The reign was inaugurated by several useful measures. The ‘taille’[11] was reduced; the sale of judicial offices forbidden; an attempt was made to check the venality of the magistrates. Provence and Normandy were given local _Parlements_ or courts of justice, which might serve as a counterbalance to the _Parlement_ of Paris, while the extravagant privileges of the University of Paris in the matter of jurisdiction were curtailed. Political interest may by some be held to justify Louis’ divorce from his first wife Jeanne, daughter of Louis XI., and his marriage with Anne of Brittany, widow of Charles VIII.; for Jeanne was childless, and Brittany threatened to break away again from France. But, in the negotiations with the Pope concerning the divorce, the King acted meanly, and the stipulation insisted on by Anne of Brittany, that her duchy should not be united to the crown of France, might have led to further trouble, had not Francis of Angoulême, subsequently King Francis I., married Claude, the issue of the marriage. In a word the home policy of the King might justify his title of ‘Father of his People,’ had not his ambition led him to follow in the steps of Charles and seek for conquests in Italy. If his chivalrous spirit demanded war, the renewed attempt of Maximilian to regain Burgundy and the lands on the west of Flanders, which he still claimed as the heritage of his son, the Archduke Philip, would have fully justified Louis in taking the offensive, and adding Franche-Comté to his dominions. But his eyes, like those of Charles, were dazzled with the fair skies and plains of Italy, and Italy alone would satisfy French ambitions. Milan, however, and not Naples, was the first object of Louis’ attack. The invasion of Charles VIII. should have taught the Italians the necessity of union. But this was not to be. Even in the League of Venice, the aims of Italian statesmen had been purely selfish, and the common danger once removed, their old rivalries returned and broke up the coalition. | Alexander and Venice desert the League of Venice and | ally themselves with France.