CARLO VII, king of FRANCIA, called the VICTORIOUS. — Son of the preceding and of Isabella di Baviera, born in Paris on 2 February 1403, died at Mehun-sur-Yèvre on 22 July 1461.
In 1417 he assumed the regency of the kingdom on behalf of his father and succeeded him in 1422, while the English occupied almost all of France north of the Loire and held the western part of Guienna in the south. The duke of Burgundy was allied with the duke of Bedford, who governed France for the king of England, Enrico VI, and C. immediately found himself in extremely difficult circumstances. But the States General and provincial assemblies provided him with the most urgent financial means, while the city of Orléans stubbornly held out against the invader. Giovanna d'Arco, overcoming the hostility and incomprehension of the court and of the king himself, succeeded in having him crowned at Reims; but when the Maid fell prisoner to the English, C. was unable to do anything to save her. A series of fortunate events came to his aid; the duke of Burgundy was reconciled with him through the treaty of Arras in 1435, Paris surrendered to the constable de Richemont, and the weary English, themselves on the eve of a civil war, signed the truce of 1444.
Relations with the Church at the end of the Council of Constance were regulated in 1418 by a concordat that recognized special privileges for France. When the Council opened at Basel in 1431, the French clergy assembled at Bourges in February 1432 supported the Council, although Eugenio IV had dissolved it; and at a second assembly it issued a “pragmatic sanction,” which the king signed on 7 July 1438. This reaffirmed the principle of the superiority of the Council over the Pope, regulated relations with the Pope, and safeguarded the “laudable customs of the Church of France.” At a third assembly at Bourges in June 1447, before the unfortunate schism provoked by Felice V had been concluded, King C., in agreement with the envoys of the German princes, the king of England, Savoy, and the Fathers of Basel, demanded that a new council be convened in a city of France. But these and other negotiations remained without result; instead, the spirit of aversion among a considerable part of the French clergy toward the prerogatives of the Holy See continued.
Between 1445 and 1448 C. reorganized the State, laid the foundations of a regular army, and permanently reorganized the finances. In 1449 the war with England resumed. Normandy was reconquered in one year, and after three years a struggle that had lasted for more than a century ended victoriously for France. The English were left with only Calais.
The triumph over every aristocratic opposition, the prompt suppression of the revolt known as the Praguerie, the campaigns in Switzerland and Lorraine, the alliances with the German princes, and the revival of the country’s economic prosperity reaffirmed with C. royal authority and the prestige of France.