[Born at Bourges, in France, 1423. Died at Duplessis les Tours, 1483.
Aged 60.]
The son of Charles VII. and Mary of Anjou. The mother was one of the
most virtuous women of her age; the son proved a bad child, a bad
father, a bad husband, a bad brother, a bad friend, a bad subject, and
in all qualities of the heart, a bad king. He was a tyrant, a cheat, a
bigot; cruel, implacable in his hatred, unscrupulous in revenge, a
miser, until he had an end to accomplish, when he could prove a
prodigal; crafty, sanguinary, suspicious, and despicably mean. He
availed himself of the humbler orders to crush the power of the
nobility, and loved to surround himself at all times with the lowest
instruments for the accomplishment of his designs. Four thousand persons
are said to have fallen victims to his cruelty, and history records that
his father died of privations, self-imposed, through fear of being
poisoned by his son. Yet this concentration of vice was personally
brave, and a great promoter of letters. He introduced printing into
France, and he wrote a book of counsels for his son, which he called
“The Rose Tree of Wars.” He moreover left the royal authority
established, and France powerful. His last few years were passed in
seclusion, in suspicious alarm, and constant terror of death.
[A characteristic bust; evidently a true portrait, pourtraying the
well-known bigotry and cruelty of the man.]