surrounded by a circle of youthful courtiers, who hung upon her words,
laughed at her caprices, courted her smiles; and when she rather
confounded them with the extent of the learning which—with a sort of
gay triumph—she was rather fond of showing, they pronounced her "the
most charming of learned ladies and the most learned of the charming."

The plot worked; Francis was fascinated, falling an easy prey to the
wiles of the wanton Anne. The former mistress, Françoise de Foix, was
discarded, and Louise, purely out of revenge and spite, demanded the
return of the costly jewels given by the king and appropriated them
herself.

The duty assigned to the new mistress was that of keeping Francis
busy with fêtes and other amusements. While he was thus kept under the
spell of his enchantress, he lost all thought of his subjects and the
welfare of his country and the affairs of the kingdom fell into the
hands of Louise and her chancellor, Duprat. The girl-mistress, Anne,
was married by Louise to the Duc d'Etampes whose consent was gained
through the promise of the return of his family possessions which,
upon his father's departure with Charles of Bourbon, had been
confiscated.

The reign of Louise of Savoy was now about over; she had accomplished
everything she had planned. She had caused Charles of Bourbon, one
of the greatest men of the sixteenth century, to turn against his
king; and that king owed to her—his mother—his defeat at Pavia, his
captivity in Spain, and his moral fall. Spain, Italy, and France were
victims of the infamous plotting and disastrous intrigues of this one
woman whose death, in 1531, was a blessing to the country which she
had dishonored.