THE BACKGROUND THE BACKGROUND C TAND on the boulevards to-day and
you may see a Francis go by. He may be travelling fast, himself at
the wheel with a blonde girl by his side. He is the athletic type,
the lithe attractive male, broad shouldered and thin-legged, with
his hat raked at the jaunty angle of a military cap. His life, the
joy of life, glints as he flashes past, maybe on his way to
Mont-Oriol. He is a type of Frenchman not yet extinct nor likely to
be extinct for centuries. Those who wish the ampoule to be opened
and a gallant like this to be anointed once more at Reims, with the
oil that the dove brought from heaven, do not choose to see him as
a human being so much as a King, a mysterious throb in a force that
streams from the Eternal. They think it vulgar to see the blonde at
his side history should be blonde-proof. History may select the
facts, but they must be worthy of History, must be dignified. Yet
observe this long-nosed personage with night-life in his nar rowed
eyes, eyes that have wept for the broken Virgin, eyes that have
faced battle, caressed and lusted, heavy with cupidity, glazed with
surfeit, once expectant as the sky in May. The curve of this
personage has its own peculiar grace. But when you take him as the
head of a European state, with millions in his power, his intrinsic
character is too important in its tiniest detail to be veiled 3 4
FRANCIS THE FIRST in obedience to power-historians who rule out the
human being. The craft of ruling certainly glints in those
incredible eyes. If he were just a Big Boy, a Big Bad Wolf on the
boulevards, his char acter would be of human interest, in its own
way. Make him King and it is of poignant social interest. Set himon
the throne of the most powerful single nation in Europe. Endow him
as a multi millionaire. Give him a strong army. Ask him to guide
the nation with a handful of councillors, no representative
assembly, no potent public opinion. Then require him to deal with
the great surges of human vitality which make themselves felt both
in re ligion and in the plain struggle for existence. What he is,
what he Inherits, how he feels both as man and King, become then of
supreme significance for the Europe he has to mould during the full
third of a century that he reigns. Francis was the absolute monarch
with whom John Calvin col lided. He was Rabelais patron. Erasmus
and Machiavelli disputed him. His sister at once befriended Calvin
and wrote the Hep tameron, standing in the dizzying cross-lights of
Renaissance and Reformation. It is not enough to see him as a
monster, simply be cause he was a sensual male. Our judgment of him
must take in an immense variety of Europe, action whirling into
counter-action and the chaff almost smothering us as we try to sift
the wheat of reality. But that reality cannot be taken as merely
political the basic stuff is human. How delightful it would be if
Francis were a more dominating figure. To arrest historic attention
that is, to become world-famous one must make a block reputation be
a conqueror like Cxsar, a vamp like Cleopatra, a greatheart like
Abraham Lincoln, a virgin Queen like Elizabeth, a non-Virgin Queen
like Catherine the Great, a steam-roller like Napoleon . . .
Francis I did not, in this manner, stamp himself on his epoch. He
was not man enough to do it. But if he were not a superman, he
should not lightly be made the puppet of high moralists, the
BadWolf execrated by Bishop Stubbs or vilified by Victor Hugo.
Those great condemnations of the nine teenth century were not
history so much as pamphleteering. Francis was no monster, any more
than his contemporary Henry VIII. He had, curiously enough, much
the same personal problems as his rival Henry VIII, but he went
about them like a Frenchman. THE BACKGROUND 5 Had he married his
mistresses, as Henry did, and then cut off a head or two, he would
have added several interesting women to the historical waxworks and
himself into the bargain...
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