The Children of Adam and Eve

He was remembered for his rivalry with the Habsburg Holy Roman emperor
Charles V, for his patronage of arts and letters, and for his governmental
reforms.

Francis represented the Angoul? Branch of the Valois dynasty, succeeding
Louis XII, the last of the Orleanist Branch, in 1515. His mother, Louise
of Savoy, and his elder sister, Margaret of Navarre, influenced his
upbringing and remained close to him during his reign.

The Valois-Habsburg Wars

In 1515 Francis personally won a spectacular victory over the Swiss at
Marignano, which enabled him to seize the Italian duchy of Milan. In 1519
he was a candidate for the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, but the
imperial electors chose Charles of Habsburg instead. He then embarked on a
war against Charles in Italy, but was defeated and captured at Pavia in
1525. Imprisoned in Spain, he was ransomed and returned to France in 1527.
After another round of fighting, the two monarchs made peace in 1529, and
Francis married the emperor's sister, Eleanor.

Further inconclusive wars were fought against the Habsburgs in 1536-38 and
1542-44. In this period the Catholic Francis did not hesitate to ally
himself with German Protestant princes and even with the Muslim Turks.

Religious and Financial Policies

Under his sister's influence Francis was sympathetic to Protestantism,
especially in its humanist form, when it appeared in France in the 1520s.
In the 1530s, however, he abandoned his earlier tolerance and became a
persecutor of the French Protestants. The king had concluded a concordat
with the papacy at Bologna in 1516, thereby gaining greater control of the
French Catholic Church.

The cost of war obliged Francis to undertake extensive reforms. He floated
government bonds, punished royal fiscal agents who misappropriated funds,
and twice reorganized the treasury. He began openly to sell judicial and
financial offices, creating a new class of ennobled magistrates, which
remained an important element in French governmental and social structures
until the French Revolution. The traditional nobility served in his armies
and flocked to court to secure the patronage of the king or his favorites
among the magnates. In this way factions arose, and when the king died his
reign had lost much of its glamour.

Patronage of Art and Learning

Francis adopted the pose of a chivalric king, the first gentleman of his
kingdom, although his autocratic statecraft was informed by a shrewd
realism. His patronage of the arts was intended to augment the splendor of
his court. He Brought Leonardo da Vinci and other great Italian artists to
France to design and ornament his ch?aux. He employed the scholar
Guillaume Bud?n creating a royal library and in founding professorships
of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, which formed the Nucleus of the later Coll?
de France.