he Archbishop of Sens
and the Archbishop of Lyons, the former having apparently the better
claim and enjoying nominally a Wider supremacy (as "Primat des Gaules et
de Germanie"); but the latter gradually vindicated his pretension to
spiritual authority over most of France. See Encyclopedie methodique, s.
v. Sens, and Lyon.]

[Footnote 255: Gaillard, Hist. de Francois premier, vi. 408.]

CHAPTER IV.

INCREASING SEVERITY.--LOUIS DE BERQUIN.

[Sidenote: Captivity of Francis I.]

The year 1525 was critical as well in the religious as in the political
history of France. On the twenty-fourth of February, in consequence of
the disaster at Pavia, Francis fell into the hands of his
rival--Charles, by hereditary descent King of Spain, Naples, and
Jerusalem, sovereign, under various titles, of the Netherlands, and by
election Emperor of Germany--a prince whose vast possessions in both
hemispheres made him at once the wealthiest and most powerful of living
monarchs. With his unfortunate captivity, all the fanciful schemes of
conquest entertained by the French king fell to the ground. But France
felt the blow not less keenly than the monarch. One of the most gallant
armies that ever crossed the Alps had been lost. The kingdom was by no
means invulnerable, for the capital itself might easily reward a
well-executed invasion from the side of Flanders. The recuperative
energies of the country could be put forth to little advantage, so long
as the place of the king--_fons omnis jurisdictionis_, as the French
legists styled him--was filled by a woman in the capacity of regent.
France bade fair to exhibit to the world the inherent weakness of a
despotism wherein all power, in fact as well as in theory, centres
ultimately in the single person of the supreme ruler as autocrat. For it
was his standing boast that he was "emperor" in his own realm, holding
it of none other than God, and responsible to God alone, and that as
king and emperor he had the exclusive right to make ordinances from
which no subject could appeal without rendering himself liable to the
penalties pronounced upon traitors.[256] Now that the head was taken
away, who could answer for the harmonious action of the body which had
been wont to depend upon him alone for direction?

[Sidenote: Change in the religious policy of Louise de Savoie.]

Louise de Savoie, to whom the direction of affairs had been confided
during her son's absence in Italy, had, for greater