Failure in Spain was compensated for in Italy. Without wag ing war Louis made himself virtual arbiter of the fate of the principalities in the north, and his court was always besieged by ambassadors from them. After the death of Charles the Bold, Yolande, duchess of Savoy, was obliged to accept the control of Louis, who was her brother. In Milan he helped to place Ludovico it Moro in power in but he reaped less from this supple tyrant than he had expected. Pope Sixtus IV., the enemy of the Medici, was also the enemy of the king of France. When Sixtus threatened Florence of ter the Pazzi conspiracy, 1478, Louis aided Lorenzo dei Medici to form an alliance with Naples, which forced the papacy to come to terms.
More than any other king of France, Louis XI. was a "bour geois king." The upper bourgeois, the aristocracy of his "good cities," were his allies both against the nobles and against the artisan class, whenever they revolted, driven to desperation by the oppressive royal taxes which furnished the money for his wars or diplomacy. He ruled like a modern capitalist ; placed his bribes like investments in the courts of his enemies ; and, while draining the land of enormous sums, was pitiless toward the two productive portions of his realm, the country population and the artisans. His heartlessness toward the former provoked even an accomplice like Commines to protest. The latter were kept down by numerous edicts, tending to restrict to certain privileged families the rank of master workman in the gilds. There was the paternalism of a Frederick the Great in his encouragement of the silk industry,—"which all idle people ought to be made to work at,"—in his encouragement of commerce through the newly acquired port of Marseilles and opening market places.
Louis even dreamed of a great trading company "of two hun dred thousand livres or more," to monopolize the trade of the Mediterranean, and planned to unify the various systems of weights and measures. In 1479 he called a meeting of two bur gesses from each "good city" of his realm to consider means for preventing the influx of foreign coin. Impatient of all restraint
upon his personal rule, he was continually in violent dispute with the parlement of Paris, and made "justice" another name for arbitrary government ; yet he dreamed of a unification of the local customary laws (coatumes) c f France. He was the perfect model of a tyrant. The states-general met but once in his reign, in 1468, and then no talk of grievances was allowed; his object was only to get them to declare Normandy inalienable from the crown. They were informed that the king could raise his revenue without consulting them. Yet his budgets were enormously greater than ever before. In 1481 the taille alone brought in 4,600,00o livres, and even at the peaceful close of his reign his whole budget was 4,655,000 livres—as against 1,800,000 livres at the close of his father's reign.
During the last two or three years of his life Louis lived in great isolation, "seeing no one, speaking with no one, except such as he commanded," in the château of Plessis-les-Tours, 2 M. S.W. of Tours, that "spider's nest" bristling with watch towers, and guarded only by the most trusty servitors. A swarm of astrologers and physicians preyed upon his fears—and his purse. But, how ever foolish in his credulity, he still made his strong hand felt both in France and in Italy, remaining to the last "the terrible king." His fervent prayers were interrupted by instructions for the re gency which was to follow. He died on Aug. 3o, 1483, and was buried in the church at Clery, instead of at St. Denis. He left a son, his successor, Charles VIII., and two daughters.
See Charles Petit-Dutaillis in Lavisse's Histoire de France, tome iv. pt. ii. (1902), and bibliographical indications given there. Of the original sources for the reign the Lettres de Louis XI. (edited by Charavay and Vaesen, 8 vols., 1883-1902), the Memoires of Philippe de Commines and the Journal of Jean de Royl come first. See further A. Molinier, Sources de l'histoire de France (tome v. pp. ; C. Hare, The Life of Louis XI. (London, 1907).