ble reputation of never having made a promise which he intended
in good faith to keep. The memory of the disingenuous manner in which
Louis, by winking at the opposition of the Parliament of Paris, had
suffered the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction to fail, in spite of
his own solemn engagements to carry it into execution, was, undoubtedly,
one of the leading motives inducing the young prince, at the very
beginning of his reign, to adopt the arbitrary measures already spoken
of in a preceding chapter, respecting the papal concordat. Not for half
his kingdom, he repeatedly declared, would he break the pledge he had
given his Holiness. It is not difficult, however, to reconcile the
pertinacity of Francis, on this occasion, with the frequent and well
authenticated instances of bad faith in his dealings with other
monarchs.

If his literary abilities were slender and his acquirements meagre, this
king had at least the faculty of appreciating excellence in others. The
scholars and wits whom, as we have seen, he succeeded in gathering about
him, repaid his munificence with lavish praise, couched in all manner of
verse, and in every language employed in the civilized world. Even later
historians have not hesitated to rate him much higher than his very
moderate abilities would seem to warrant.[215] The portrait drawn by the
biographer of his imperial rival is, perhaps, full as advantageous as a
regard for truth will permit us to accept. "Francis," says Robertson,
"notwithstanding the many errors conspicuous in his foreign policy and
domestic administration, was nevertheless humane, beneficent, generous.
He possessed dignity without pride, affability free from meanness, and
courtesy exempt from deceit. All who had access to him, and no man of
merit was ever denied that privilege, respected and loved him.
Captivated with his personal qualities, his subjects forgot his defects
as a monarch, and, admiring him as the most accomplished and amiable
gentleman in his dominions, they hardly murmured at acts of
maladministration, which, in a prince of less engaging dispositions,
would have seemed unpardonable."[216]

[Sidenote: Contrast between Francis I. and Charles V.]

Two monarchs could scarcely be more dissimilar than were Francis and the
Emperor Charles. "So great is the difference between these two princes,"
says the Venetian Giustiniano, "that, as her most serene majesty the
Queen of Navarre, the king's sister, remarked to me