Louis XII had been called the “Father of his People” because of the care with which he had nursed back to economic health the depleted forces of France which Louis XI had begun to restore. It is even told of him that he returned part of a tax after it had paid the demand for which it had been levied. Such a proceeding was unknown before, and it is small wonder that his subjects adored him. Francis reaped the benefit of his predecessor’s social and financial intelligence. Of united national feeling there was more at the beginning of Francis’s reign than there ever had been, and power was more concentrated in the king than it ever had been. Feudalism with its picturesque and brutal individualism had been outgrown. With the disappearance of the need for fortified dwellings the rural strongholds of the nobility were modified into pleasant _châteaux_, while their masters, not obliged to stay at home to be ready to fight quarrelsome neighbors, were free to join the king in Paris or at Fontainebleau. Thus there was formed for the first time a court consisting of more than the retinue necessary for the conduct of the royal household. For the first time, too, the nobles brought the women of their families to court, with the result that dress and festivities became more brilliant than ever before, and language developed a precision which marks this period as the beginning of the use of Modern French. Francis himself wrote not badly and his encouragement of writers won him the title of “Father of French Letters.” Here is his tribute to the intelligent favorite of Charles VII. EPITAPH ON AGNES SOREL[3] Here lies entombed the fairest of the fair: To her rare beauty greater praise be given, Than holy maids in cloistered cells may share, Or hermits that in deserts live for heaven! For by her charms recovered France arose, Shook off her chains and triumphed o’er her foes. Francis’s sister, Marguerite of Navarre, was equally enthusiastic and talented and gathered about her a notable group of writers. Her affection for her brother was extraordinarily tender. After his death she wrote the following poem, translated in Longfellow’s “Poetry of Europe.” ’Tis done, a father, mother gone, A sister, brother torn away, My hope is now in God alone, Whom heaven and earth alike obey. Above, beneath, to Him is known-- The world’s wide compass is his own. I love--but in the world no more, Nor in gay hall or festal bower; Not the fair forms I prized before-- But Him, all beauty, wisdom, power, My Savior, who has cast a chain On sin and ill and woe and pain! I from my memory have effaced All former joys, all kindred, friends; All honors that my station graced I hold but snares that fortune sends; Hence! joys by Christ at distance cast, That we may be his own at last!