aud, Biographie univ., art. Roussel.]

[Footnote 211: Haag, France protestante, art. Gerard Roussel; Gaillard,
Hist. de Francois premier, vi. 418; Flor. de Raemond, _ubi supra_.]

CHAPTER III.

FRANCIS I. AND MARGARET OF ANGOULEME--EARLY REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS AND
STRUGGLES.

[Sidenote: Francis I. and his sister.]

[Sidenote: The portrait of the king.]

Francis the First and his sister, Margaret of Angouleme, were destined
to exercise so important an influence in shaping the history of the
French Reformation during the first half of the sixteenth century, that
a glance at their personal history and character seems indispensable.
Francis Was in his twenty-first year when, by the extinction of the
elder line of the house of Orleans, the crown came to him as the nearest
heir of Louis the Twelfth.[212] He was tall, but well proportioned, of a
fair complexion, with a body capable of enduring without difficulty
great exposure and fatigue. In an extant portrait, taken five years
later, he is delineated with long hair and scanty beard. The drooping
lids give to his eyes a languid expression, while the length of his
nose, which earned him the sobriquet of "le roi au long nez," redeems
his physiognomy from any approach to heaviness.[213] On the other hand,
the Venetian Marino Cavalli, writing shortly before the close of his
reign, eulogizes the personal appearance of Francis, at that time more
than fifty years old. His mien was so right royal, we are assured, that
even a foreigner, never having seen him before, would single him out
from any company and instinctively exclaim, "This is the king!" No ruler
of the day surpassed him in gravity and nobility of bearing. Well did he
deserve to succeed that long line of monarchs upon each of whom the
sacred oil, applied at his coronation in the cathedral of Rheims, had
conferred the marvellous property of healing the king's-evil by a simple
touch.[214]

[Sidenote: 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
undesira