Life
Francis I said of his son at birth, "a beautiful dauphin who is the most beautiful and strong child one could imagine and who will be the easiest to bring up". His mother, Claude, Duchess of Brittany, said, "tell the King that he is even more beautiful than himself". The Dauphin was christened at Amboise on 25 April 1519. Leonardo da Vinci, who had been brought to Amboise by Francis I, designed the decorations.
One of the most researched aspects of the Dauphin's short life is the time he and his brother Henry (later Henry II of France) spent as hostages in Spain. The king had been badly defeated and captured at the Battle of Pavia (1525) and became a hostage of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, initially in the Alcázar in Madrid. In order to ensure his release, the king signed the Treaty of Madrid (1526). However, in order to ensure that Francis abode by the treaty, Charles demanded that the king's two older sons take his place as hostages. Francis agreed.
On 15 March 1526, the exchange took place at the border between Spain and France. The eight-year-old Dauphin and his younger brother Henry spent the next three years as captives of Charles V, a period that scarred them for life. The Dauphin's "somber, solitary tastes" and his preference for dressing in black (like a Spaniard) were attributed to the time he spent in captivity in Madrid. He also became bookish, preferring reading to soldiering.
Read more about this topic: Francis III, Duke Of Brittany
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle
Don’t grumble, give a whistle
And this’ll help turn things out for the best ...
And ... always look on the bright side of life.”
—Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Mr. Frisbee III (Eric Idle)
“The man Shelley, in very truth, is not entirely sane, and Shelley’s poetry is not entirely sane either. The Shelley of actual life is a vision of beauty and radiance, indeed, but availing nothing, effecting nothing. And in poetry, no less than in life, he is a beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.””
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“You realize the futility of worry. You learn to hate the small and the little. Life is a pie which you cut in large slices, not grudgingly, not sparingly. You know your limitations and proceed to eliminate them; your abilities, and proceed to develop them. You are free.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)