FRANCE.

Under the Franks, or Merovingian Race.-Carlovingian Race-Charlemagne.-Invasion of the Normans.Capetian Race.-Conquest of France by the English.

This extensive country was, in the early ages, known under the name of Gaul, and received a colony of Belgæ from Germany about 200 years before Christ.

afterwards shared by the Romans, Visigoths, and the Burgundians, when Clovis, king of the Franks, a tribe of Germans who inhabited the other side of the Rhine, defeated the Roman general, Syagrius, and by obtaining a complete victory over the Visigoths, in which their king Alaric was slain, fully established the French monarchy in Gaul.

He was converted by his queen Clotilda, and the Franks under his reign embraced Christianity.

On the death of Clovis, A. D. 511, his kingdom was divided among his sons, and on that account involved in civil wars.

A series of weak sovereigns succeeded, under whom the maires du palais, the mayors of the palace, a kind of viceroys, amid the disorders of civil war and anarchy, extended their authority over both king and nobles, and, possessed of the power of sovereigns, assumed at length the title.

Pepin le Bref was the first maire du palais who made his way to the throne, and assumed the sovereignty in name as well as in reality, excluding for ever the descendants of Clovis, or the Merovingian race,* from the crown of France, after they had possessed it 270 years.

* So called, from Merovæus, grandfather of Clovis.

Pepin, the founder of the Carlovingian race of kings, was succeeded by his two sons, Charles surnamed Charlemagne, and Carloman. On the death of his

brother, A. D. 771, Charles became sole monarch of France, and, during a reign of forty-five years, subdued to his dominion the greatest part of Europe. The beautiful domestic character, the heroic enterprises and exploits, the victories and conquests of this prince, have been greatly celebated in history; but the most important transactions of his reign are those which regard Italy.

He subdued all Lombardy, entered Rome in triumph, and was crowned emperor of the Romans on Christmas-eve, A. D. 800.

Charlemagne died in the 72d year of his age, A. D.

814.

- Lewis (le Debonair) was his only lawful son who survived him; on whose death a partition of this extensive empire took place, between his three sons.

Charles surnamed the Bald, obtained the kingdom of France; Germany, finally separated from the empire of the Franks, was the share of another son, Lewis of Bavaria; and Italy fell to Lotharius, with the title of emperor.

The concluding period of the history of the degenérate posterity of Charlemagne, is uninteresting and obscure. The most memorable event that has been recorded is the incursions of the Normans, or rather the Norwegians.-At the end of the eighth century, these fierce people, who collectively bore the name of Normans, migrating from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, ventured in light barks, hollowed out of large trunks of trees, to brave the ocean.-They penetrated into England, Scotland, the Orkney and Shetland Islands, the Western Isles, and even to Ireland; all which places they made the subjects of their depredations, marking their rout by desolation and slaughter.-The booty and wealth which those ravagers carried home, excited others among them to advance along the coast of Britain to France, where they first landed in 820. Under one of their most illustrious leaders, Rollo, they sailed up

the Seine; and, taking the city of Rouen, soon became so formidable, that Charles the Simple offered Rollo his daughter in marriage, and ceded to him Normandy, Bretagne, and Neustria.

Rollo had a son called William, who succeeded him in the ducal throne of Normandy, and from whom the Norman kings of England descended.

Hugh Capet, the most powerful nobleman in France, and the founder of the third race of French kings, ascended the throne in the conclusion of the 10th century. The weakness and domestic misery of the kingdom, during this and several succeeding reigns, were too shocking to be described.

In the reign of Philip I. which began A. D. 1060, the phrenzy of crusading broke out. An enthusiastic priest, known by the name of Peter the Hermit, having in his pilgrimage to Jerusalem been eye-witness to the injuries and oppressions under which the Christians in the east, as well as the pilgrims, groaned; his own heated imagination, the persuasion of the patriarch of Jerusalem, and the approbation of pope Urban, animated him to run from province to province, through all the countries of Europe, with a crucifix in his hands, and tears in his eyes, stirring up the superstitious people to wreak their vengeance on the enemies of Christianity, and to rescue the Holy Land from the possession of the Infidels. Every individual, even to the children, was filled with holy rage, and people of all ranks flew to arms with the utmost ardor. Thousands of them perished miserable; and, having undergone many hardships, the Christians got possession of a wild waste country, without either cultivation or inhabitants, in which, however, lay Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and many other places of sacred fame.

The crusades chose Godfrey of Bouillon king of Jerusalem, and settled him in their new conquests.

Philip was succeeded in the year 1108 by his son Lewis, who is generally called by the old historians Lewis the Gross, from his great size, and who was the sixth Lewis that sat on the throne of France. Soon

after his coronation, he engaged in a war against Henry I. of England, a powerful vassal, whom it was his interest to humble. The war was carried on with a variety of fortunes during the greater part of this reign, but without producing any remarkable event. The history of this period affords little instruction or entertainment. Philip II. the successor of Lewis, and Richard I. of England, undertook a joint expedition to the Holy Land. The king of France returned to Europe in disgust; and the king of England, being abandoned by his associates, was obliged to relinquish his enterprise, after he had defeated the infidel emperor, Saladin, within sight of Jerusalem; and, on his return, was made prisoner by the duke of Austria, and confined in a dungeon in Germany, from whence he purchased his release by a very large ransom.

The short reign of Lewis VIII. who succeeded his father Philip in the year 1226, was chiefly spent in crusades against the Albigenses, in the prosecution of which he died.

He was succeeded by his son Lewis IX. commonly called St. Lewis, who engaged in a new crusade, in which himself, with his nobility, were taken prisoners, and ransomed at an immense expence. He afterwards led a new army against the infidels of Africa, where he was seized with an epidemic distemper, and died. His son and successor, Philip III. kept the field against the Moors, and saved the remains of the French army, which procured him the name of the Hardy.

The reign of Philip IV. surnamed the Fair, the son and successor of Philip the Hardy, is distinguished by the institution of the supreme tribunals, called parliaments, and the suppression and extirpation of the Knights Templars, who were originally an order of monks that settled near the temple of Jerusalem when it was first taken by the champions of the cross. In a

short time they acquired, from the piety of the faithful, ample possessions in every Christian country, but more especially in France. The great riches of those knights had relaxed the severity of their discipline. Being all

men of birth, they at last scorned the ignoble occupa tions of a monastic life, and passed their time wholly in the fashionable amusements of hunting, gallantry, and the pleasures of the table.

By these means the Templars lost that popularity which first raised them to honor and distinction; and Philip, in concert with Pope Clement V. judged them unprofitable to the church, and dangerous to the state.

The race of Capetine kings ended with Charles IV. surnamed the Fair, who left only one daughter. The states of the kingdom by a solemn decree declared all females incapable of succeeding to the crown; and Philip de Valois, the grandson of a brother of Philip IV. the next male heir, in consequence of that decree, was unanimously raised to the throne A. D. 1328.

Edward III. of England, claimed the French crown, as grandson of a daughter of Philip. Hostiilties commenced. The English triumphed over the French at Cressy, A. D. 1346, and after a long siege took Calais; but in 1360, a peace was made, by which the king of France granted Guienne, Poictou, Santoigne, and several other territories in the neighbourhood of Calais, to Edward, in compensation for Normandy, which he relinquished. About the end or the fourteenth century, the French recovered all that the English possessed in France, except Calais..

In the beginning of the fifteenth century, a civil war raged with great violence between the Burgundians and Armagnes. Henry V. king of England, resolving to take advantage of those disorders, invaded France. Immediately on his landing, A. D. 1415, he invested Harfleur, which was taken by storm, after a six weeks siege, and the garrison put to the sword. The famous battle of Agincourt followed, in which Henry obtained a glorious victory. The loss of the French was incredible. Seven princes were slain. Five princes were taken prisoners, together with fourteen thousand persons of dif ferent ranks; and about ten thousand Frenchmen were left dead on the field of battle.