Henry M. Baird · 85 of 379

CHAPTER VIII · Impartial estimates of his character.

On the thirty-first of March, 1547, Francis the First died, leaving the throne to his only surviving son. With whatever assiduity the poets and scholars of whom the late king had been a munificent patron, and the courtiers who had basked in the sunshine of his favor, might apply themselves to the celebration of his resplendent merits, posterity, less blind to his faults, has declined to confirm the title of "great" affixed to his name by contemporaries. The candid historian, undazzled by the glitter of his chivalric enterprises, may condemn the animus, but can scarcely deny the substantial truth of the bitter reproaches in which the Emperor Charles the Fifth indulged, respecting the uniform faithlessness of his ancient rival. Much less can he pardon the cruel persecution which Francis allowed to be exercised against an unoffending part of his subjects, less from zeal for the tenets of the church whose cause he espoused than from a selfish fear lest his prerogative might be impaired.