A View of the Civil Government of Europe in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century I.In France A very little higher need we go,to observe those great changes in the civil constitutions of the principal nations of Europe,in the partition of power among them,and by consequence in the whole system of European policy,which have operated so strongly for more than two centuries,and which operate still.I will not affront the memory of our Henry the Seventh so much as to compare him to Louis the Eleventh:and yet I perceive some resemblance between them;which would perhaps appear greater,if Philip of Commines had written the history of Henry as well as that of Louis;or if my Lord Bacon had written that of Louis as well as that of Henry.This prince came to the crown of England a little before the close of the fifteenth century:and Louis began his reign in France about twenty years sooner.These reigns make remarkable periods in the histories of both nations.To reduce the power,privileges,and possessions of the nobility,and to increase the wealth and authority of the crown,was the principal object of both.In this their success was so great,that the constitutions of the two governments have had,since that time,more resemblance,in name and in form than in reality,to the constitutions that prevailed before.Louis the Eleventh was the first,say the French,"qui mit les rois hors de page."The independency of the nobility had rendered the state of his predecessors very dependent,and their power precarious.They were the sovereigns of great vassals;but these vassals were so powerful that one of them was sometimes able,and two or three of them always,to give law to the sovereign.Before Louis came to the crown,the English had been driven out of their possessions in France,by the poor character of Henry the Sixth,the domestic troubles of his reign,and the defection of the house of Burgundy from this alliance,much more than by the ability of Charles the Seventh,who seems to have been neither a greater hero nor a greater politician than Henry the Sixth;and even than by the vigor and union of the French nobility in his service.After Louis came to the crown,Edward the Fourth made a show of carrying the war again into France;but he soon returned home and your lordship will not be at a loss to find much better reasons for his doing so,in the situation of his affairs and the characters of his allies,than those which Philip of Commines draws from the artifice of Louis,from his good cheer,and his pensions.
Now from this time our pretensions on France were in effect given up:and Charles the Bold,the last prince of the house of Burgundy,being killed,Louis had no vassal able to molest him.He re-united the Dutchy of Burgundy and Artois to his crown,he acquired Provence by gift,and his son Brittany by marriage:and thus France grew,in the course of a few years,into that great and compact body which we behold at this time.The history of France before his period is,like that of Germany,a complicated history of several states and several interests;sometimes concurring like members of the same monarchy,and sometimes warring on one another.Since this period,the history of France is the history of one state under a more uniform and orderly government;the history of a monarchy wherein the prince is possessor of some,as well as lord of all the great fieffes:and,the authority of many tyrants centering in one,though the people are not become more free,yet the whole system of domestic policy is entirely changed.Peace at home is better secured,and the nation grown fitter to carry war abroad.The governors of great provinces and of strong fortresses have opposed their king,and taken arms against his authority and commission since that time:but yet there is no more resemblance between the authority and pretensions of these governors,or the nature and occasions of these disputes,and the authority and pretensions of the vassals of the crown in former days,or the nature and occasions of their disputes with the prince and with one another,than there is between the ancient and the present peers of France.In a word,the constitution is so altered,that any knowledge we can acquire about it in the history that precedes this period,will serve to little purpose in our study of the history that follows it,and to less purpose still in assisting us to judge of what passes in the present age.The kings of France since that time,more masters at home,have been able to exert themselves more abroad:and they began to do so immediately;for Charles the Eighth,son and successor of Louis the Eleventh,formed great designs of foreign conquests,though they were disappointed by his inability,by the levity of the nation,and by other causes.Louis the Twelfth and Francis the First,but especially Francis,meddled deep in the affairs of Europe:
and though the superior genius of Ferdinand called the Catholic,and the star of Charles the Fifth prevailed against them,yet the efforts they made show sufficiently how the strength and importance of this monarchy were increased in their time.From whence we may date likewise the rivalship of the house of France,for we may reckon that of Valois and that of Bourbon as one upon this occasion,and the house of Austria;that continues at this day,and that has cost so much blood and so much treasure in the course of it.
