Louis XII

Ducat of Louis XII, Italy, 1501–3

Le roi de France ne venge pas les injures du duc d'Orléans.

The King of France does not avenge the injuries done to him as Duke of Orleans.

Louis XII (27 June 1462 – 1 January 1515), also known as Louis of Orléans, was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples (as Louis III) from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles I, Duke of Orléans, and Marie of Cleves, he succeeded his second cousin once removed and brother-in-law, Charles VIII, who died childless in 1498.

Louis was the second cousin of Louis XI, who compelled him to marry the latter's disabled and supposedly sterile daughter Joan. By doing so, Louis XI hoped to extinguish the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois. When Louis XII became king in 1498, he had his marriage with Joan annulled by Pope Alexander VI and instead married Anne, Duchess of Brittany, the widow of Charles VIII.

Louis of Orléans was one of the great feudal lords who opposed the French monarchy in the conflict known as the Mad War. At the royal victory in the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier in 1488, Louis was captured, but Charles VIII pardoned him and released him. Once king, Louis continued the Italian Wars, initiating a second Italian campaign for control of the Kingdom of Naples. Louis conquered the Duchy of Milan in 1500 and pushed forward to Naples, which fell to him in 1501. Proclaimed King of Naples, Louis faced a new coalition gathered by Ferdinand II of Aragon and was forced to cede Naples to Spain in 1504.

Quotes

• Le roi de France ne venge pas les injures du duc d'Orléans.
  • The King of France does not avenge the injuries done to him as Duke of Orleans.
  • Translated by Craufurd Tait Ramage, Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors (Liverpool: Edward Howell, 1866) p. 374. Crauford's note:—This saying was addressed to the deputies of the city of Orleans, when they approached Louis to apologise for their conduct to him before he ascended the throne. It reminds us of the saying of the Emperor Adrian, who, on the day he succeeded to the throne, meeting an old enemy, and observing his embarrassment, said: "Evasisti" "You are saved." It is also ascribed to Charles X, who is said to have used these words: "Le roi n'accepte pas les rancunes du Comte d' Artois." "The king does not remember the private grudges of the Comte d'Artois." It is also ascribed to Philippe, Comte de Bresse, afterwards Duke of Savoy, who died in 1497. He said: "Il serait honteux au duc de venger les injures faites au comte." "It would be shameful in the duke to avenge the injuries done to the count."

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Louis XII on Wikipedia