improved the appearance of the capital, and while neighboring states were in anarchy, he secured for Paraguay a comparative degree of tranquillity. He peremptorily declined all intercourse with other South American states, and almost all foreign nations, and detained all foreigners who set foot in the country. No export or import trade was allowed without the dictator's license, and death awaited those who were discovered in the act of leaving the country without his special permission. Those opposed to his rule were either shot or imprisoned. The principal victims of his administration were peculating officials, corrupt priests, and persons generally who endeavored to enrich themselves at the public expense. He was humane toward the poor, and cruel toward their oppressors, and professed to be impelled to rigorous measures by a sense of justice. He was most unrelenting toward those who were accused of a conspiracy against his life. Gen. Ramirez of Entre Rios was supposed to contemplate an invasion of Paraguay (1819). A letter from him to Yegros, Francia's former associate in the consulate, fell into the latter's hands. Yegros was charged with plotting against the country, and, with upward of 40 others, was put to death, and about 300 persons were imprisoned for 18 months, when they were only released upon the payment of a large ransom. Some of Francia's prisoners were subjected to the most cruel tortures, and the delight which he seemed to find in inflicting torment gave rise to the belief that, like some of his brothers, he was occasionally deranged. In his habits of life, too, he was peculiar. After having been fond of gambling and social and sensual enjoyments, he led a life of the utmost retirement, and Paraguay was not more isolated from the rest of the world than he from the rest of mankind. He resided in the palace of the former governors of Paraguay, attended by 4 slaves. His barber, a mulatto, was his principal channel of communication with the public, and a half breed named Patiños was his principal secretary. After the death of his master the latter was implicated in a charge of conspiracy against the government, and hung himself in prison. When riding out to inspect the public works and the barracks, Francia was accompanied by a strong escort, and armed with a sabre and a pair of double-barrelled pocket pistols. Especially toward the end of his reign he was in constant fear of assassination. He remained a bachelor until the 70th year of his age, when he was reported to have married a young French woman. He was a man of remarkable physiognomy, with dark, piercing eyes, and of great mental powers, which he cultivated by study and reading. He was especially fond of the French literature of the 18th century, and an admirer both of Robespierre and Napoleon. The anecdotes of his eccentricities were almost as numerous as the reports of his cruelties. Yet his death was deplored as a public calamity, and the people seemed to recognize in him a friend and

a benefactor. His reputation as the tyrant of Paraguay was particularly aggravated in Europe by his treatment of Bonpland, whom he detained for 10 years, and by the accounts given of him by other persons whom he had interfered with. Among these were two Swiss surgeons, Rengger and Longchamp, who were de tained by him from 1819 to 1825. On their return they related their observations, and at the same time expressed their dislike of Francia, in an Essai historique sur la révolution de Paraguay et le gouvernement dictatorial du docteur Francia (Paris, 1827). Two young Scotchmen, I. P. and W. P. Robertson, who went to Paraguay on a commercial venture, were turned out of the country by the dictator, and they gave appalling accounts of his administration in 3 works: "Letters on Paraguay" (2 vols., 2d. ed., London, 1839), "Francia's Reign of Terror" (London, 1839), and "Letters on South America" (3 vols., London, 1843). A graphic sketch of his life and character was given by Thomas Carlyle in an article in the "Edinburgh Review" (1843), in which the dictator is greatly lauded for his eccentric and ruthless energy and justice.

FRANCIS I., king of France, son of Charles, count of Angoulême (cousin german of Louis XII.), and Louisa of Savoy, born at Cognac, Sept. 12, 1494, died at Rambouillet, March 31, 1547. He married Claude, daughter of Louis XII., in 1514, and succeeded him as nearest heir, Jan. 1, 1515. Louis was meditating the reconquest of the Milanese (which he claimed as heir of his grandmother, Valentina Visconti) at the moment of his death; and the youthful king, having renewed his predecessor's treaty with England, immediately turned his eyes in the same direction, and with an army of about 40,000 crossed the Alps by passes previously considered impracticable. The Swiss army employed by the duke of Milan to defend the foot of the Alps was driven back, but being joined by reënforcements gave him battle at Marignano (Melegnano), 10 m. S. E. from Milan, Sept. 13, 1515. It was a fierce contest, since called the battle of the giants; and though the Swiss had only infantry to oppose to the finest cavalry in Europe, the sturdy mountaineers retired only on the second day with a loss of 12,000. Francis had lost 8,000 of his best troops, but he had displayed extraordinary generalship and valor; and his name became at once the most distinguished in Europe. In the chivalric spirit of the age he accepted knighthood on the spot from the chevalier Bayard, whose final charge had completed the victory. Peace was concluded with the Swiss and a concordat with the pope; and Francis, master of Milan, returned in triumph to Paris. In 1517 he made a treaty of friendship and of alliance against the Turks with the emperor Maximilian and Charles I. of Spain. Maximilian died in Jan. 1519, and Francis became a competitor with Charles I., afterward so famous under the title of Charles V. of Germany, for the imperial sceptre. Charles

prevailed in the electoral council in consequence of a recommendation of Frederic the Wise, duke of Saxony, and Francis betrayed the passions natural to disappointed ambition. His chagrin forced from him expressions of disparagement of his successful rival, which were resented; and from this jealousy, as much as from conflicting interests, arose that hostility between these princes which kept Europe in turmoil during their reigns. It was easy to find causes of strife; Italy and Navarre afforded them abundantly. But before engaging in war, each strove to gain to his interests the English king Henry VIII., who obviously held the balance in his hand. Charles hastened to pay this monarch a personal visit at Dover as he passed from Spain to his dominions in the Netherlands, and forgot not at the same time to secure the influence of Cardinal Wolsey by a virtual promise of the papacy. Francis invited the English king to France, where, by a splendid hospitality, he hoped to gain both the cardinal and his master. The sumptuous interview took place in the plain between Guines and Ardres, which history commemorates as the field of the cloth of gold (1520). Unprecedented magnificence, feats of chivalry, and gallant exercises of every description, occupied the two courts. The kings themselves, according to Fleuranges, had a personal wrestling match, in private. Francis easily overthrew his antagonist, but by his frank and generous bearing failed not to win the friendship of his royal brother. Henry, however, flattered by the wily Charles, whose visit he returned after his conference with Francis, was easily secured to the interest of the emperor, and declared that he wished to remain impartial, but should pronounce against the aggressor. The French king began hostilities by seizing Navarre. His troops also invaded Spain, but were routed and chased beyond Navarre. Charles attempted to enter France from the north. He was repelled at Mézières by the chevalier Bayard, and Francis marched into the Low Countries. By some strange over cautiousness he lost an opportunity of cutting off the whole imperial army. Meanwhile Cardinal Wolsey effected a league between his sovereign, the emperor, and the pope, against Francis. A papal army, under Prosper Colonna, seized Milan, and dispossessed the French of all their Italian conquests, except the fortress of Cremona. Francis, in the midst of these disasters, received from Henry of England a declaration of war (May 29, 1522). Undaunted, however, although his treasury was utterly exhausted, he succeeded in putting the kingdom in a state of defence. The constable de Bourbon, at this crisis, rejecting the queen mother's invitation to marriage, and robbed by the incensed woman, through legal chicanery, of his family estate, not only offered his sword to the emperor, but proposed to incite a rebellion in France. The conspiracy was discovered, and Bourbon fled; but Francis, uncertain of its extent, was compelled to abandon his bold plan

of carrying the war into Italy. He nevertheless despatched an army of 30,000 men, under Bonnivet, against Milan, which failed through the incapacity of the commanding general. Bourbon principally conducted the imperial operations in this quarter, and in conjunction with Pescara (1524) drove the French, after a rout at Biagrossa, into their own country. The retreat was fatal to the chevalier Bayard, who, strange to say, after having saved France at Mézières, was nevertheless subordinate to Bonnivet. The imperialists entered Provence. Francis hastened in person to relieve Marseilles, carried all before him, pursued the enemy again into Piedmont, and laid siege to Pavia. He was here defeated in a great battle, Feb. 24, 1525. His Swiss allies fled; and Francis, unhorsed, after fighting foremost in his brave army, and killing with his own hand 7 of the enemy, at length yielded his sword to the Neapolitan viceroy Lannoy, who received it on his knees, and was hurried a prisoner to Madrid. Tout est perdu, fors l'honneur, he had written to his mother from the field; but it is a question with historians whether the honor there saved was not lost at the Spanish capital. Europe was filled with alarm. The emperor's unworthy behavior to his gallant captive, far less, however, than his growing power and ambi tion, roused the animosity of Henry of England, who now declared for France, and demanded the liberation of the king, as did also Rome, Venice, Florence, and Genoa. But the emperor insisted on large cessions of territory, the restoration of Bourbon to all his rights, the marriage of Francis with Charles's sister Eleanor, queen dowager of Portugal, and the delivery of his two eldest sons as hostages for his good faith. Francis at last signed a treaty on these conditions, but at the same time caused a secret protest against them to be drawn up, and was liberated March 17, 1526, his sons taking his place at Madrid. He at once demanded and obtained from the pope absolution from his oath to fulfil the treaty, and, gracefully thanking the English king for his sympathy and alliance, sent forth armies again to Italy. If, say French historians, he was guilty of perjury, then was every man in France his accomplice. Charles, overreached, and now opposed by all Italy as well as France and England, sent Bourbon with an army of mercenaries against the pope. Rome was sacked with unparallelled barbarity, and the pope was imprisoned. A French army, meanwhile, under Lautrec, hastened to avenge the insulted pontiff, but after a series of triumphs was destroyed by disease before Naples. Peace, an obvious necessity for all the belligerents, was concluded at Cambrai by the mother of Francis and the aunt of Charles (Margaret of Austria) in July, 1529. The king of France retained Burgundy, surrendered his Italian claims, and paid 2,000,000 crowns ransom for his sons. The French courtiers vied with each other in supplying the ransom money. Francis at the same time married Queen Eleanor; but

no pledges could secure peace. In 1583 the duke of Milan put to death an agent of the king of France, charged with murder. Seizing this as a pretext for war, Francis took up arms again, and in 1535 overran Savoy. Charles in the spring of 1536 marched upon Provence, and the French troops hurried again to the defence of that region. Charles lost half his army through famine and disease, the country having been laid waste purposely by the French commander, and with the remainder fled before the light troops of the province. At the same time the prince of Nassau, who had invaded the north of France, was compelled to retreat. Soon after these events, the eldest son of Francis died, poisoned. The crime was laid to the charge of the emperor, probably without any foundation; but the circumstance carried the exasperation of the two sovereigns to the extreme of decency. Francis attacked the Low Countries, and even formed an offensive alliance with the Turkish sultan Solyman; but the pope and the queen of Hungary interposing with offers of mediation, a truce of 10 years was conIcluded at Nice (1538). The rivals exchanged visits and embraced; and on the occasion of a second visit Charles promised to invest a son of the French king with the sovereignty of Milan, but the promise was never fulfilled, Charles giving the duchy instead to his son Philip. War again broke out in 1542, and Francis sent 5 armies against various quarters of the imperial dominions, and gained a great battle at Cerisolles (1544), but without important consequences. After a short and bootless invasion of France by Henry VIII. and Charles in alliance, peace was again concluded; and no further military events took place during the reign. The king's health had been hopelessly ruined some years before in consequence of one of his many amours, and death at length ensued. Francis was an unhesitating libertine, though during the latter years of his life his attention was given to wiser thoughts; and notwithstanding his vices and his cruelty to the Protestants, admiration cannot be withheld from many gallant and noble traits of character, which might have been blessings to his country had he been content with any other than military glory. He introduced into France striking improvements of art and learning. He was gifted with remarkable elegance and grace. In youth he was the magnus Apollo of his comrades, "the courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue, sword." Of his munificence many monuments remain; as the imperial library of Paris, the imperial college, the original Louvre, Fontainebleau, and Chambord. By his first wife he had 7 children; by the second none. To his son Henry II. he bequeathed a treasury with a surplus of 400,000 crowns.

FRANCIS II., king of France, born in Fontainebleau, Jan. 19, 1543, died in Orleans, Dec. 5, 1560. He was the eldest son of Henry II. and Catharine de' Medici. His father, more brave than wise, more devoted to amours and chival

ric amusements than to the management of affairs of state, had yet succeeded in obtaining some important advantages over the emperor Charles V. and the house of Spain, and in terminating favorably a long series of wars, chiefly in Italy and the Netherlands, against the growing might of that house. Henry died in 1559 of a wound accidentally received in a tournament. Francis, then a boy of 16 years, possessed of neither character, strength, nor talent, succeeded to the throne. He had already married the daughter of James V. of Scotland, the beautiful and afterward unhappy Mary Stuart. Her influence gave the reins of government to her uncles, Francis duke of Guise, and the cardinal of Lorraine. The arrogant sway of these two ambitious and unscrupulous princes alarmed and irritated the princes of the blood, Anthony king of Navarre, and his brother Louis of Condé, who became the leaders of a Protestant party in opposition to the court. Every thing concurred to produce civil commotion. Protestantism had penetrated, in the form of Calvinism, into France. Its spirit suited that of the feudal nobility, and the profligacy and corruption introduced by the Italian Medicis into the court and manners of France, and the influence of strangers, disposed the people to rebellion. It was by secret plots, however, rather than by open revolt, that the Protestant princes tried to wrest power from the hands of the Guises. Assisted by the duke of Montmorency, La Renaudie, and others, they framed the conspiracy of Amboise, in which they agreed to enter that place on a certain day in detached parties, to massacre the Guises, and seize the person of the king. But the plot was denounced almost at the moment of execution, by two Protestants; the duke of Guise secretly assembled a body of troops, and cut to pieces the forces of the conspirators as they were entering the city. His triumph was stained with barbarous cruelty, and the waters of the Loire were colored with the blood of those who fell in combat or perished on the scaffold. The court was depraved or bigoted enough to gaze at the executions, as scenes of public festivity, from platforms and the windows of the castle. Arrests and executions throughout the country followed. The duke of Guise was made lieutenant-general of the kingdom. The axe was brought into play to stifle the opposition of the princes, and the inquisition was set up to repress Calvinism. A royal edict made the bishops, instead of the parliaments, judges of heresy; the chancellor De l'Hôpital gave his consent, led by reasons of humanity and caution, and having sufficient proof of the persecuting spirit of the parliaments. But at the same time, and for the same reasons, he urged the calling of a general, or, if the pope refused, of a national council, to pacify the church and France. The princes of Lorraine, desirous of completing their victory by the death of Condé, convened the states-general at Orleans. had tried to dissemble his mortification after the failure of Amboise, and was now impru

Condé

dent enough to appear. He was arrested, tried, and soon condemned to die as a traitor. The death of Francis, however, saved his life, and restored him to the leadership of the Huguenots. The young king had long suffered from an abscess in his ear, and died after a reign of 17 months, so suddenly that rumors of poison, now regarded as unfounded, spread, and were believed throughout the country; the more easily, as assassination was becoming fashionable in France, and the queen mother was renowned for her love of alchemy and the use of poisons. Francis bequeathed to his brother and successor, Charles IX., then a boy of 10 years of age, a treasury loaded with debt, and a state full of the elements of civil war. gency was intrusted to Catharine de' Medici, whose intrigues fostered the flame of civil and religious dissensions.

The re

FRANCIS I. (STEPHEN), emperor of Germany, born in 1708, died Aug. 18, 1765. He was the son of Leopold, duke of Lorraine, and of a niece of Louis XIV., and the great-grandson of Ferdinand III., emperor of Germany. In 1729 he succeeded his father as duke of Lorraine and Bar, but in consequence of the war of the Polish succession, in which Louis XV. took a feeble part in support of his father-in-law, Stanislas Leszczynski, the dethroned king of Poland, his duchy was exchanged for Tuscany, where the house of Medici was on the point of becoming extinct, and given to Stanislas, to revert after his death to the crown of France. Francis soon after married Maria Theresa, daughter and heiress of the emperor Charles VI. Charles appointed him generalissimo, and he fought in a successful campaign against the Turks. After the death of the last of the Medicis, he went with Maria to Florence, the capital of his new dominion, and returned with her after the death of Charles, to share with her the regency, the cares, but not the prerogatives of the inherited crowns. He fought for her rights in the wars which now ensued in spite of the pragmatic sanction, and which would have deprived her of her inheritance had she not been stoutly supported by her Hungarians, who swore at Presburg to die for their king Maria Theresa," and found an ally in George II. of England. Frederic the Great of Prussia was satisfied with the glory won in the wars of Silesia, and the conquest of that province, and Charles of Bavaria, who had been chosen emperor, died in 1745. Francis could now be elected, and was acknowledged in the peace of Aix la Chapelle as emperor of Germany (1748). Being of a mild and peaceful disposition, and influenced more by personal avarice than by ambition, he promoted commerce and agriculture, particularly in Tuscany, but left the heavier cares of government to his masculine consort, who was soon again involved in a 7 years' war with Frederic. Two years after the termination of this war Francis died at Innspruck, leaving the German crown to his son Joseph II., for whom his mother reigned till 1780, and Tuscany to his younger son, afterward Leopold II. VOL. VII.-44

FRANCIS II., emperor of Germany (I. of Austria), born in Florence, Feb. 6, 1768, died in Vienna, March 2, 1835. He was the son of the emperor Leopold II. and of Maria Louisa, daughter of Charles III., king of Spain. He was educated first at the polished and popular court of Florence, then at that of Vienna, where he had an opportunity of studying the statesmanship and reign of his uncle, Joseph II. He accompanied him in his unsuccessful campaign against the Turks, and even took the title of commander-in-chief of the army, though still a youth of 21 years, while the old and experienced general Laudon served as an assistant. After the death of Joseph (1790), Francis held the reins of the empire for a few days, till the arrival of his father from Florence, whom he followed in the next year to the convention of Pilnitz, where the emperor and the king of Prussia formed the first coalition against revolutionary France. The short and mild reign of Leopold ended in 1792, and Francis succeeded him in his hereditary dominions, and was successively crowned king of Hungary, emperor of Germany, and king of Bohemia, but was soon surrounded with difficulties and dangers. Hungary, stripped of its constitutional privileges by the centraliz ing and Germanizing efforts of Joseph, and not fully appeased by the concessions of Leopold, was in a state of national excitement, and the Belgian provinces were ripe for revolt. The legislative assembly of France obliged Louis XVI. to declare war against the young king of Hungary and Bohemia in April, 1792. The victories of Dumouriez and the revolt of Belgium, the victories of Custine on the Rhine, the execution of Louis XVI., and that of the queen Marie Antoinette, the aunt of Francis, followed in rapid train. It was in vain that Clairfait obtained some advantages over the French, that Francis took the command in person, and was for a time successful, that a new and mightier coalition was formed; the armies of the republic soon drove back the allies; Francis's confederates deserted him, and in 1795 Tuscany, Sweden, Spain, and even the king of Prussia, concluded at Basel a treaty of peace with the republic, whose Italian army, now commanded by Gen. Bonaparte, conquered in the two next years the whole north of Italy. Francis himself, notwithstanding some slight advantages gained by his brother the archduke Charles over Moreau, in southern Germany, was finally forced to conclude the treaty of Campo Formio (Oct. 17, 1797), in which he sacrificed Belgium, Milan, and a Rhenish province of the empire, in exchange for Venice. Changes in France and new French aggressions tempted Austria, Russia, and England to another war. The allied armies were successful for a while under the archduke Charles in Germany, under Hotze in Switzerland, and under Kray and Suwaroff in Italy. But reverses came; Suwaroff was recalled by his emperor, and Bonaparte, returning from Egypt, became master of France by a coup d'état, and of Italy by the passage of

the Alps and the battle of Marengo (June 14, 1800), while Moreau fought his way through southern Germany toward Vienna. These disasters compelled Francis to the peace of Luneville, by which he lost a portion of Germany and acquired a portion of Italy. England made peace with France at Amiens, but broke it again, and framed a new coalition, in which the emperors Francis and Alexander and the king of Sweden took part, while Prussia remained neutral, and Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden were ready to side with the French. Francis expected the first attack from Italy, and sent thither his brother Charles, who gained a battle over Masséna; but Napoleon broke through Germany, and his sudden marches, the surrender of Ulm with its 24,000 inen under Mack, the retreat of the archduke Ferdinand, and the great battle of Austerlitz (Dec. 2, 1805), in which the two allied emperors were present, made him the dictator of the treaty concluded at Presburg, in which Francis lost the Tyrol, Venice, and 3,000,000 subjects, and received only Saltzburg. The electors of Bavaria and Würtemberg now took the title of kings as a reward for their support of the victor; the confederation of the Rhine was founded under Napoleon's protectorate, and the French ambassadors declared that they no longer recognized a German empire or a German constitution. Francis, who had already assumed the title of hereditary emperor of Austria, solemnly laid down that of emperor of Germany in Aug. 1806. But Napoleon, having crushed Prussia, Portugal, and Italy, threatened Austria again. Francis armed the ancient German militia, and resorted to the general rising of the Hungarian nobles. Three brothers of the emperor were sent with armies across the German, Italian, and Polish frontiers; but Austria stood this time alone, while Napoleon was assisted by Poles, Russians, and Germans. With the exception of the battle of Aspern and Essling, May 21 and 22, 1809, in which Napoleon suffered his first defeat, the whole campaign in Germany was a series of French victories. The Austrians were forced to evacuate Vienna, driven from Poland, and signally defeated at Wagram; the Hungarian nobles were dispersed, and a rising of the Tyrolese in favor of Austria proved abortive. The peace of Schönbrunn cost Francis some rich provinces, and more than 3,500,000 subjects. The resources of his empire were exhausted, and his treasury had long been bankrupt. In this situation he consented to give his daughter Maria Louisa in marriage to Napoleon, and soon saw the title of king of Rome, once his own, bestowed upon her child. But the power as well as the presumption of Napoleon had now attained its highest pitch. In the disastrous Russian campaign of 1812 an auxiliary Austrian force occupied Poland in the French interest, but effected little. In 1813 Francis declared his neutrality, and on Napoleon's refusal to accept his mediation with Russia he joined the allies, and contributed largely to their victory at Leipsic. In the following year

he entered France with his army, and remained two months in Paris after its occupation by the allies, March 31. In June the European congress assembled at Vienna, but the brilliant festivals with which Francis entertained his guests were interrupted in March, 1815, by the news of Napoleon's return from Elba. An Austrian army now crossed the Simplon and occupied Lyons, while another marched into Italy, overthrew Murat, and restored to the old king Ferdinand the crown of Naples. On the restoration of peace after the battle of Waterloo, Francis, having ceded Belgium to the Netherlands, and acquired Lombardy and Venice, saw his empire greater than it had ever been before. His policy, developed by Metternich, became the policy of Europe. Based on a horror of revolution, and a reverence for hereditary right, it took the form of a thorough conservatism and centralization, supported by a large standing army, a secret police, strict subordination, a literary censorship, and all the measures of repression familiar to an arbitrary government. Austria was the centre of all the reactionary movements of the period following the French restoration. Monarchical congresses for the suppression of the revolutionary spirit of Germany, Spain, and Italy were held on its territory at Carlsbad in 1819, at Troppau in 1820, at Laybach in 1821, and at Verona in 1822; Austrian armies restored order in Piedmont and Naples, and Austrian influence prevailed in Spain, Portugal, and the German confederacy at Frankfort. Francis sanctioned even the despotic rule of Turkey over Greece, and imprisoned the Greek refugee Ypselantes. He was the first to counteract in Italy the influence of the French revolution of July, 1830, and was of aid to Czar Nicholas in the Polish war of independence in 1831. It was nevertheless a constant though secret part of his policy to check the growing and threatening power of Russia. At home his chief embarrassments sprang from an exhausted treasury, enormous debts, and the uneasiness of the Italians, Hungarians, and Slavi. New loans and taxes relieved his finances; state prisons and rigorous punishments were used to crush the spirit of independence in Italy; while the diet of Presburg was appeased by reluctant concessions, and German officials kept order in Poland and Bohemia. In the promotion of industry, commerce, and the arts in the German provinces, and the advancement of German influence, ha showed a wiser policy. The courts of law were reorganized, and the ancient codes were revised and modified. Francis was economical, industrions, and regular in his personal habits, popular with the Germans, but little known and less liked by his other subjects. The antipathies inspired by the reactionary measures of his government, and the attacks of the liberal press in foreign countries (for there was none in Austria), and of the Hungarian patriots in their diets and county assemblies, were directed less against the emperor than against his minister Metternich. His private treasury was in an incomparably better condi