Commencing one hundred years before Charlemagne created a Holy Roman Empire, it ended triumphantly under a king and queen who were to play a leading part in the _Reformation_.
The stage was making ready, and the characters were assembling for the great modern drama, in a century even more significant than the one then closing.
The reign of Charles VIII.

ended in 1498.

And as he left no son, the succession once more passed to a collateral branch: Louis XII., of the House of Orleans, wore the crown of France.

It is interesting to recall that these two kings, Charles and Louis, were respectively grandsons of those two ambitious dukes whose personal feud brought France to the verge of ruin a few decades earlier: Louis XII.

being the descendant of that Duke of Orleans, brother of Charles VI., the reigning king, who was murdered in the streets of Paris; while Charles VIII.