a work aiming to inculcate morality, and
abundantly furnished with direct religious exhortation, have
inserted, not _one_, but a _score_ of the most repulsive pictures
of vice, drawn from the impure scandal of that court.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 212: He was born at Cognac, Sept. 12, 1494.]

[Footnote 213: See the fac-simile in the magnificent work of M. Niel,
Portraits des personnages francais les plus illustres du 16me siecle,
Paris, 1848, 2 vols. fol.]

[Footnote 214: The envoy's description of Francis's curative power is
interesting. "Ha una proprieta, _o vero dono da Dio_, come han tutti li
re di Francia, di far guarire li amalati di scrofule.... E questo lo fa
in giorno solenne, come Pasqua, Natale e Nostra Donna. Si confessa e
communica; dipoi _tocca li amalati in croce al volto, dicendo: 'Il Re ti
tocca, e Iddio ti guarisca_!'" Cavalli thinks there can be no doubt of
the reality of the cures effected; otherwise, why should continually
increasing numbers of sick folk come from the most distant countries, if
they received no benefit? Relazioni Venete (Alberi), ser. i., i. 237. It
must not be imagined, however, that the kings of France engrossed all
virtue of this kind. The monarchs of England were wont to hallow on Good
Friday certain rings which thenceforth guaranteed the wearer against
epilepsy. These _cramp-rings_, as they were called, were no less in
demand abroad than at home. Sir John Mason wrote from Brussels, April
25, 1555, that many persons had expressed the desire to obtain them, and
begged Sir W. Petrie to interest himself in procuring him some of this
year's blessing by Queen Mary. MSS. State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 215: The small size of the brain and the depression of the
forehead indicated in all the different contemporary portraits of
Francis have been noticed by M. Niel (Portraits, i. 10), who dryly adds
that in view of them he might have been inclined to withhold the
eulogies he has inserted in his notice of the monarch, "had he not
recollected in time that the laws of phrenology are not infallible."]

[Footnote 216: Robertson, Charles V., iii. 396.]

[Footnote 217: Relazione di Francia (1538), Alberi, i. 203, 204. It will
be noticed that Giustiniano wrote at a period when the youthful ardor of
Francis had somewhat cooled down.]

[Footnote 218: The French king's proverbial ill-success gave rise to the
taunt that his was "un esser savio in bocca e non in mente," but Marino