1461 bestowed on his eldest son Gaston the hand of Madeleine of France. The count acted as a mediator between Louis XI. of France and his own father-in-law, the king of Navarre, and succeeded in concluding a treaty of alliance between them. Louis heaped upon him important favours, bestowed upon him in 1463 the seignory of Carcassonne, nominated him captain-general of the troops sent to the assistance of the king of Navarre, and invested him with the county of Roussillon and that of Cerdagne. But in spite of these favours Gaston abandoned the French king, and in 1471 rejoined the league formed by the dukes of Brittany and Guienne against Louis. The death of the king's brother, however, in 1472, disorganized the party, and shortly after Gaston himself died.—J. T.
FOIX, Catherine de, Queen of Navarre, was born in 1470, and was the daughter of Gaston de Foix, prince of Viane and of Madeleine of France. She married in 1484 Jean d'Albret, son of the Count Alain, and conveyed to him as her marriage portion the crown of Navarre, which had passed successively through the houses of Bigore, Champagne, France, and Evreux. Ferdinand the Catholic succeeded in obtaining possession of Navarre by treachery, and held his ground in spite of French troops, which came to the assistance of Catherine. Her husband, who was fond of ease and pleasure, readily submitted to the usurpation, but Catherine died of grief in 1517. Her son, who recovered part of the estates, was the ancestor of the famous Henry of Navarre, afterwards king of France.—J. T.
FOIX, Gaston de. See Nemours, Duc de.
FOIX, Germaine de, Queen of Arragon and of Naples, was born in 1488, and was the daughter of Jean de Foix, count d'Estampes and viscount Narbonne, and of Marie of Orleans, the sister of Louis XII. of France. In 1505 Ferdinand the Catholic, after the death of his wife Isabella of Castille, was anxious to strengthen himself by an alliance with Louis XII., and made overtures for the hand of his niece. He offered to settle the crown of Naples upon the children who might be born of Germaine, and, in default of issue, on the princess herself, with a reversion to the French sovereign. In spite of the disparity of age and character between Ferdinand and the young and beautiful princess, the offer was immediately accepted, and the marriage was solemnized in March, 1506. Germaine enjoyed the honours of royalty during eleven years. Her only son died in infancy, and the stipulations of her marriage settlement were deliberately set aside by Ferdinand in favour of his daughter Joanna. Two years after the death of that monarch Germaine married, in 1519, John, marquis of Brandeburg, and governor of Valentia. Her third husband was Ferdinand of Arragon, duke of Calabria. Germaine died in 1538.—J. T.
FOIX, Louis de, a French architect, was born at Paris towards the middle of the sixteenth century; the date of his death is unknown. For many years he resided in Spain, and is said to have been architect to the Escurial; but no part of that building is associated with his name, and he is not mentioned in connection with it by Spanish authors. He has also been charged with having betrayed the secret of Don Carlos' intended flight into the Netherlands, and so caused the arrest of that unfortunate prince. But here again there seems to be no foundation for the story; and if Prescott's narrative of that event be correct, it must be a mere scandal. The truth appears to be simply that De Foix had been patronized by Don Carlos, and left Spain shortly after his execution. In those days the professions of architect and civil engineer were not kept so distinct as now, and De Foix, after his return to France, seems to have been chiefly engaged in what, at the present time, would be regarded as properly the business, not of the architect, but of the engineer. In 1579 he was employed to fill up the old channel of the Adour, and cut a new and deeper channel. His chief work was the great tower erected at the mouth of the Garonne, and which is even now spoken of in France as the most magnificent lighthouse of modern times. It is a circular tower one hundred and seventy feet high, is decorated with Tuscan and Corinthian columns, and is, in fact, overloaded with architectural ornament and sculpture, though in an almost inaccessible situation. It was commenced in 1584, and completed in 1610.—J. T—e.
FOIX, Paul de, Archbishop of Toulouse, and one of the most celebrated ecclesiastics of his time, son of the count de Carmain, was born in 1528. After making great progress in the study of Greek and Roman literature at the university of Paris, he went to Toulouse, where he gave lectures on civil law that attracted much interest, and were attended by large numbers. At the age of nineteen he was nominated a councillor to the parliament of Paris, and subsequently a councillor of state, in which position he took an active part in political affairs, while continuing vigorously to prosecute the study of philosophy. Arguing publicly that mild measures should be taken with the adherents of the reformed doctrine in France, he was arrested on suspicion of being favourable to Luther, and, though afterwards admitted at court, did not regain the confidence of the more bigoted catholics; indeed he very narrowly escaped being numbered among the victims of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The latter part of Foix's life was spent in the diplomatic service. He was sent to Scotland to the court of Mary Stuart, and to England to offer Elizabeth the hand of the duke of Anjou. He was raised to the archbishopric of Toulouse in 1576, and died at Rome in May, 1584.—J. B. J.
FOLARD, Jean Charles de, a French military officer, born in 1669, was a native of Avignon. He enlisted as a common soldier when he had scarcely passed boyhood; obtained in a few years a commission in a corps of partisans, and there commenced the careful study of military tactics, by which he became distinguished. His abilities and enterprising spirit having attracted the notice of the duke de Vendome, when the latter took the command against Prince Eugene in Italy, Folard was appointed one of his aids-de-camp, with the rank of captain, and had a part in the principal operations of the campaign. His defence of Casino della Bulino was rewarded with the cross of St. Louis, and he carried off the distinction of two serious wounds from the fierce and undecided battle of Cassano. Vendome being transferred to the war in Flanders, Folard at his request was ere long permitted to follow, visiting the court of Louis XIV. at Versailles, and receiving tokens of the royal favour, on his way to join the operations against the duke of Marlborough. In the course of his service in that quarter, he counselled the successful attack on Cadsand, and was intrusted with the defence of Dettingen. At the battle of Malplaquet he was again severely wounded; and after being for some time a prisoner, he was appointed to command the garrison of Burburg. The peace of Utrecht having terminated the struggle, he sought employment under the banner of the Maltese knights against the Turks, accompanied the expedition of Charles XII. of Sweden into Norway, and after serving under the duke of Berwick in Spain, retired from active duty, and died at Avignon in 1752. Besides some smaller works that issued from his pen, he published "Nouvelles Decouvertes sur la guerre," an elaborate but ill-arranged treatise on military tactics in the form of commentaries on the Greek History of Polybius. It attracted much notice at the time, and the views advanced in it continued to elicit discussion among tacticians of the last century. "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de M. le Chevalier de Folard" were published at Paris after his death.—W. B.
FOLENGO, Giambattista, born at Mantova in 1490. He entered, at the age of sixteen, a Benedictine convent in his native town, and subsequently went to Monte Casino, where he lived in retirement for several years. He applied himself to the interpretation of the scriptures, and wrote several commentaries on the Psalms and the canonical epistles. Having shown in his writings a tendency towards the doctrines of the reformers, his books were forbidden, and some protestant writers considered Folengo a follower of their tenets. He lived, however, unmolested at Rome, and died in the year 1559.—A. S., O.
FOLENGO, Teofilus, better known by the name of Merlino Coccai, was born at Cigrada, a village near Mantua, in 1491. He was scarcely sixteen years of age when, having already completed his classic studies, he entered the order of the Benedictines at Monte Casino. However, the disorders of his life, even in the cloister, became so generally known that he was obliged to throw off the cowl, and fled from that place with a woman whose name we find in an acrostic to be Girolama Dieda. It was on that occasion Folengo changed his name, and took that of Merlino Coccai, and sometimes Merlino Pitocco (the beggar), perhaps in allusion to the extreme penury to which he was reduced. His poetry, all written in the burlesque style, is particularly remarkable for the vivacity of colouring, and the versatility of genius displayed in it; but the immoral subjects and obscene tone introduced in all his compositions, make them most objectionable. Folengo travelled all through Italy, and whilst at Naples he suddenly felt repentant for his
