Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/30

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
ABC—XYZ

18 LOUIS had presumed too much on the piety of the well brought- up young prince by appoiuting a nephew of his own to the archbishopric of Bourges. In the course of the contest Louis, who had been excommunicated, pursued the new archbishop into the territory of the count of Champagne, and stormed Vitry, in the sack of which the cathedral was burned, causing the death of three hundred persons who had taken refuge within its walls (1143). Louis, horror- struck, made peace with the pope and his secular adversary, but found that nothing less than a pilgrimage to the Holy Land would suffice to expiate his offence. The capture of Edessa and the massacre of the Christians in 1144 led to the preaching of the second crusade by St Bernard, and in 1147 the king, leaving the regency in the hands of the Abbd Suger and Raoul, count of Vermandois, set out for the East, accompanied by his queen, a large company of nobles, and twenty-four thousand men. The disastrous results of the expedition, personal, domestic, and public, have already been recorded in the article FRANCE (vol. ix. p. 540), where also his long struggle with Henry II. of England, which terminated only in 1178, is briefly described. In 1178 he made a pilgrimage to the tomb of St Thomas of Canterbury on behalf of his eldest son Philip Augustus, then dangerously ill, and in the following year he associated him with himself in the sovereignty. Louis died on September 18, 1180. LOUIS VIII., suruamed Le Lion, born on September 5, 1187, was the son of Philip Augustus, whom he suc ceeded in July 1223. In 1200 he had married Blanche of Castile, the granddaughter of Henry II. of England, and in virtue of this connexion he received from the English barons in 1216 an offer of the crown, which he accepted. Landing in England in May, he achieved several military successes, but retired early in 1217 ; later in the same year he renewed the attempt to make good his claims, but finally quitted English soil in September. He next took charge of the war against the Albigenses with varying success ; it continued after his accession to the throne, and ultimately proved fatal to him. He died, most probably of pestilence, shortly after the capture of Avignon, at Montpensier in Auvergne on November 8, 1226, and was succeeded by his son Louis IX. LOUIS IX., SAINT (1215-1270). See FRANCE, vol. ix. pp. 542, 543. He was canonized by Boniface VIII. in 1297, and is commemorated in the Roman Catholic Church on August 25 or 26. He was succeeded by his son Philip III. LOUIS X., Le Hutin, was the eldest son of Philip IV. (the Fair) and Joan of Navarre, and was born in 1289. He succeeded his mother in the kingdom of Navarre and countships of Champagne and Brie in 1305. Historians are not agreed as to the origin of the surname (" The Quarreller ") by which he is known in France, but it seems with most probability to commemorate the wild and boisterous character of his youth. He succeeded his fathsr in 1314, and died, after a short and unimportant reign of less than two years, in June 1316. lie was succeeded by his brother Philip V. LOUIS XL, son of Charles VII. and Mary of Anjou, was born at Bourges on July 3, 1423. His jealous, ambitious, and restless character early manifested itself in the attitude of opposition he assumed to his father s mistress Agnes Sorel, and in the part he took (1439) as leader of the " Praguerie," as the league formed by the nobles against the introduction of a standing army was called. Though pardoned by his father in 1440 after the failure of the attempt, he never thenceforward enjoyed any of his confidence. He distinguished himself in the years immediately following in several military expeditions, but finally settled (1446) in his npanage of Dauphinc, where he acted with great independence, until in 1456 Charles, irritated by the intrigues of his son, intimated his intention of himself resuming the government of that province. Not waiting the arrival of the army which had been sent to take possession, Louis fled for protection to his uncle the duke of Burgundy, who assigned him a pension and a residence at Nieppe near Brussels. The death of Charles on July 22, 1461, permitted his return to France, where he was crowned at Rheims as Louis XL in the following month. For the leading events of the three periods of his reign the reader is referred to FRANCE, vol. ix. pp. 552, 553. He died at Plessis-les-Tours on August 30, 1483, and was succeeded by his son Charles VIII. LOUIS XII. was born at Blois in 1462. His father was Charles, duke of Orleans, the grandson of Charles V. and the cousin of Charles VII., who spent twenty-five years of captivity in England, and who still holds an honourable place on the roll of French poets. Louis himself was for three years (1487-90) the prisoner of his second cousin, Charles VIII., in the castle of Bourges, but afterwards seconded his ambitious schemes faithfully and well, and on his death (1498) succeeded him, taking the titles of king of France, Jerusalem, and the Two Sicilies, and duke of Milan. For the events of his reign see FRANCE, vol. ix. pp. 554,555. He died on January 1, 1515, and was succeeded by Francis I. LOUIS XIII., the son of Henry IV. and Mary de Medici, was born at Fontainebleau on September 27, 1601, and succeeded his father on May 14, 1610, his mother mean while availing herself of the confusion caused by the assassination to seize the regency. For some years the affairs of the kingdom were directed by the council of regency in which the Florentine Concini, created Marquis d Ancre and a marshal of France, was the most prominent figure. After the assassination of D Ancre in 1617, Marshal Luynes, the favourite of the weak young king, held the reins of power for about four years ; his death of camp fever in the end of 1621, in the course of the Huguenot campaign, left Louis free to assert his own independence, which he did by carrying on the war with some vigour until its termination in the peace of Montpellier (1622). In 1624 Richelieu entered the council of state, and guided the affairs of Louis and of France for the next eighteen years (see FRANCE, vol. ix. pp. 568-571). Louis, who died at St Germain-en-Laye on May 14, 1643, was married at the age of fourteen (December 1615) to Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip III. of Spain ; but his eldest son, who succeeded him as Louis XIV., was not born until twenty-three years afterwards. LOUIS XIV., surnamed Le Grand, the elder son of the preceding, was born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 16, 1638, succeeded to the throne of France in his fifth year, was declared of age in September 1651, and was crowned on June 7, 1654. His marriage with the infanta Maria Theresa of Austria, daughter of the Spanish Philip IV, was solemnized at St Jean-de-Luz on June 9, 1660. On the death of Mazarin in 1661 Louis XIV. began his true reign, the leading events of which will be found recorded in the article FRANCE (vol. ix. p. 574-584). He died at Versailles on September 1, 1715. Of his legitimate children by Maria Theresa, only one, Louis the Dauphin (1661-1711), reached manhood; he was married to a Bavarian princess by whom he had three sons Louis the Dauphin, duke of Burgundy, who was the father of Louis XV. ; Philip, duke of Anjou, afterwards Philip V. of Spain ; and Charles, duke of Berri. LOUIS XV, great-grandson and successor of the pre ceding, born at Versailles on February 15, 1710, was the third son of Louis, duke of Burgundy. His father

became dauphin in 1711, and died in 1712, and he him-