His character and tastes.
At his accession, the lively imagination of Francis, fed upon the romances of chivalry that constituted his favorite reading, called up the picture of a brilliant future, wherein gallant deeds in arms should place him among the most renowned knights of Christendom. The ideal character he proposed for himself involving a certain regard for his word, Francis's mind revolted from imitating the plebeian duplicity of his wily predecessor, Louis the Eleventh—a king who enjoyed the undesirable reputation of never having made a promise which he intended in good faith to keep. The memory of the disingenuous manner in which Louis, by winking at the opposition of the Parliament of Paris, had suffered the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction to fail, in spite of his own solemn engagements to carry it into execution, was, undoubtedly, one of the leading motives inducing the young prince, at the very beginning of his reign, to adopt the arbitrary measures already spoken of in a preceding chapter, respecting the papal concordat. Not for half his kingdom, he repeatedly declared, would he break the pledge he had given his Holiness. It is not difficult, however, to reconcile the pertinacity of Francis, on this occasion, with the frequent and well authenticated instances of bad faith in his dealings with other monarchs.
If his literary abilities were slender and his acquirements meagre, this king had at least the faculty of appreciating excellence in others. The scholars and wits whom, as we have seen, he succeeded in gathering about him, repaid his munificence with lavish praise, couched in all manner of verse, and in every language employed in the civilized world. Even later historians have not hesitated to rate him much higher than his very moderate abilities would seem to warrant.[215] The portrait drawn by the biographer of his imperial rival is, perhaps, full as advantageous as a regard for truth will permit us to accept. "Francis," says Robertson, "notwithstanding the many errors conspicuous in his foreign policy and domestic administration, was nevertheless humane, beneficent, generous. He possessed dignity without pride, affability free from meanness, and courtesy exempt from deceit. All who had access to him, and no man of merit was ever denied that privilege, respected and loved him. Captivated with his personal qualities, his subjects forgot his defects as a monarch, and, admiring him as the most accomplished and amiable gentleman in his dominions, they hardly murmured at acts of maladministration, which, in a prince of less engaging dispositions, would have seemed unpardonable."[216]
Contrast between Francis I. and Charles V.
Two monarchs could scarcely be more dissimilar than were Francis and the Emperor Charles. "So great is the difference between these two princes," says the Venetian Giustiniano, "that, as her most serene majesty the Queen of Navarre, the king's sister, remarked to me when talking on the subject, one of the two must needs be created anew by God after the pattern of the other, before they could agree. For, whilst the most Christian king is reluctant to assume the burden of great thoughts or undertakings, and devotes himself much to the chase or to his own pleasures, the emperor never thinks of anything but business and aggrandizement; and, whereas the most Christian king is simple, open, and very liberal, and quite sufficiently inclined to defer to the judgment and counsel of others, the emperor is reserved, parsimonious, and obstinate in his opinions, governing by himself, rather than through any one else."[217]
This diversity of temperament and disposition had ample scope for manifestation during the protracted wars waged by the two monarchs with each other. Fit representative of the race to which he belonged, Francis was bold, adventurous, and almost resistless in the impetuosity of a first assault. But he soon tired of his undertakings, and relinquished to the cooler and more calculating Charles the solid fruits of victory.[218]
Francis's religious convictions.
Of the possession of deep religious convictions I do not know that Francis has left any satisfactory evidence. That he was not strongly attached to the Roman church, that he thoroughly despised the ignorant monks, whose dissolute lives he well knew, that he had no extraordinary esteem for the Pope, all this is clear enough from many incidents of his life. It would even appear that, at one or two points, he might have been pleased to witness such a reformation of the church as could be effected without disturbing the existing order. To this he was the more inclined, that he found almost all the men distinguished for their learning arrayed on the side of the "new doctrines," as they were styled, while the pretorian legion of the papacy was headed by the opponents of letters.
His fear of innovation.
It will be found, however, that several circumstances tended to counteract or reverse the king's favorable prepossessions. Not least influential was a pernicious sentiment studiously instilled in his mind by those whose material interests were all on the side of the maintenance of the existing system—that a change of religion necessarily involves a change of government. We shall hear much during the century of this lying political axiom. When Francis, in his irritation at the Pope, suggested, on one occasion, to the Nuncio, that he might be compelled to follow the example Henry the Eighth, of England, had set him, and permit the spread of the "Lutheran" religion in France, the astute prelate replied: "Sire, to speak with all frankness, you would be the first to repent your rash step. Your loss would be greater than the Pope's; for a new religion established in the midst of a people involves nothing short of a change of prince."[219] And the same author that records this incident tells us that Francis hated the Lutheran "heresy," and used to say that this, like every other new sect, tended more to the destruction of kingdoms than to the edification of souls.[220] Nor must it be overlooked that Francis doubtless felt strongly confirmed in his persuasion, by the rash and disorderly acts of some restless and inconsiderate spirits such as are wont eagerly to embrace any new belief. Not the peasants' insurrections in Germany alone, but as well the excesses of the iconoclasts, and the imprudence of the authors of the famous placards of 1534, although their acts were distinctly repudiated by the vast majority of the French reformers, inflicted irretrievable damage, by furnishing plausible arguments to those who accused the Protestants of being authors or abettors of riot and confusion.