While the negociations between the Emperor and Francis were going on at Crespy, Boulogne had fallen into the possession of the king of England ; and as that treaty contained no stipulation respecting Charles' ally it was necessary for Francis to recover Boulogne, either by force or negoeiation. He chose the former, and sent an army, under the Duke of Orleans, for that purpose. But, at a place between Abbeville and Montreuil, the duke died, and the enterprise was abandoned. The insincerity of Charles in this condition of the treaty of Crespy, was immediately made manifest; for he declared that the death of the Duke had freed him from all his agreements re specting the Low Countries, or the Milanese.
The Count D'Enghien did not long survive the Duke ; and the mind of Francis, already weakened by his long and severe illness, sunk before the impression of these calamitous events. Even an advantageous peace with England did not mitigate his grief, and renew his energy ; for it was more than counterbalanced by the 'enmity and intrigues of his own mistress, the Duchess D'Estampes, and of Diana de Poitiers, the mistress of the Dauphin, who divided the court into open and implacable factions. The death of Henry of England, which happened in 1547, also preyed on the mind of Francis, as he had long known and personally loved that monarch. In this state of grief and dosponden•, he wandered about from place to place, in the vain hope of restoring his health of body, or re covering his tranquillity and firmness of mind ; at length he died at Rambouillet, in the 53d year of his age, and 32d of his reign.
The character of Francis was strongly marked. One of the distinguishing features of his mind was prompti tude and decision : his quick perception and his great activity, led him to resolve instantly, and to follow up his resolutions by vigorous action; but he did not persevere ; difficulties, which at first only prompted him to greater efforts, if they were of long continuance, and especially if they did not promise any thing splendid in their over coming, soon wearied him out. Thus he often abandon ed his first designs, and relaxed from his original vigour,— often through impatience, and sometimes through mere fickleness. His courage was undoubted ; but it was rather courage which could act than support ; which rose above the greatest dangers, if they called for activity and exertion, but which cooled, if these dangers were to be shunned or endured rather than overcome. He possessed wonderful quickness and activity of mind, which often enabled him to foresee and defeat the more secret plans of the Em peror ; but which, at other times, were rendered compara tively useless in this view, from the thoughtlessness of his disposition and the warm sincerity of his heart. His mode
of carrying on war was stamped by the peculiarities of his character. At the commencement of a campaign, he dart ed on his enemy with all his force, and endeavoured to at tain his object, by the decision and rapidity of his first movements ; but he seldom had any regular and compre hensive plan of warfare, the consequence of which was, that with whatever appearance of ultimate and permanent success he commenced hostilities, he generally found him self, at the end of the campaign, in a much worse condition than he had been at the beginning of it.
It will appear from this sketch, that his faults as a sovereign were of that nature which seldom fail to cap tivate the multitude, as they all proceeded from a frank disposition and a generous heart. Indeed his subjects seem to have overlooked his failings, and the consequences on their tranquillity to which they gave rise, in the splen dour of his talents and amiable qualities. It may, perhaps, be with strict justice asserted, that Francis is the first gentleman, in the strict and most honourable sense of the word, of whom we have any record : there was a polish about his manners, an amiableness about his more com mon actions and his mode of performing them, and a de licacy and strictness of honour about his whole conduct, which characterise the real gentleman. To the period of his reign, therefore, we may justly trace those features in the character of the higher society in France, for which it was so long and so justly celebrated in Europe. Anne of Bretagne had begun to introduce ladies at court ; but it was not till the reign of Francis that they appeared there regularly, or that they were considered as an essential part of it. The consequences were soon experienced ; they in sensibly gave a softness and a polish to that rudeness of manners, which the comparative ignorance and barbarism of the age, as well as its martial habits, necessarily gene rated. To the reign of Francis, we may also trace that spirit of intrigue, both political and personal, which long zlistinguished the French court, equally with the polish of their manners. In short, those who are desirous of de tecting the germ of many of the characteristics of the manners of French high life, and of the maxims and prac tices of the court, such as they existed before the revolu tion, ought carefully to study the reign of Francis I.