ed between the
two princes. In these last days Louis XI. shut himself up in gloomy
seclusion in his castle of Plessis near Tours, and there he died in 1483.
A great king and a terrible one, he has left an indellible mark on the
history of France, for he was the founder of France in its later form, as
an absolute monarchy ruled with little regard to its own true welfare. He
had crushed all resistance; he had enlarged the borders of France, till
the kingdom took nearly its modern dimensions; he had organised its army
and administration. The danger was lest in the hands of a feeble boy
these great results should be squandered away, and the old anarchy once
more raise its head.

For Charles VIII., who now succeeded, was but thirteen years old, a weak
boy whom his father had entirely neglected, the training of his son not
appearing to be an essential part of his work in life. The young Prince
had amused himself with romances, but had learnt nothing useful. A head,
however, was found for him in the person of his eldest sister Anne, whom
Louis XI. had married to Peter II., Lord of Beaujeu and Duc de Bourbon.
To her the dying King entrusted the guardianship of his son; and for more
than nine years Anne of France was virtual King. For those years all
went well.

With her disappearance from the scene, the controlling hand is lost, and
France begins the age of her Italian expeditions.

When the House of Anjou came to an end in 1481, and Anjou and Maine fell
in to the Crown, there fell in also a far less valuable piece of
property, the claim of that house descended from Charles, the youngest
brother of Saint Louis, on the kingdom of Naples and Sicily. There was
much to tempt an ambitious prince in the state of Italy. Savoy, which
held the passage into the peninsula, was then thoroughly French in
sympathy; Milan, under Lodovico Sforza, "il Moro," was in alliance with
Charles; Genoa preferred the French to the Aragonese claimants for
influence over Italy; the popular feeling in the cities, especially in
Florence, was opposed to the despotism of the Medici, and turned to
France for deliverance; the misrule of the Spanish Kings of Naples had
made Naples thoroughly discontented; Venice was, as of old, the friend of
France. Tempted by these reasons, in 1494 Charles VIII. set forth for
Italy with a splendid host. He displayed before the eyes of Europe the
first example of a modern army, in its three well-balanced branches of
i