Francis I said of his son at…

1536 CE

Francis I said of his son at birth, "a beautiful dauphin who is the most beautiful and strong child one could imagine and who will be the easiest to bring up".

His mother, Claude, Duchess of Brittany, said, "tell the King that he is even more beautiful than himself".

The Dauphin had been christened at Amboise on April 25, 1519.

Leonardo da Vinci, who had been brought to Amboise by Francis I, designed the decorations.

One of the most researched aspects of the Dauphin's short life is the time he and his brother Henry (later Henry II of France) spent as hostages in Spain.

The king had been badly defeated and captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 and became a prisoner of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, initially in the Alcázar in Madrid.

In order to ensure his release, the king had signed the Treaty of Madrid in 1526.

However, in order to ensure that Francis abided by the treaty, Charles had demanded that the king's two older sons take his place as hostages.

Francis agreed.

The exchange had taken place in March 1526 at the border between Spain and France.

The eight-year-old Dauphin and his younger brother Henry had spent the next three years as captives of Charles V, a period that has scarred them for life.

The Dauphin's "somber, solitary tastes" and his preference for dressing in black (like a Spaniard) are attributed to the time he spent in captivity in Madrid.

He has also become bookish, preferring reading to soldiering.

As first son and heir to a king of France the Dauphin has been a marriage pawn for his father.

He cannot be wasted in marriage, as many feels his brother Henry had been with his marriage to Catherine de' Medici, and there have been several betrothals to eligible princesses throughout the Dauphin's life.

The first was when he was an infant, to the four-year-old Mary Tudor (later Mary I of England), daughter of Henry VIII of England and Catherine of Aragon; but this arrangement was abandoned around 1520.

In 1524, the Dauphin inherited the Duchy of Brittany on his mother's death, becoming Duke Francis III, although the Duchy was actually ruled by officials of the French crown.

In summer 1356, after playing a round of tennis at a jeu de paume court "pré[s] d'Ainay", the Dauphin asks for a cup of water, which is brought to him by his secretary, Count Montecuccoli.

After drinking it, Francis collapses and dies several days later at Château Tournon-sur-Rhône on August 10, 1536, at the age of eighteen.

The circumstances of his death seem suspicious, and it is believed by many that he had been poisoned.

However, there is ample evidence that he died of natural causes, possibly tuberculosis.

The Dauphin had never fully recovered his health from the years spent in damp, dank cells in Madrid.

In an age before forensic science, poison is usually suspected whenever a young, healthy person dies shortly after eating or drinking.

There is no way to pinpoint and trace the substance after death; therefore, it is considered a quick, easy and non-traceable form of homicide.

There have been several other suspected cases of political-murder-by-poison in the French royal family through the ages.

Montecuccoli, who is brought to the court by Catherine de' Medici, is accused of being in the pay of Charles V, and when his quarters are searched a book on toxicology is found.

Catherine de' Medici is well known to have an interest in poisons and the occult.

Under torture, Montecuccoli confesses to having tried to poison King Francis and the Dauphin on behalf of the Emperor.

Later he retracts his confession, but is executed by écartelage at the Place de la Grenette in Lyons on October 7, 1536.

This manner of execution is reserved for regicides and means that the victim is to be torn to pieces by four horses galloping into four different directions.

Charles V officially protests against the charges leveled at his government.