burg and the Palatinate. France thereupon assembled a powerful army in the neighbourhood of Frankfort in order to influence the election; but encountering the Austrian army under the command of Francis, who hurried up by forced marches from the Danube, the French general was obliged to repass the Rhine at Nördlingen. Shortly after Francis repaired to Frankfort, where he was declared emperor of Germany on the 2d September, 1745. On the 4th of October following he was crowned with great splendour, and at once entered on the actual business of government. In the fulfilment of his high duties, however, Francis exhibited but little energy, and ere long he abandoned the cares of state almost entirely to his more ambitious consort and her ministers. Coxe, in his History of the House of Austria, mentions that one day, at a solemn audience given by the empress, Francis abruptly retired to a corner of the saloon, and commenced conversing with some ladies, telling them that he intended to watch the courtiers leaving the place. In reply to their remark, "The court is sure to remain here as long as your majesty," Francis replied, "You mistake; the empress and my children form the court: I am a mere private person." Francis died suddenly on a journey, at Inspruck, of an attack of apoplexy, August 18, 1765.—F. M.
Francis II., Emperor of Germany—also known as Francis I. of Austria—son of Leopold II. and of Maria Louise, daughter of King Charles III. of Spain, was born at Florence, February 12, 1768. In his infancy Francis was extremely delicate, and as he grew up the indolence of his disposition became the theme of general remark. He received his primary education at Florence, and at the age of sixteen was taken to the court of Joseph II., to be trained under the emperor's own eyes for the high duties awaiting him. He had to accompany this emperor in the campaign against Turkey in 1789, and was intrusted for a short time with the chief command of the Austrian army. Francis succeeded Leopold II., March 1, 1792. One of his first acts was to conclude an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Prussia, which had no sooner been signed than a declaration of war from the French republic reached Vienna. Francis was prepared for this; his army was immediately put in motion, and combined with the Prussian troops under the duke of Brunswick, succeeded in dislodging the French from their favourable position in Belgium. The war continuing with more or less success for the allied armies, Francis, in the year 1794, in person assumed the command of his troops in the Netherlands, and gained the brilliant victories of Cateau, Landrecy, and Tournay. Notwithstanding these successes, the states of Brabant soon after refused Francis the necessary subsidies of war, which so much irritated him that he left the army and returned to Vienna. France now became victorious everywhere, and the emperor in great extremity had to conclude the most disastrous peace of Campo Formio, October 17, 1797. But humiliating though this treaty was to Austria, it did not prevent the emperor from declaring war a second time, less than two years after. Francis had made preparation for this struggle by entering into a close alliance with Great Britain and Russia with the avowed object of crushing the French republic. The commencement of the war was again favourable to the Austrian army; but the republican troops soon began to gain ground, marching from victory to victory, and finally compelling the emperor to declare his submission in another treaty of peace. This was the peace of Luneville, signed February 9, 1801, which cost the German empire the whole left bank of the Rhine, with a population of more than four millions. Francis, in obedience to the popular will, had to draw the sword a third time, only a year after the conclusion of peace. But this third campaign proved even shorter than the two preceding ones, the battles of Ulm and Austerlitz in the autumn of 1805 terminating it in the course of a few months. Francis had to meet Napoleon personally at Presburg, and to sign the treaty of peace named after that town. To crown the humiliation of the Austrian emperor, Napoleon immediately after organized the "Rhein-Bund," or union of German princes under French protection, by which the Teutonic, or so-called "Holy-Roman," empire was virtually extinguished. Francis, on the 6th August, 1806, solemnly laid down the crown of Charlemagne, having previously declared himself hereditary emperor of Austria, under the name of Francis I. This brought him peace for nearly three years, and only when Napoleon's encroachments assumed an aspect of unparalleled audacity, did he allow himself to be driven into a new declaration of war, March 27, 1809. This fourth anti-French war was of the shortest duration, peace being signed on the 14th October, 1809, with a loss to Austria of nearly two thousand geographical square miles of territory, and a population of five millions. Thus humiliated, Francis found himself absolutely at the mercy of the conqueror, to whom henceforth he was little more than a humble vassal. Without murmuring he gave his eldest daughter, Maria Louise, in marriage to Napoleon; and prepared his troops to accompany the French army into the snow-fields of Russia, respecting the proposed conquest of which he had a personal interview with his potent son-in-law at Dresden, in May, 1812. After the disastrous conclusion of the Russian campaign, Francis at first tried to set up as mediator between Napoleon and the northern sovereigns, but failing in this, joined the coalition against France, August 12, 1813. He accompanied his troops on their march westward, entered France with them, and signed the first peace of Paris, May 30, 1814. This treaty, and the subsequent congress of Vienna, not only restored to Francis his former territories, but made him the independent ruler of an empire greater in extent and of more regular configuration than was ever before swayed by a descendant of Rudolph von Hapsburg. Over the vast realm thus obtained Francis ruled peacefully till his death, which occurred March 2, 1835. Historians are agreed in ranking him, if not among the very best, at least among the good and honest of German sovereigns. Francis, who was married four times, was succeeded by his eldest son, Ferdinand I.—F. M
* Francis Joseph I., Emperor of Austria, son of the Archduke Francis Charles and of Princess Sophie of Bavaria, and grandson of Francis I., was born at Vienna, August 18, 1830. He received his education under the care of his mother, and had for chief tutor Count Bombelles, the descendant of an ancient family of French emigrants. In April, 1848, at the age of eighteen, the prince was nominated governor of Bohemia, but had to abandon this post immediately after for a command in the Austrian army in Italy, where he distinguished himself by his personal bravery in the fight of Santa-Lucia. May 6, 1848. The war with France, followed by the peace of Villafranca in 1859, and the still more important contest with Prussia in 1866, may be here passed over as events belonging rather to the history of Austria than to the biography of the emperor. He was crowned king of Hungary in 1867. His desire to maintain peace at home and abroad, to increase the liberty enjoyed by his subjects, and to reconcile the interests of the several nationalities of the empire, was evinced by the support which during recent years he gave to the policy of Count Beust, whose resignation of office excited a general surprise in November, 1871. Late in the summer of the same year, an interview took place between him and the emperor of Germany, and its purport was generally understood to have been highly favourable to the continuance of a good understanding between Austria and the German empire. Few living monarchs have so many residences as Francis Joseph. He was often absent from Vienna, during recent years, and visited Egypt, Palestine, and other foreign lands. He has not escaped his share of severe domestic griefs. On the day when he was crowned king of Hungary, amid the acclamations of the people, his brother Maximilian was shot in Mexico. Francis Joseph was married, April 24, 1854, to Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria, born December 24, 1837, by whom he has issue, male and female.—F. M.
FRANCE.
Francis I. of France, was born 12th September, 1494. He was the son of Charles, count of Angoulême, and Louisa of Savoy, and was descended from Charles VI. through Louis I., duke of Orleans. On the death of his father, young Francis was taken charge of by Louis XII., who in 1514 gave him his daughter Claude in marriage. His mother, who was an active, energetic princess, obtained for him the duchy of Valois, and he served with distinction in the French armies on the frontiers of Spain and Flanders. In the following year, on the death of Louis, Francis succeeded to the throne. He speedily introduced most important changes into the administration of public affairs, and set on foot various ambitious projects for the extension of his dominions. One of his first efforts was to undertake an expedition into Italy, for the purpose of prosecuting his claim on the duchy of Milan. He suddenly passed the Alps in August, 1515, at the head of forty thousand men, drove back the Spanish general, Prospero Colonna, from Villa Franca, and about the middle of September encountered the
