provinces into districts of estates, voting and apportioning their imposts every year, as in the cases of Languedoc, Normandy and Dauphinie. The dangers of want of discipline in an ill-organized standing army and the evils caused to agriculture by roving bands drove the states back to reminiscences of Charles VII's armies, and they called for
a mixed organization, in which gratuitous service, co-mingled in just proportion with that of paid troops, would prevent absorption of the national element. To reform the abuses of the law, to suppress 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 shrivalati 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 concede. 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 a rear, 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 regiment 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 tour, 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 counselor.
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 talliesges 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 theater, 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 rivalries 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 twofold election. In all grades of the majesty, 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's 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-en-Provence a new parliament. In 1499 the court of Exchequer at 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.
Unconvinced 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 Lyon by Champagnie and Burgundy, and wherever he passed, says St. Jealous, 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 a devotion as they would have shown to a reliquary. And the Burgundians showed as much enthusiasm as the real old French.
