19. Charles VIII. (1483-’98), by his marriage with Anne of Brittany, secured that powerful state. With him ended the direct male succession of the House of Valois. 20. Louis XII. (1498-1515), _Le Père Du Peuple_, was the only representative of the _Valois-Orleans_ family; his successor, Francis I. (1547), was of the _Valois-Angoulême_ branch. 21. The defeat of Francis at the battle of Pavia, in 1525, and his subsequent imprisonment at Madrid, threw the affairs of the nation into the greatest disorder. 22. In the reign of Henri II. began the persecutions of the Protestants. Henri III. (1574-’89) was the last of this branch of the Valois. The massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572) was perpetrated under the direction of the Queen-mother, Catherine de’ Medici, and the confederation of the league, at the head of which were the Guises. The wars of the league, which were carried by the latter against the Bourbon branches of the princes of the blood-royal, involved the whole nation in their vortex. 23. The succession of ~Henri IV., of Navarre~ (1589-1610), a Bourbon prince, descended from a younger son of St. Louis, allayed the fury of these religious wars, but his recantation of Protestantism in favor of Catholicism disappointed his own party. 24. During the minority of his son, Louis XIII. (1610-’43), Cardinal Richelieu, under the nominal regency of Marie de’ Medici, the Queen-mother, ruled with a firm hand. Cardinal Mazarin, under the regency of the Queen-mother, Anne of Austria, exerted nearly equal power for some time during the minority of ~Louis XIV.~ (1643-1715). 25. The wars of the Fronde, the misconduct of the Parliament, and the humbling of the nobility, gave rise to another civil war, but with the assumption of power by young Louis a new era commenced, and till near the close of his long reign the military successes of the French were most brilliant. 26. Louis XV. (1715-’75) succeeded to a heritage whose glory was tarnished, and whose stability was shaken to its very foundations during his reign. 27. The peace of Paris (1763), by which the greater portion of the colonial possessions of France were given up to England, terminated an inglorious war, in which the French had expended 1350 millions of francs. 28. In 1774 ~Louis XVI.~, a well-meaning, weak prince, succeeded to the throne. The American war of freedom had disseminated Republican ideas among the lower orders, while the Assembly of the notables had discussed and made known to all classes the incapacity of the government and the wanton prodigality of the court. The nobles and the _tiers état_ were alike clamorous for a meeting of the states; the former wishing to impose new taxes on the nation, and the latter determined to inaugurate a thorough and systematic reform.