476-492.] Word was brought at the same time to Amiens that Tournai, invested on the 15th of September by the English, had capitulated, that Henry VIII.

had entered it on the 21st, and that he had immediately treated it as a conquest of which he was taking possession, for he had confirmed it in all its privileges except that of having no garrison.
Such was the situation in which France, after a reign of fifteen years and in spite of so many brave and devoted servants, had been placed by Louis XII.'s foreign policy.

Had he managed the home affairs of his kingdom as badly and with as little success as he had matters abroad, is it necessary to say what would have been his people's feelings towards him, and what name he would have left in history?
Happily for France and for the memory of Louis XII., his home-government was more sensible, more clear-sighted, more able, more moral, and more productive of good results than his foreign policy was.
When we consider this reign from this new point of view, we are at once struck by two facts: 1st, the great number of legislative and administrative acts that we meet with bearing upon the general interests of the country, interests political, judicial, financial, and commercial; the _Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de France_ contains forty-three important acts of this sort owing their origin to Louis XII.; it was clearly a government full of watchfulness, activity, and attention to good order and the public weal; 2d, the profound remembrance remaining in succeeding ages of this reign and its deserts--a remembrance which was manifested, in 1560, amongst the states-general of Orleans, in 1576 and 1588 amongst the states of Blois, in 1593 amongst the states of the League, and even down to 1614 amongst the states of Paris.

During more than a hundred years France called to mind, and took pleasure in calling to mind, the administration of Louis XII.

as the type of a wise, intelligent, and effective regimen.