DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0056
30
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
girls with a dot and a trousseau, or needy scholars with a
place at Court.
All these ends were actively promoted by her second hus-
band, Louis XII, who was a singular mixture of parsimony
and charity. He was stingy about household expenses and
amusements; but he spent large sums in relieving distress
and often denied himself personal comforts in order to lessen
the taxes. His life he fashioned upon Marcus Aurelius:
he was always reading him, and his reforming government
was the outcome of his studies. But though he deserved
to be called the Father of his people, he allowed him-
self the luxury of hobbies. He had his garden and his
library.
“Ptolemee Philadelphe,” as men called him after another
princely book-lover, filled his shelves with choice volumes. 1
He patronized poets and painters and showed his preference
for such as were characteristic Frenchmen. But he loved
haggling more than what he haggled for, and nothing put
him into a better temper than driving a bargain over a
work of art.
With Anne’s wishes he never interfered. He had been
in love with her during her first marriage, and his faith-
ful affection for her, as well as hers for him, is a
refreshing little oasis of respectability amid increasing scan-
dals. Her dominant passion was marriage-making. She
pursued it with such religious ardour that the Pope pre-
sented her with an “Autel portatif”—a travelling altar
—at which she was licensed to bless marriages at any
1 They afterwards went to Paris and formed the kernel of
the Bibliotheque Nationale.
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
girls with a dot and a trousseau, or needy scholars with a
place at Court.
All these ends were actively promoted by her second hus-
band, Louis XII, who was a singular mixture of parsimony
and charity. He was stingy about household expenses and
amusements; but he spent large sums in relieving distress
and often denied himself personal comforts in order to lessen
the taxes. His life he fashioned upon Marcus Aurelius:
he was always reading him, and his reforming government
was the outcome of his studies. But though he deserved
to be called the Father of his people, he allowed him-
self the luxury of hobbies. He had his garden and his
library.
“Ptolemee Philadelphe,” as men called him after another
princely book-lover, filled his shelves with choice volumes. 1
He patronized poets and painters and showed his preference
for such as were characteristic Frenchmen. But he loved
haggling more than what he haggled for, and nothing put
him into a better temper than driving a bargain over a
work of art.
With Anne’s wishes he never interfered. He had been
in love with her during her first marriage, and his faith-
ful affection for her, as well as hers for him, is a
refreshing little oasis of respectability amid increasing scan-
dals. Her dominant passion was marriage-making. She
pursued it with such religious ardour that the Pope pre-
sented her with an “Autel portatif”—a travelling altar
—at which she was licensed to bless marriages at any
1 They afterwards went to Paris and formed the kernel of
the Bibliotheque Nationale.