France

France serves in the book both as a major European kingdom and as a testing ground for the principles governing mixed and composite monarchies. Its political significance lies in a sharp paradox: because dissatisfied barons can open the country to an invader, France may be easy to enter, yet because those same barons retain influence after conquest, a foreign ruler finds it exceptionally difficult to hold. At the same time, France is described as possessing institutions capable of restraining noble ambition, protecting the commons, and preserving the king from the hatred generated by necessary political decisions.

France as a Composite Monarchy

France exemplifies the type of kingdom in which a prince rules alongside barons whose authority rests on inherited rank rather than solely on the monarch’s favor. These lords possess states and subjects of their own, and their political standing is therefore more durable than that of appointed ministers. An outsider who wins over one of them may obtain an entrance into the country and make the initial conquest comparatively easy. The conquest does not eliminate the underlying structure, however. The same barons who facilitated invasion remain capable of leading renewed resistance, while the defeated population and the foreign conqueror’s former allies create separate and competing sources of danger.

This arrangement contrasts with the centralized model associated with the kingdom of Darius III and the rule of Alexander the Great in Asia. In a state governed by one prince through dependent servants, authority is concentrated in the sovereign; once the ruling family is destroyed, few independent figures remain with enough popular credit to organize resistance. France presents the opposite condition. Destroying the royal line would not destroy the political capacity of the other lords, who could still head new movements. The comparison explains why Alexander the Great could secure Asia after defeating Darius III, whereas Pyrrhus and other conquerors struggled to preserve acquisitions made in states with more dispersed authority.

Louis XII and the Loss of Milan

The French experience in Italy demonstrates the dangers of acquiring territory without applying the methods needed to retain it. Louis XII of France was brought into Italy by the ambition of Venice, which hoped to obtain part of Lombardy. France had few friends there, partly because the conduct of Charles VIII of France had closed doors that might otherwise have been available, so Louis XII accepted the alliance offered to him. His recovery of Lombardy immediately restored the political credit France had lost. Genoa submitted, Florence reached terms, and the Marquis of Mantua, the Duke of Ferrara, the Bentivogli, the Countess of Forlì, the lords of Faenza, Pesaro, Rimini, Camerino, and Piombino, together with the citizens of Lucca, Pisa, and Siena, offered friendship.

The initial success concealed the weakness of the settlement. Louis XII of France failed to follow the established methods for securing a newly acquired province. France lost Milan with remarkable speed, and on the first occasion Ludovico Sforza was able to recover it with forces of his own. The people who had opened the gates to the French king had expected material improvement and future benefits; when those expectations were disappointed, they could not endure what the text calls the insolence of the new ruler. Their support therefore changed into resistance.

After a state has rebelled and been reconquered, the text argues, it is usually harder to lose because the prince can punish those judged guilty, prosecute the suspected, and repair weaknesses exposed by the rebellion. Thus the second recovery of Milan required far more than Ludovico Sforza’s alarms on the frontier: the French armies had to face a broad coalition, and they were destroyed and driven from Italy. Yet Milan was lost to Louis XII of France a second time as well. The repeated reversal turns France’s Italian policy into a lesson in the difference between taking possession and establishing durable rule.

The Structural Limits of French Expansion

The book’s broader analysis of mixed states helps explain France’s difficulties beyond the specific case of Milan. Provinces sharing the language and customs of an existing hereditary realm are comparatively easy to retain. In such cases, the conqueror need chiefly destroy the former ruling line and preserve the old laws and taxes, allowing the acquired territory to become incorporated into the hereditary state. France’s long union with Brittany, Burgundy, Gascony, and Normandy is offered as an example of this relative ease, since differences of language did not prevent substantial similarity of custom.

The problem becomes more severe when a conquered country differs in language, usages, and laws. The recommended remedies include personal residence by the prince, the establishment of colonies at strategically important points, and careful management of neighboring powers. Residence allows disorders to be detected while still incipient, prevents officers from pillaging the province unchecked, gives inhabitants direct access to the ruler, and makes foreign attack more difficult. Colonies are presented as cheaper and more faithful than a permanent army, because only those dispossessed of fields and houses are directly injured, whereas garrisoning troops burdens the whole country and turns a defeated population into continuing enemies.

France’s political form makes the problem especially acute because foreign intervention can be invited by discontented local powers. The Roman example shows the alternative strategy: protect weaker neighbors without allowing them to become too strong, humble powerful rivals, and prevent any stranger of comparable strength from establishing influence. The Romans applied this policy in Greece by employing the Achaeans and Aetolians, humiliating the Macedonian monarchy, and driving Antiochus III the Great out. France, by contrast, helped enlarge powers that later threatened its own position. The conversation at Nantes with Georges d’Amboise crystallizes the criticism: French military success was not matched by sufficient statecraft, and France helped make the Church and Spain powerful in Italy before being ruined by them.

Internal Institutions and Royal Security

Despite its failures abroad, France is described as one of the well-ordered kingdoms of the period. Its freedom and security depend on numerous institutions, above all Parliament and its authority. The constitutional logic behind this arrangement begins with a recognition of conflicting social forces: nobles are ambitious and arrogant, while the commons fear and hate them. If the king personally intervened on behalf of one side against the other, he risked becoming odious to the group he opposed.

Parliament therefore functions as a third party and arbitrator. It can restrain the nobles and uphold the commons without making the king directly responsible for every unpopular measure. This arrangement offers the monarch a political shield: responsibility for harsh or divisive actions is delegated, while acts of grace and favor remain associated with the crown. The institutional lesson is that a prince should esteem the great without making himself hated by the people.

France consequently embodies both sides of the book’s political argument. Its decentralized aristocratic structure exposes it to invasion and makes foreign conquests difficult to consolidate, while its domestic institutions show how authority can be distributed in a way that protects the sovereign. The country is not treated as a simple example of success or failure. It is instead a composite political system whose internal balance can secure the king, even as its external ambitions are undermined when military expansion is not accompanied by foresight, institutional control, and the careful management of local powers.