paign against Charles V.
Since his glorious victory at Melegnano in the beginning of his reign,
fortune had almost invariably forsaken his policy and all his
enterprises, whether of war or of diplomacy; but, falling at one time a
victim to the defects of his mind and character, and being at another
hurried away by his better qualities and his people's sympathy, he took
no serious note of the true causes or the inevitable consequences of his
reverses, and realized nothing but their outward and visible signs,
whilst still persisting in the same hopeful illusions and the same ways
of government. Happily for the lustre of his reign and the honor of his
name, he had desires and tastes independent of the vain and reckless
policy practised by him with such alternations of rashness and feebleness
as were more injurious to the success of his designs than to his personal
renown, which was constantly recovering itself through the brilliancy of
his courage, the generous though superficial instincts of his soul, and
the charm of a mind animated by a sincere though ill-regulated sympathy
for all the beautiful works of mankind in literature, science, and art,
and for all that does honor and gives embellishment to the life of human
beings.

CHAPTER XXIX.----FRANCIS I. AND THE RENAISSANCE.

[Illustration: FRANCIS I.----137]

Francis I., in his life as a king and a soldier, had two rare pieces of
good fortune: two great victories, Melegnano and Ceresole, stand out at
the beginning and the end of his reign; and in his direst defeat, at
Pavia, he was personally a hero. In all else, as regards his government,
his policy was neither an able nor a successful one; for two and thirty
years he was engaged in plans, attempts, wars, and negotiations; he
failed in all his designs; he undertook innumerable campaigns or
expeditions that came to nothing; he concluded forty treaties of war,
peace, or truce, incessantly changing aim, and cause, and allies; and,
for all this incoherent activity, he could not manage to conquer either
the empire or Italy; he brought neither aggrandizement nor peace to
France.

Outside of the political arena, in quite a different field of ideas and
facts, that is, in the intellectual field, Francis I. did better and
succeeded better. In this region he exhibited an instinct and a taste
for the grand and the beautiful; he had a sincere love for literature,
science, and art; he honored and protected, and effectual