For long he had no adviser save such diplomatists as Prince Kaunitz and Thugut, who had been trained in the old Austrian diplomacy. His own best quality was an invincible patience supported by reliance on the loyalty of his subjects, and a sense of his duty to the state. (For the general events of this reign till 1815 see Europe, Austria, Napoleon, French Revolutionary Wars, &c.) The emperor’s firmness averted what would have been an irreparable loss of position. Seeing that the Empire was in the last stage of dissolution, and that, even were it to survive, it would pass from the house of Habsburg to that of Bonaparte, he in 1804 assumed the title of hereditary emperor of Austria. The object of this prudent measure was double. In the first place, he guarded against the danger that his house should sink to a lower rank than the Russian or the French. In the second place, he gave some semblance of unity to his complex dominions in Germany, Bohemia, Hungary and Italy, by providing a common title for the supreme ruler. His action was justified when, in 1806, the establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine forced him to abdicate the empty title of Holy Roman emperor.
In 1805 he made an important change in the working of his administration. He had hitherto been assisted by a cabinet minister who was in direct relation with all the “chanceries” and boards which formed the executive government, and who acted as the channel of communication between them and the emperor, and was in fact a prime minister. In 1805 Napoleon insisted on the removal of Count Colloredo, who held the post. From that time forward the emperor Francis acted as his own prime minister, superintending every detail of his administration. In foreign affairs after 1809 he reposed full confidence in Prince Metternich. But Metternich himself declared at the close of his life that he had sometimes held Europe in the palm of his hand, but never Austria. Francis was sole master, and is entitled to whatever praise is due to his government. It follows that he must bear the blame for its errors. The history of the Austrian empire under his rule and since his death bears testimony to both his merits and his limitations. His indomitable patience and loyalty to his inherited task enabled him to triumph over Napoleon. By consenting to the marriage of his daughter, Marie Louise, to Napoleon in 1810, he gained a respite which he turned to good account. By following the guidance of Metternich in foreign affairs he was able to intervene with decisive effect in 1813. The settlement of Europe in 1815 left Austria stronger and more compact than she had been in 1792, and that this was the case was largely due to the emperor.
During the twenty years which preceded his death in 1835, Francis continued to oppose the revolutionary spirit. He had none of the mystical tendencies of the tsar Alexander I., and only adhered to the half fantastic Holy Alliance of 1815 out of pure politeness. But he was wholly in sympathy with the policy of “repression” which came, in popular view, to be identified with the Holy Alliance; and though Metternich was primarily responsible for the part played by Austria in the “policing” of Europe, Francis cannot but be held personally responsible for the cruel and impolitic severities, associated especially with the sinister name of the fortress prison of the Spielberg, which made so many martyrs to freedom. It is not surprising that Francis was denounced by Liberals throughout Europe as a tyrant and an obscurantist. But though at home, as abroad, he met all suggestions of innovation by a steady refusal to depart from old ways, he was always popular among the mass of his subjects, who called him “our good Kaiser Franz.” In truth, if in the spirit of the traditional Landesvater he chastised his disobedient children mercilessly, he was essentially a well-meaning ruler who forwarded the material and moral good of his subjects according to his lights. But he held that, by the will of God, the whole sovereign authority resided in his person, and could not be shared with others without a dereliction of duty on his part and disastrous consequences; and his capital error as a ruler of Austria was that he persisted in maintaining a system of administration which depended upon the indefatigable industry of a single man, and was entirely outgrown by the modern development of his subjects. Before his death, government in Austria was almost choked, and it broke down under a successor who had not his capacity for work. Like his ancestor Philip II. of Spain, Francis carried caution, and a disposition to sleep upon every possible proposal, to a great length. He died on the 2nd of March 1835.
See Baron J. A. Helfert, Kaiser Franz und die österreichischen Befreiungs-Kriege (Vienna, 1867). Ample bibliographies will be found in Krones von Marchland’s Grundriss der österreichischen Geschichte (Berlin, 1882).
FRANCIS I. (1494–1547), king of France, son of Charles of Valois, count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy, was born at
Cognac on the 12th of September 1494. The count of Angoulême,
who was the great-grandson of King Charles V., died in 1496,
and Louise watched over her son with passionate tenderness.
On the accession of Louis XII. in 1498, Francis became heir-presumptive.
Louis invested him with the duchy of Valois,
and gave him as tutor Marshal de Gié, and, after Gié’s disgrace
in 1503, the sieur de Boisy, Artus Gouffier. François de Rochefort,
abbot of St Mesmin, instructed Francis and his sister
Marguerite in Latin and history; Louise herself taught them
Italian and Spanish; and the library of the château at Amboise
was well stocked with romances of the Round Table, which
exalted the lad’s imagination. Francis showed an even greater
love for violent exercises, such as hunting, which was his ruling
passion, and tennis, and for tournaments, masquerades and
amusements of all kinds. His earliest gallantries are described by
his sister in the 25th and 42nd stories of the Heptameron. In
1507 Francis was betrothed to Claude, the daughter of Louis XII.,
and in 1508 he came to court. In 1512 he gained his first military
experience in Guienne, and in the following year he commanded
the army of Picardy. He married Claude on the 18th of May
1514, and succeeded Louis XII. on the 1st of January 1515.
Of noble bearing, and, in spite of a very long and large nose,
extremely handsome, he was a sturdy and valiant knight, affable,
courteous, a brilliant talker and a facile poet. He had a sprightly
wit, some delicacy of feeling, and some generous impulses which
made him amiable. These brilliant qualities, however, were all
on the surface. At bottom the man was frivolous, profoundly
selfish, unstable, and utterly incapable of consistency or application.
The ambassadors remarked his negligence, and his
ministers complained of it. Hunting, tennis, jewelry and his
gallantry were the chief preoccupations of his life.
His character was at once authoritative and weak. He was determined to be master and to decide everything himself, but he allowed himself to be dominated and easily persuaded. Favourites, too, without governing entirely for him, played an important part in his reign. His capricious humour elevated and deposed them with the same disconcerting suddenness. In the early years of his reign the conduct of affairs was chiefly in the hands of Louise of Savoy, Chancellor Antoine Duprat, Secretary Florimond Robertet, and the two Gouffiers, Boisy and Bonnivet. The royal favour then elevated Anne de Montmorency and Philippe de Chabot, and in the last years of the reign Marshal d’Annebaud and Cardinal de Tournon. Women too had always a great influence over Francis—his sister, Marguerite d’Angoulême, and his mistresses. Whatever the number of these, he had only two titular mistresses—at the beginning of the reign Françoise de Châteaubriant, and from about 1526 to his death Anne de Pisseleu, whom he created duchesse d’Étampes and who entirely dominated him. It has not been proved that he was the lover of Diane de Poitiers, nor does the story of “La belle Ferronnière” appear to rest on any historical foundation.[1]
Circumstances alone gave a homogeneous character to the foreign policy of Francis. The struggle against the emperor Charles V. filled the greater part of the reign. In reality, the policy of Francis, save for some flashes of sagacity, was irresolute and vacillating. Attracted at first by Italy, dreaming of fair feats of prowess, he led the triumphal Marignano expedition, which gained him reputation as a knightly king and as the most powerful prince in Europe. In 1519, in spite of wise counsels,
- ↑ On this point see Paulin Paris, Études sur le règne de François Ier.
