CHARLES IV. 428 CHARLES V. CHARLES IV., King of France, sur- named le Bel, or the Handsome, third son of Philippe le Bel, born in 1294, and ascended the throne in 1322. He died in 1328, without male issue, and was the last of the direct line descended from Hugh Capet. CHARLES v., surnamed the Wise, King of France, son of King John, born in 1337. His father being taken pris- oner by the English at Poitiers, the man- agement of the kingdom devolved on him at an early age. With great skill and energy, not free, however, from duplic- ity, he suppressed the revolt of the Pari- sians and a rising of the peasants, kept the King of Navarre at bay, and de- prived the English of a great part of their dominion in France. He erected the Bastille for the purpose of overaw- ing the Parisians. He died in 1380. CHARLES VI., surnamed the Silly, King of France, son of the foregoing, born at Paris in 1368, and in 1388 as- sumed the government. Four years later he lost his reason, and one of the most disastrous periods of French history fol- lowed. The kingdom was torn by the rival factions of Burgundians and Ar- magnacs (Orleanists) . In 1415 Henry V. of England crossed over to Nor- mandy, took Harfleur by storm, won the famous victory of Agincourt, and com- pelled the crazy king to acknowledge him as his successor. Charles died in 1422. CHARLES VII., King of France, born in Paris in 1403. He succeeded only to the southern provinces of the kingdom, Henry VI. of England being proclaimed King of France at Paris. The English dominion in France was under the gov- ernment of the Duke of Bedford, and so skillfully did the English general con- duct his operations that Charles had al- most abandoned the struggle as hopeless, when the appearance of Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid of Orleans, gave a favorable turn to his affairs, and the struggle ended in the expulsion of the English from all their possessions in France, ex- cept Calais. Charles died in 1461. CHARLES VIII., King of France, son of Louis XI., born in 1470, succeeded his father in 1483. In 1491 he married Anne, the heiress of Brittany, and there- by annexed that important duchy to the French crown. The chief event in the reign of Charles VIII, is his expedition into Italy, and rapid conquest of the kingdom of Naples, a conquest as rapidly lost when a few months later Gonsalvo de Cordova re-annexed it to Spain. Charles was meditating a renewed de- scent into Italy when he died in 1498. CHARLES IX., King of France, son of Henry II. and Catharine de' Medici, born in 1550, ascended the throne at the age of 10 years. His haughty and am- bitious mother seized the control of the state. Along with the Guises she headed the Catholic League against the Calvin- ists, and her tortuous and unscrupulous policy helped to embitter the religious strife of the factions. After a series of Huguenot persecutions and civil wars a peace was made in 1570, which, two years later, on Aug. 24, 1572, was treacherously broken by the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The king, who had been little more than the tool of his scheming mother, died two years aftei'- ward, in 1574. CHARLES X., King of France, Comte d'Artois, grandson of Louis XV., the youngest son of the dauphin, and brother of Louis XVI., born in Versailles in 1757. He left France in 1789, after the first popular insurrection and destruction of the Bastille, and afterward assuming the command of a body of emigrants, acted in concert with the Austrian and Prus- sian armies on the Rhine. Despairing of success he retired to Great Britain and resided for several years in the pal- ace of Holyrood at Edinburgh. He en- tered France at the Restoration, and in 1824 succeeded his brother, Louis XVIII. as king. In a short time his reactionary policy brought him into conflict with the popular party, and in 1830 a revolution drove him from the throne. He died in 1836. His grandson, the Comte de Chambord, claimed the French throne as his heir. CHARLES, King of Germany. See Charlemagne. CHARLES II., King of Germany. See Charles I. of France. CHARLES III., surnamed Le Gros^ Emperor of Germany. See Charles II. of France. CHARLES IV., son of John of Luxem- burg, King of Bohemia, elected Em- peror of Germany at the death of Louis of Bavaria in 1346. He resided at Prague, and the most important event of his reign was the issuing of the "golden bull" in 1355, which defined the respective rights of the electors and the emperor. He died in 1378. CHARLES v., Emperor of Germany and King of Spain (in the latter capacity he is called Charles I.), the eldest son of Philip, archduke of Austria, and of Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, born in Ghent, Feb. 24, 1500. Charles was the grandson of the Emperor Maximikin and Mary*
