Francis I (
French:
François Ier; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547), was
king of France from 1515 until his death.
Francis I is considered to be
France's first
Renaissance monarch. His reign saw France make immense cultural advances. He was a contemporary of
Suleiman the Magnificent of the
Ottoman Empire, with whom he was allied in a
Franco-Ottoman alliance, as well as of
Henry VIII of England and of
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, his great rivals.
Early life
Francis I, the only son of
Charles d'Angoulême, and of
Louise of Savoy, was born at the
château de Cognac ,
Cognac (c. 400 km southwest of Paris), in the modern French department of
Charente, in the province of
Saintonge which was part of the former
Duché d'Aquitaine. His father was the first cousin of King
Louis XII. In 1498, the four-year-old Francis, already
Count of Angoulême, was created
Duke of Valois. He was the
heir presumptive of Louis XII who did not succeed in siring sons with any of his three wives. In 1506, and by instigation of Louis XII, young Francis was betrothed to
Claude de France, the daughter of Louis XII and
Anne of Brittany, and heiress of
Duché of Brittany. The marriage took place on 18 May 1514. Because of the
Salic Law that excluded women from succeeding to the throne of France, the throne passed to Francis I at the death of
Louis XII, as he was a male-line great-great-grandson of
Charles V of France and the descendant of the eldest surviving male line of the
Capetian Dynasty. Claude de France became
queen consort.
thumb|left|Medal of Francis I after the battle of Marignano in 1515.
In 1515 Francis was crowned King of France in the
Cathedral of Reims. Despite being only twenty-years old, he already had unprecedented
humanist credentials. While his two predecessors,
Charles VIII and Louis XII, had spent much of their reigns concerned with Italy they did not much embrace the new intellectual movements coming out of it. Both monarchs continued in the same patterns of behavior that had dominated the French monarchy for centuries. They are considered the last of the medieval French monarchs, but they did lay the groundwork for the
Renaissance to come into full swing in France.
Contact between the French and Italians in the long running series of wars under Charles VIII and Louis XII had brought new ideas to France by the time the young Francis was receiving his education. Thus a number of his tutors, such as Desmoulins, his Latin instructor, and
Christophe de Longueil were schooled in the new ways of thinking and they attempted to imbue Francis with it. Francis' mother also had a great interest in
Renaissance art, which she passed down to her son. One certainly cannot say that Francis received a humanist education; most of his teachers had not yet been affected by the
Renaissance. One can, however, state that he clearly received an education more oriented towards humanism than any previous French king.
Kingship
Patron of the arts
thumb|Francis I receiving the last breath of [[Leonardo da Vinci in 1519, by
Ingres, painted in 1818.]]
By the time Francis I ascended the throne in 1515, the
Renaissance had clearly arrived in France, and Francis was an important supporter of the change. He became a major patron of the arts and lent his support to many of the greatest artists of his time and encouraged them to come to France. Some did work for him, including such greats as
Andrea del Sarto, and
Leonardo da Vinci, whom Francis convinced to leave Italy in the last part of his life. While Leonardo did little painting in his years in France, he brought with him many of his great works, such as the
Mona Lisa, known in France as
La Joconde, and these stayed in France upon his death.
Other major artists whom Francis employed include the goldsmith
Benvenuto Cellini, and the painters
Rosso,
Romano and
Primaticcio, all of whom were heavily employed in decorating Francis' various palaces and exceedingly loyal. Francis employed a number of agents in Italy who endeavoured to procure artworks by Italian masters such as
Michelangelo,
Titian, and
Raphael and ship them to France. These agents had some notable successes, even if plans to try to move Leonardo's
Last Supper to France proved impractical. When Francis ascended the throne, the royal palaces were decorated with only a scattering of great paintings, and not a single piece of sculpture either ancient or modern. It is during Francis' reign that the magnificent art collection of the French kings that can still be seen in the
Louvre was truly begun.
Man of letters
Francis I painted in 1515.
Francis was also renowned as a
man of letters. When Francis comes up in a conversation among characters in
Castiglione's
Book of the Courtier, it is as the great hope to bring culture to the war-obsessed French nation. Not only did Francis support a number of major writers of the period, he was a poet himself, if not one of immense quality. Francis worked hard at improving the royal library. He appointed the great French humanist
Guillaume Budé as chief librarian, and began to expand the collection. Francis employed agents in Italy looking for rare books and manuscripts, just as he had looking for art works. During his reign, the size of the library increased greatly. Not only did Francis expand the library, there is also, according to Knecht, evidence that he read the books he bought for it, a much rarer feat in the royal annals. Francis set an important precedent by opening his library to scholars from around the world in order to facilitate the diffusion of knowledge.
In 1537, Francis signed the
Ordonnance de Montpellier, decreeing that his library be given a copy of every book to be sold in France.
Francis's older sister,
Marguerite,
Queen of Navarre, was also an accomplished writer, producing the classic,
Heptameron.
Construction
Francis poured vast amounts of money into new structures. He continued the work of his predecessors on the
Château d'Amboise and also started renovations on the
Château de Blois. Early in his reign, he also began construction of the magnificent
Château de Chambord, inspired by the styles of the Italian renaissance, and perhaps even designed by Leonardo da Vinci. Francis rebuilt the
Louvre, transforming it from a medieval fortress into a building of
Renaissance splendour. He financed the building of a new City Hall (
Hôtel de Ville) for Paris in order to have control over the building's design. He constructed the
Château de Madrid in the
Bois de Boulogne, and rebuilt the
Château de St-Germain-en-Laye. The largest of Francis' building projects was the reconstruction and expansion of the
royal château of Fontainebleau, which quickly became his favourite place of residence, as well as the residence of his official mistress - Anne, duchess of Étampes. Each of Francis' projects was luxuriously decorated both inside and outside. Fontainebleau, for instance, had a gushing fountain in its courtyard where quantities of wine were mixed with the water.
Military action
Militarily and politically, Francis's reign was less successful; he tried and failed to become
Holy Roman Emperor, and pursued a
series of wars in Italy. Francis managed to defeat the Swiss at
Marignano in 1515, which enabled him to capture the Italian city-state of
Milan.
Much of the military activity of Francis's reign was focused on his sworn enemy, the Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V. Francis and Charles had an intense personal rivalry and a bitter hatred for one another, which they inherited from their predecessors' wars in Burgundy and Navarre; Charles, in fact, brashly challenged Francis himself to single combat, multiple times. In addition to the Holy Roman Empire, Charles personally ruled
Spain,
Austria and a number of smaller possessions neighboring France, and was thus a threat to Francis's kingdom. Francis attempted to arrange an alliance with
Henry VIII of England. The negotiations took place at the famous
Field of Cloth of Gold of 1520, but ultimately failed. Francis' most devastating defeat occurred at the
Battle of Pavia (24 February 1525), where he was captured by Charles:
Cesare Hercolani hurt his horse and Francis was captured by
Spaniards
Juan de Urbieta,
Diego Dávila and
Alonso Pita. For this reason,
Hercolani was named "victor of the battle of Pavia". The famous
Zuppa alla Pavese,, now a renowned recipe, was said to have been invented on the spot to feed the captive king right after the battle.
Francis was held captive in
Madrid. In the
Treaty of Madrid signed on 14 January 1526, Francis I was forced to make major concessions to Charles V before he was freed on 17 March 1526. Francis was allowed to return to France in exchange for his two sons,
Francis and
Henry, but once he was free he argued that his agreement with Charles was made under
duress, and also claimed that the agreement was void, as his sons had been taken hostage suggesting his word alone was not trusted, and he repudiated it.
Franco-Ottoman alliance
thumb|Francis I (left) and [[Suleiman the Magnificient (right) initiated a
Franco-Ottoman alliance. Both were separately painted by
Titian circa 1530.]]
In a watershed moment in European diplomacy, Francis came to an understanding with the
Ottoman Empire, which transformed into a
Franco-Ottoman alliance. The alliance has been called "the first nonideological diplomatic alliance of its kind between a Christian and non-Christian empire". It did however cause quite a scandal in the Christian world,
[Miller, p.2] and was designated as "the impious alliance", or "the sacrilegious union of the
Lily and the
Crescent"; nevertheless, it endured since it served the objective interests of both parties. The two powers colluded against Charles V, and, in 1543, they even combined for a joint naval assault in the
Siege of Nice.
Foundation of Le Havre
The port city now known as
Le Havre was founded in 1517, in Francis I's early years on the throne. Founding a new port was urgently needed in order to replace the ancient harbours of
Honfleur and
Harfleur whose utility had decreased due to silting. Le Havre was originally named
Franciscopolis after the King who founded it, but this name did not survive later reigns.
The New World and Asia
In 1524, Francis assisted the citizens of
Lyon in financing the expedition of
Giovanni da Verrazzano to North America; on this expedition, Verrazzano claimed
Newfoundland for the French crown.
French trade with
East Asia was initiated during the reign of Francis I with the help of shipowner
Jean Ango. In July 1527, a French
Norman trading ship from the city of
Rouen is recorded by the Portuguese
João de Barros to have arrived in the Indian city of
Diu.
[The Cambridge history of the British Empire p.61 ] In 1529,
Jean Parmentier of Dieppe, onboard the Sacre
and the Pensée
, reached Sumatra.
In 1531, Bertrand d'Ornesan, Baron de Saint-Blancard tried to establish a French trading post at Pernambuco, Brazil.
In 1534, Francis sent Jacques Cartier to explore the St. Lawrence River in Quebec to find certaines îles et pays où l'on dit qu'il se doit trouver grande quantité d'or et autres riches choses'' ("certain islands and lands where it is said there must be great quantities of gold and other riches"). In 1541, Francis sent
Jean-François de la Roque de Roberval to settle Canada and to provide for the spread of "the Holy Catholic faith."
Bureaucratic reform
In 1539, in his castle in
Villers-Cotterêts, Francis signed the important edict known as
Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, which, among other reforms, made French the administrative language of the kingdom, replacing
Latin. This same edict required priests to register births, marriages and deaths and to establish a registry office in every parish. This established the first records of vital statistics with filiations available in Europe.
Religion
thumb|Coin of Francis I, 1529.It was during Francis' reign that divisions in the
Christian religion in Western Europe erupted.
Martin Luther's preaching and writing led to the formation of the
Protestant movement which spread through much of Europe, including France.
Initially, under the influence of his beloved sister Marguerite de Navarre, Francis was relatively tolerant of the new movement, and even considered it politically useful, as it caused many German princes to turn against his enemy, Charles V. However, Francis' attitude toward Protestantism changed following the "
Affair of the Placards", on the night of 17 October 1534, in which notices appeared on the streets of Paris and other major cities denouncing
Mass. A notice was even posted on the door to the king's room, and, it is said, the box in which he kept his handkerchief.
Antoine Marcourt, a Protestant
pastor, was responsible for the notices.
The most fervent Catholics were outraged by the notice's allegations. Francis himself came to view the movement as a plot against him, and began to persecute its followers. Protestants were jailed and executed. In some areas whole villages were destroyed.
Printing was censored and leading Protestants like
John Calvin forced into exile. The persecutions soon numbered tens of thousands of homeless people.
Death
Francis died at the
château de Rambouillet on 31 March 1547, on his son and heir's 28th birthday. It is said that "he died complaining about the weight of a crown that he had first perceived as a gift from God".
Francis I was interred with his first wife, Claude de France, Duchess of Bretagne, in
Saint Denis Basilica. He was succeeded by his son,
Henry II.
Francis' tomb, that of his wife and of his mother, along with the tombs of other French kings and members of the royal family, were desecrated on 20 October 1793, during the
Reign of Terror, at the height of the
French Revolution.
Legacy
Francis' legacy is generally considered a mixed one. He achieved great cultural feats, but they came at the expense of France's economic well-being.
The persecution of the Protestants was to lead France into
decades of civil war, which did not end until 1598 with the
Edict of Nantes.
Marriage and issue
One alleged out-of-wedlock issue, Henri de la Rue.
On 18 May 1514, Francis married his second cousin
Claude, Princess of France, who was the daughter of Louis XII, King of France and Anne, Duchess of Brittany. The couple had seven children:
On 7 August 1530, Francis I married his second wife Eleanor of Austria, a sister of the Emperor Charles V. The couple had no children. During his reign, Francis kept two official mistresses at court. The first was
Françoise de Foix, comtesse de Chateaubriand. In 1526, she was replaced by the blonde-haired, cultured
Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly, duchesse d'Étampes who, with the death of Queen Claude two years earlier, wielded far more political power at court than her predecessor had done. Another of his earlier mistresses, was allegedly
Mary Boleyn, mistress of King
Henry VIII and sister of Henry's future wife,
Anne Boleyn.
Ancestors
