The Valois Children: The Dauphin Louis (XI).
Château Langeais. Mark Playle.
Of all the children from the Courts of France who stay in my mind, Louis (XI) is right up there. The boy came into the world when the English army was at the peak of its brutal strength and his father, the Dauphin Charles (VII) had been disinherited in favour of Henry V of England.
His twenty-year old mother, Marie of Anjou, gave birth to Louis, her first child in the draughty home of the Archbishop of Bourges. Too poor to buy tapestries to line the cold stone walls, she borrowed them.
Still. Louis had what should be all babies birthright, a loving mother. Not father. He never bonded with his son.
Bourges was vulnerable to attack so the family moved into Marie’s Château in Chinon. It was so huge it could easily have housed an army but the Dauphin had no money for an army.
When Louis was two, it was decided that he would be safer in Château Loches, a Crown Property on the Loire.
Under normal circumstances the boy’s companions would be enfants d’ honneur, children from the aristocracy but nobles who survived the massacres at Poitiers, Crécy and Agincourt, ignored the disinherited Dauphin.
Instead, local boys from Loches and sons of peasants played with Louis. The kinds of down to earth people he favoured for the rest of his life.
Despite the dire circumstances, his education was not neglected. He had fine tutors with experience of educating young nobles who provided him with an excellent education.
Louis probably saw his parents from time to time. They were certainly with him when Joan of Arc arrived at Château Loches to urge his reluctant father to go to Reims to be crowned. The boy was six years old.
As King, Louis was devout. Was Joan his inspiration? Her faith achieved what was thought impossible. She routed the English from Orléans.
When Louis was ten he was allowed to join his mother and sisters in Château Amboise to enjoy what remained of his boyhood.
When he was thirteen he was obliged to marry the eleven year old Princess Margaret Stewart of Scotland. After the ceremonial banquet, Louis joined his father at Court, Margaret joined his mother and sisters.
After yet another bitter quarrel, his father exiled Louis from Court. He was twenty-three. He never saw his father again.
Louis lived as the poor relation at the Court of the duke of Burgundy, a humiliating experience which affected him deeply.
Louis was thirty when his father saw off the last of the English at the Battle of Castillon and life started to look up for the royal family.
He was thirty-eight when he was crowned, a married man with a baby daughter, a daughter he became proud of.
This was a middle aged King in a hurry to drag his devastated country off its knees after more than a hundred years of defending itself against English invasions.
No country deserves to be invaded but it’s fair to say few countries were less equipped to defend itself. Before Louis, France was, to put it bluntly a fragmented mess. Different factions couldn’t defend themselves against each other let alone mighty English forces. Louis unified the country, he brought peace and stability.
He reduced the influence of powerful feudal and feuding nobles by establishing royal authority. Louis reformed the justice system by expanding the role of royal courts reducing further the power of local lords.
He started recovering parts of France previously occupied by the English and expanded French territory by annexing Burgundy, Picardy, and Anjou to the Crown.
He built the economy by encouraging trades. He introduced the silk industry to Tours, established a brick works near Amboise, promoted the exploitation of mines and established printing at the Sorbonne.
He established a horse post to ensure rapid communication. Initially intended for his personal use, it gradually became accessible to the general public, laying the groundwork for today’s French postal service.
In short, in Louis we can see the makings of the modern French state.
Is there anything this whiz kid of a King could not do? It seems not much.
He used bricks from his new factory to re build his father’s Court in Tours and to build his private entrance to Château Amboise which goes by the odd name of The Garçonnet Tower.
He rebuilt Château Langeais which one day will witness his son’s clandestine marriage, then built Château Jallanges for his Treasurer. The innovative architectural style, a combination of red brick and stone, became fashionable. Large windows and elegant interiors show the gradual transition from medieval fortress to Renaissance palace.
Louis left instructions he was not to be buried in the Basilica of Saint Denis in Paris where French Kings were traditionally buried. He was to be laid to rest in his own church, the church he rebuilt, The Basilica of Our Lady of Cléry-Saint-André, which the English had reduced to rubble.
During a battle against them Louis vowed to rebuild the church if he was victorious. He was.
Louis, who was born in adversity, grew up in adversity but ended his life in triumph was one of the most effective Kings France has ever had.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art).
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A Royal Childhood In The Loire Valley
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