filled with hired Scottish archers of his guard, whom he preferred as
defenders to his own nobles. He was exceedingly unpopular with his
nobles; but the statesman and historian, Philip de Comines, who had gone
over to him from Charles of Burgundy, viewed him as the best and ablest
of kings. He did much to promote trade and manufacture, improved the
cities, fostered the university, and was in truth the first king since
Philip Augustus who had any real sense of statesmanship. But though the
burghers throve under him, and the lawless nobles were depressed, the
state of the peasants was not improved; feudal rights pressed heavily on
them, and they were little better than savages, ground down by burthens
imposed by their lords.


6. Provence and Brittany.--Louis had added much to the French
monarchy. He had won back Artois; he had seized the duchy and county of
Burgundy; he had bought Roussillon. His last acquisition was the county
of Provence. The second Angevin family, beginning with Louis, the son of
King John, had never succeeded in gaining a footing in Naples, though
they bore the royal title. They held, however, the imperial fief of
Provence, and Louis XI., whose mother had been of this family, obtained
from her two brothers, René and Charles, that Provence should be
bequeathed to him instead of passing to René's grandson, the Duke of
Lorraine. The Kings of France were thenceforth Counts of Provence; and
though the county was not viewed as part of the kingdom, it was
practically one with it. A yet greater acquisition was made soon after
Louis's death in 1483. The great Celtic duchy of Brittany fell to a
female, Anne of Brittany, and the address of Louis's daughter, the Lady
of Beaujeu, who was regent of the realm, prevailed to secure the hand of
the heiress for her brother, Charles VIII. Thus the crown of France had
by purchase, conquest, or inheritance, obtained all the great feudal