The Sydney Library Edition
THE ROMANCES
OF
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
ASCANIO
PARTS I. AND II.
Volume XI.
THE ROMANCES OF
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
Volume XI.
ASCANIO
PART FIRST
NEW YORK
GEORGE D. SPROUL
Publisher
1898
Copyright, 1896,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
"Never perhaps," says Miss Pardoe (in the Preface to the "Court andReign of Francis I."), "did the reign of any European sovereign presentso many and such varying phases. A contest for empire, a captivemonarch, a female regency, and a religious war; the poisoned bowl andthe burning pile alike doing their work of death amid scenes ofuncalculating splendor and unbridled dissipation; the atrocities ofbigotry and intolerance, blent with the most unblushing licentiousnessand the most undisguised profligacy;—such are the materials offeredto the student by the times of Francis I."
The period thus characterized is that in which the scene of the presentromance is laid, and although the plot is mainly concerned with thefortunes of others than subjects of the Roi Chevalier, we aretreated to a succession of vivid pictures of life and manners at the Frenchcourt and in the French capital.
The author depicts the king rather as he appeared to the world beforewhat has been called the "legend of the Roi Chevalier,"—that is tosay, the long prevailing idea that François I. was the most chivalrousmonarch who ever sat upon a European throne,—had been modified by theindependent researches of those who have not feared to go behind thewritings of the old and well tutored chroniclers whose works have formedthe basis of most modern histories,—chroniclers who seem to have beenguided by Cardinal Richelieu's famous remark to an aspiring historian,apropos of certain animadversions upon the character of Louis XI., that"it is treason to discuss the actions of a king who has been dead onlytwo centuries."
The result of these researches is thus summed up by Miss Pardoe in thesame Preface:—
"The glorious day of Marignano saw the rising, and that of Pavia thesetting, of his fame as a soldier; so true it is that the prowess of theman was shamed by that of the boy. The early and unregretted death ofone of his neglected queens, and the heart-broken endurance of theother, contrasted with the unbounded influence of his first favorite andthe insolent arrogance of his second, will sufficiently demonstrate hischaracter as a husband. His open and illegal oppression of an overtaxedand suffering people to satisfy the cravings of an extortionate andlicentious court, will suffice to disclose his value as a monarch; whilethe reckless indifference with which he falsified his political pledges,abandoned his allies in their extremity in order to further his owninterests, and sacrificed the welfare of his kingdom and the safety ofhis armies to