see a game of tennis.  Their way lay through a gallery the opening of which was very low; and the king, short as he was, hit his forehead.  Though he was a little dizzy with the blow, he did not stop, watched the players for some time, and even conversed with several persons; but about two in the afternoon, whilst he was a second time traversing this passage on his way back to the castle, he fell backwards and lost consciousness.  He was laid upon a paltry paillasse in that gallery where everybody went in and out at pleasure; and in that wretched place, after a lapse of nine hours, expired “he,” says Commynes, “who had so many fine houses, and who was making so fine an one at Amboise; so small a matter is our miserable life, which giveth us so much trouble for the things of the world, and kings cannot help themselves any more than peasants.  I arrived at Amboise two days after his decease; I went to say mine orison at the spot where was the corpse; and there I was for five or six hours.  And, of a verity, there was never seen the like mourning, nor that lasted so long; he was so good that better creature cannot be seen; the most humane and gentle address that ever was was his; I trow that to never a man spake he aught that could displease; and at a better hour could he never have died for to remain of great renown in histories and regretted by those that served him.  I trow I was the man to whom he showed most roughness; but knowing that it was in his youth, and that it did not proceed from him, I never bore him ill-will for it.”

Probably no king was ever thus praised for his goodness, and his goodness alone, by a man whom he had so maltreated, and who, as judicious and independent as he was just, said of this same king, “He was not better off for sense than for money, and he thought of nothing but pastime and his pleasures.”

CHAPTER XXVII.——­THE WARS IN ITALY.—­LOUIS XII. 1498-1515.

On ascending the throne Louis XII. reduced the public taxes and confirmed in their posts his predecessor’s chief advisers, using to Louis de la Tremoille, who had been one of his most energetic foes, that celebrated expression, “The King of France avenges not the wrongs of the Duke of Orleans.”  At the same time, on the day of his coronation at Rheims [May 27, 1492], he assumed, besides his title of King of France, the titles of King of Naples and of Jerusalem and Duke of Milan.  This was as much as to say that he would pursue a pacific and conservative policy at home and a warlike and adventurous policy abroad.  And, indeed, his government did present these two phases, so different and inharmonious.  By his policy at home Louis XII. deserved and obtained the name of Father of the People; by his enterprises and wars abroad he involved France still more deeply than Charles VIII. had in that mad course of distant, reckless, and incoherent conquests for which his successor, Francis I., was destined to pay by capture at Pavia and by the lamentable treaty of Madrid, in 1526, as the price of his release.  Let us follow these two portions of Louis XII.’s reign, each separately, without mixing up one with the other by reason of identity of dates.  We shall thus get at a better understanding and better appreciation of their character and their results.