Excerpt from The Court and Reign of Francis the First, King of France, Vol. 1 Never, perhaps, did the reign of any European sove reign present so many and such varying phases. A con test for empire, a captive monarch, a female regency, and a religious war; the poisoned bowl and the burning pile alike doing their work of death amid scenes of uncalculat ing splendour and unbridled dissipation the atrocities of bigotry and intolerance, blent with the most unblushing licentiousness and the most undisguised profligaey; - such are the materials offered to the student by the times of Francis I. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.