In 1678 the treaty of Nijmwegen gave Franche-Comté to France (the principality of Montbéliard remaining in the possession of the house of Württemberg, which had acquired it by marriage), and it was in celebration of this conquest that the Arc de Triomphe of the Portes Saint Denis and Saint Martin at Paris was erected. Franche-Comté became a military government (gouvernement). The estates ceased to meet, and the old “don gratuit” was replaced by a tax which became increasingly heavy. Louis made Besançon, which Vauban fortified, into the capital of the province, and transferred to it the parliament and the university, the seat of which had hitherto been Dôle. For purposes of administration, the county was divided among the four great bailliages of Besançon, Dôle, Amont (chief town Vesoul) and Aval (chief town Salins). At the Revolution were formed from it the departments of Jura, Doubs and Haute-Saône.
See Dunod, Histoire des Sequanois; Hist. du comté de Bourgogne (Dijon, 1735–1740); E. Clerc, Essai sur l’histoire de la Franche-Comté (2nd ed., Besançon, 1870). (R. Po.)
FRANCHISE (from O. Fr. franchise, freedom, franc, free),
in English law, a royal privilege or branch of the crown’s prerogative
subsisting in the hands of a subject. A franchise is an
incorporeal hereditament, and arises either from royal grants or
from prescription which presupposes a grant. Such franchises are
bodies corporate, the right to hold a fair, market, ferry, free
fishery, &c. The term is also applied to the right of voting at
elections and the qualifications upon which that right is based
(see Registration; Representation; Vote). In the United
States the term is especially applied to the right or powers
of partial appropriation of public property by exclusive use,
or to a privilege of a public nature conferred on a corporation
created for the purpose.
FRANCIA (c. 1450–1517), a Bolognese painter, whose real
name was Francesco Raibolini, his father being Marco di Giacomo
Raibolini, a carpenter, descended from an old and creditable
family, was born at Bologna about 1450. He was apprenticed
to a goldsmith currently named Francia, and from him probably
he got the nickname whereby he is generally known; he moreover
studied design under Marco Zoppo. The youth was thus
originally a goldsmith, and also an engraver of dies and niellos,
and in these arts he became extremely eminent. He was particularly
famed for his dies for medals; he rose to be mint-master
at Bologna, and retained that office till the end of his life. A
famous medal of Pope Julius II. as liberator of Bologna is
ascribed to his hand, but not with certainty. As a type-founder
he made for Aldus Manutius the first italic type.
At a mature age—having first, it appears, become acquainted with Mantegna—he turned his attention to painting. His earliest known picture is dated 1494 (not 1490, as ordinarily stated). It shows so much mastery that one is compelled to believe that Raibolini must before then have practised painting for some few years. This work is now in the Bologna gallery,—the “Virgin enthroned, with Augustine and five other saints.” It is an oil picture, and was originally painted for the church of S. Maria della Misericordia, at the desire of the Bentivoglio family, the rulers of Bologna. The same patrons employed him upon frescoes in their own palace; one of “Judith and Holophernes” is especially noted, its style recalling that of Mantegna. Francia probably studied likewise the works of Perugino; and he became a friend and ardent admirer of Raphael, to whom he addressed an enthusiastic sonnet. Raphael cordially responded to the Bolognese master’s admiration, and said, in a letter dated in 1508, that few painters or none had produced Madonnas more beautiful, more devout, or better portrayed than those of Francia. If we may trust Vasari—but it is difficult to suppose that he was entirely correct—the exceeding value which Francia set on Raphael’s art brought him to his grave. Raphael had consigned to Francia his famous picture of “St Cecilia,” destined for the church of S. Giovanni in Monte, Bologna; and Francia, on inspecting it, took so much to heart his own inferiority, at the advanced age of about sixty-six, to the youthful Umbrian, that he sickened and shortly expired on the 6th of January 1517. A contemporary record, after attesting his pre-eminence as a goldsmith, jeweller and painter, states that he was “most handsome in person and highly eloquent.”
Distanced though he may have been by Raphael, Francia is rightly regarded as the greatest painter of the earlier Bolognese school, and hardly to be surpassed as representing the art termed “antico-moderno,” or of the “quattrocento.” It has been well observed that his style is a medium between that of Perugino and that of Giovanni Bellini; he has somewhat more of spontaneous naturalism than the former, and of abstract dignity in feature and form than the latter. The magnificent portrait in the Louvre of a young man in black, of brooding thoughtfulness and saddened profundity of mood, would alone suffice to place Francia among the very great masters, if it could with confidence be attributed to his hand, but in all probability its real author was Franciabigio; it had erewhile passed under the name of Raphael, of Giorgione, or of Sebastian del Piombo. The National Gallery, London, contains two remarkably fine specimens of Francia, once combined together as principal picture and lunette,—the “Virgin” and “Child and St Anna” enthroned, surrounded by saints, and (in the lunette) the “Pietà,” or lamentation of angels over the dead Saviour. They come from the Buonvisi chapel in the church of S. Frediano, Lucca, and were among the master’s latest paintings. Other leading works are—in Munich, the “Virgin” sinking on her knees in adoration of the Divine Infant, who is lying in a garden within a rose trellis; in the Borghese gallery, Rome, a Peter Martyr; in Bologna, the frescoes in the church of St Cecilia, illustrating the life of the saint, all of them from the design of Raibolini, but not all executed by himself. His landscape backgrounds are of uncommon excellence. Francia had more than 200 scholars. Marcantonio Raimondi, the famous engraver, is the most renowned of them; next to him Amico Aspertini, and Francia’s own son Giacomo, and his cousin Julio. Lorenzo Costa was much associated with Francia in pictorial work.
Among the authorities as to the life and work of Francia may be mentioned J. A. Calvi, Memorie della vita di Francesco Raibolini (1812), and especially G. C. Williamson, Francia (1900). (W. M. R.)
FRANCIA, JOSÉ GASPAR RODRIGUEZ (c. 1757–1840),
dictator of Paraguay, was born probably about 1757. According
to one account he was of French descent; but the truth seems
to be that his father, Garcia Rodriguez Francia, was a native
of S. Paulo in Brazil, and came to Paraguay to take charge of
a plantation of black tobacco for the government. He studied
theology at the college of Cordova de Tucuman, and is said to
have been for some time a professor in that faculty; but he
afterwards turned his attention to the law, and practised in
Asuncion. Having attained a high reputation at once for
ability and integrity, he was selected for various important
offices. On the declaration of Paraguayan independence in
1811, he was appointed secretary to the national junta, and
exercised an influence on affairs greatly out of proportion to
his nominal position. When the congress or junta of 1813
changed the constitution and established a duumvirate, Dr
Francia and the Gaucho general Yegres were elected to the
office. In 1814 he secured his own election as dictator for three
years, and at the end of that period he obtained the dictatorship
for life. In the accounts which have been published of his administration
we find a strange mixture of capacity and caprice,
of far-sighted wisdom and reckless infatuation, strenuous
endeavours after a high ideal and flagrant violations of the
simplest principles of justice. He put a stop to the foreign
commerce of the country, but carefully fostered its internal
industries; was disposed to be hospitable to strangers from
other lands, and kept them prisoners for years; lived a life of
republican simplicity, and punished with Dionysian severity
the slightest want of respect. As time went on he appears to
have grown more arbitrary and despotic. Deeply imbued with
the principles of the French Revolution, he was a stern antagonist
of the church. He abolished the Inquisition, suppressed the
college of theology, did away with the tithes, and inflicted
endless indignities on the priests. He discouraged marriage
