The art
of printing, coming almost simultaneously with these transforming
events, sent vitalizing currents reaching even to the humblest. France
partook of the general awakening and was throwing off the torpor of
centuries. New ambitions were aroused, and her slumbering genius began
to be stirred. This was a propitious moment for an ambitious young
king who aimed not only at being the greatest of military heroes, but
also the splendid patron of art and letters, and wisest of men! The
role he had set for himself being, in fact, a Charlemagne and a Lorenzo
de' Medici in one. All that was needed for success in this large field
was ability. Personal valor Francis certainly possessed. His reign
opened brilliantly with a campaign in the Italian peninsula, which left
him after the battle of Marignano, master of the Milanese and of
northern Italy. He need not trouble himself as had his predecessors
about recalcitrant and scheming nobles. They had never been heard from
since Louis XI. took them in hand. Neither were the States-General
going to annoy him by assertion of rights and demands for reforms.
They too had become almost non-existent; it having been well
established that only the direst emergency would ever call them into
being again. So kingship held sole and undisputed sway, and Francis
was looking about to see where he might make it even stronger.

The residence of the popes, at Avignon, during the period of the Great
Schism, had led to the establishment by Charles VII. of an ordinance
called the _Pragmatic Sanction_; its object being the limitation of the
papal power in France. The pope by this ordinance was cut off from
certain lucrative sources of income; to offset which the king was
deprived of the right of appointing officers for vacant bishoprics and
abbeys.

Francis I. and Leo X. came together, and, after conferring, determined
that the Pragmatic Sanction should be repudiated; Leo, because he must
increase his revenues, and Francis, because he desired to use
appointments to rich vacancies as rewards for his friends. Leo's
tastes, as we know, were magnificent, and needed much more money than
he could command; a fact which led to grave results, and changed the
course of events in the world!

In 1516 Ferdinand I., King of Spain, died, leaving his enormous
possessions to his grandson, Charles, a youth not yet twenty. The
mother of this boy was Joanna, the insane daughter of Ferdinand and
Isabella,