Duke of Guise

“ Silence, Epernon! I forbid you, on pain of my utmost displeasure, to take notice, even by a word, of what this young man has said. You were yourself wrong to answer for the King in the King's presence. The Duke of Guise shall have no just occasion to complain of us," he added, the brightness which had come upon him gradually dying away like the false promising gleam of sunshine which sometimes breaks for a moment through a rainy autumnal day, and fades away again as soon, amidst the dull grey clouds; "the Duke of Guise shall have no occasion to complain of us. ”

“ You think to rule them, Guise; but the first time you speak of money to Commons or to Clergy, you will find that cabalistic word, money, acts on them as the sign of the cross upon the fiends we read of, and makes the seeming angels resume their shapes of devils in a moment."
"Well, Sire, well," exclaimed the Duke of Guise, tossing his lofty head with a proud smile, "if they refuse us, we will shame them. You and I together will put our lances in the rest, as in days of old: we will call the nobility of France about us ”

“ Thus followed, the Duke of Guise proceeded to his hotel on foot as he came, speaking from time to time with those who pressed near him with that peculiar grace which won all hearts, and smiling with the far-famed smile of his race, which was said never to fall upon any man without making him feel as if he stood in the sunshine. ”

“ I fear you have come at great peril to yourself, good cousin! You know not how angry the minds of men are; you know not how much hostility reigns against you in the breasts of many of the highest of the land; you have not bethought you, that on every step to the throne there stands an enemy----"
"Who shall fall before me, madam," replied the Duke of Guise.
"Till you have reached the throne itself, fair cousin?" said the Queen-mother. ”

“ It is time the Duke of Guise were in Paris, if but to deliver the King from such Dukes of Epernon who abuse his authority, disgrace his name, absorb his favours, ruin the state, overthrow the church, and dare do acts that make men blush for shame. ”

“ They will not refuse me; and I pledge myself before this hour to-morrow to bring you such tidings from both clergy and commons as you could wish to hear."
"If you do, cousin," cried the King eagerly, "if you do, you are my best of friends and counsellors for ever."
"Fear not. Sire; fear not," replied the Duke of Guise; "I will be bold to undertake it. But I must see the presidents and some of the deputies speedily, to know what are the vain and idle notions on which they have hesitated in regard to a step imperatively necessary. ”

“ The Duke of Guise might well think, as he sat there gazing upon the hilt of that renowned sword which had never been drawn in vain, that, were he to say the few short words which were all that was necessary to bring the crown to his head and the sceptre to his hand--he might well think that he could obtain for France thereby those great objects which he conceived were, beyond all others, necessary to her well-being. He might well conceive too that the cost of so doing would but be little: civil war already raged in the land; the whole south of France was one scene of contention ”

“ The only result that could follow an attempt upon a person so beloved by the whole nation, and especially by the States, as the Duke of Guise, would be to arm the people of France in an instant against the sovereign authority. ”

“ Guise lived, it is true, at a period when nothing was held so cheap as life. Acts of cruelty were but too common in all factions. If he delivered whole towns to pillage and its attendant horrors, compared with which death were merciful, he would himself exhibit compassion, based on impulse or caprice. He was heroic, according to the thinking of his age, which considered heroism as being constituted solely of unflinching courage. In all other respects, the duke, great as he was, was as mean as the veriest knave who trailed a pike in his own bands. ”

“ Terrible, indeed, was the temptation of Charles of Montsoreau, and terrible the struggle in his bosom. Not the arch-fiend himself could exhort man to break high resolutions more powerfully, than did the words spoken with the best intentions by the Duke of Guise. But amongst those words were a few, which, by recalling to the mind of the young nobleman most strongly the circumstances on which his determination was founded, gave him strength to endure. Had the Duke said that he knew her heart was won, those few words would have put all his resolutions to an end ”

“ Guise remained at the court of Blois after receiving repeated warnings that Henry meditated treason. On the 25th of December he was summoned to the king’s chamber during a sitting of the royal council, and was murdered by assassins carefully posted by Henry III. himself. The cardinal of Lorraine was murdered in prison on the next day. The history of the Guises thenceforward centres in the duke of Mayenne (q.v.) .
By his wife, Catherine of Cleves, the third duke had fourteen children: among them Charles, 4th duke of Guise (1571–1640) ”

“ The Duke of Guise arrived from Italy early in October, to the great joy of the king and the nation, and was immediately created lieutenant-general of the kingdom, with powers of almost unlimited extent. Be applied himself, with his utmost ability and perseverance, to repair the late disasters; and with such success, that in less than two months he was enabled to assemble a fresh and well-appointed army at Compiègne. Resolving to strike a vigorous blow before the enemy could reappear in the field, he detached a division of his army to make a feint in the direction of Luxemburg ”

“ He may tell the Duke of Guise."
"Let him!" answered Epernon. "Go not one of you; but bring the rest of them along hither."
Without giving any intimation of his intent, Charles of Montsoreau turned his horse suddenly back to the side of the litter, and drew the curtain back, saying to Marie de Clairvaut, who sat pale and anxious within it, "You hear what has happened; there is no power of resistance, for they are ten to one: but the boy has escaped, and will give the Duke notice of where you are. ”

“ The spirit of the Catholic Church was consonant to, and harmonious with, the whole tone of his own feelings, at once deep, powerful, imaginative, enthusiastic, politic, and commanding. Chivalry, feudalism, and the Church of Rome, went hand in hand: all three were, indeed, in their decay; but if ever man belonged to the epoch of chivalry, it was Henry Duke of Guise ”

“ I knew you but as Maître Henri, with a grey doublet and a cock's feather, so that I deserve neither thanks nor recompense, though I will gladly serve your Highness under him, if God and the good Count so will it."
"Would that there were many such as thou art!" said the Duke of Guise, thoughtfully. "There are few who will not quit old kindness for new preferment. ”

“ Henry III. eventually placed himself at the head of the League, and resumed the war against the Huguenots; but on the conclusion of peace (September 1577) he seized the opportunity of disbanding the Catholic associations. The king’s jealousy of Guise increased with the duke’s popularity, but he did not venture on an open attack, nor did he dare to avenge the murder by Guise’s partisans of one of his personal favourites, Saint-Mégrin, who had been set on by the court to compromise the reputation of the duchess of Guise. ”

“ The Duchess Renee of Ferrara, daughter of Louis XII., having come to France at this time, went to Orleans to pay her respects to the king. The Duke of Guise was her son-in-law, and she reproached him bitterly with Conde’s trial. “You have just opened,” said she, “a wound which will bleed a long while; they who have dared to attack persons of the blood royal have always found it a bad job.” ”

“ Guise’s widow married James of Savoy, duke of Nemours, and the young duke at sixteen went to fight against the Turks in Hungary. On the fresh outbreak of civil war in 1567 he returned to France and served under his uncle Aumale. In the autumn of 1568 he received a considerable command, and speedily came into rivalry with Henry of Valois, duke of Anjou. He had not inherited his father’s generalship, and his rashness and headstrong valour more than once brought disaster on his troops, but the showy quality of his fighting brought him great popularity in the army. ”

“ What I meant was, that your presence in Paris is the occasion of this emotion. You cannot doubt that it is so; and therefore, being in this respect the cause, it is only yourself who can provide the remedy."
"Pardon me, madam," replied the Duke of Guise; "I do not see how that can be. In the first place, I have all along denied that I am the cause, either inert or active. The people have risen for their own defence, though, certainly, my defence and my welfare is wrapped up in that of the people. ”

“ The young Count smiled: "And is it needful my Lord Duke," he asked, "to take all these precautions in the courtly world of Paris?--Do you yourself take them, my Lord?--I fear not sufficiently."
"Oh! with regard to myself," replied the Duke, it is different. "I am so marked out and noted, they dare not do any thing against me. They would raise up a thousand vengeful hands against them in a moment, and they know that, too well to run such a risk. Neither Henry nor Villequier would hold their lives by an hour's tenure after Guise was dead. ”

“ Young diplomatists and young greyhounds run fast and overleap the game. It so happens that there are various claims regarding the wardship of this young Lady. She has many relations, as near or nearer than the Duke of Guise. The care and guidance of her, too, under the authorisation of the Duke himself, has been claimed by a young nobleman whom you may have heard of, called the Marquis of Montsoreau ”

“ My brother was already on horseback, and his troop in the act of setting out; but he was accompanied by a gentleman whom I had never seen before, whose name is Colombel, and who, I found afterwards, is an officer in the service of the King."
"Oh yes," said the Duke of Guise; "I have heard him named; a person of no great repute, but some cunning." ”

“ René’s eldest surviving son by his marriage with Philippa, daughter of Adolphus of Egmont, duke of Gelderland, was Anthony, who succeeded his father as duke of Lorraine (d. 1544) , while the second, Claude, count and afterwards duke of Guise, received the French fiefs. The Guises, though naturalized in France, continued to interest themselves in the fortunes of Lorraine, and their enemies were always ready to designate them as foreigners. ”

“ Francis of Lorraine, 2nd duke of Guise (1519–1563) , “le grand Guise,” was born at Bar on the 17th of February 1519. As count of Aumale he served in the French army, and was nearly killed at the siege of Boulogne in 1545 by a wound which brought him the name of “Balafré.” Aumale was made (1547) a peerage-duchy in his favour, and on the accession of Henry II. the young duke, who had paid assiduous court to Diane de Poitiers, shared the chief honours of the kingdom with the constable Anne de Montmorency. ”

“ We were summoned this afternoon at five o'clock to the Hôtel de Ville, where we found not only Pereuse, the Prévôt, and Le Comte, who is worse than a Politic, and half a Huguenot, but the Marquis d'O----"
"Who is worse," said the Duke of Guise, "than minion, or Politic, or Huguenot, or reiter, equally foul in his debaucheries and his peculations; equally impudent in his vices and his follies; fit son-in-law of Villequier; well-chosen master of the wardrobe to the King of France! Who was there besides, Monsieur de Sainctyon? ”

“ The memoirs of Francis, duke of Guise, covering the years 1547 to 1563, were published by Michel and Poujoulat in series 1, vol. iv. of their Coll. de mémoires. Among contemporary memoirs see especially those of the prince of Condé, of Blaise de Monluc and of Gaspard de Saulx-Tavannes. See also La Vie de F. de Lorraine, duc de Guise (Paris, 1681) , by J. B. H. du Trousset de Valincourt; A. de Ruble, L’Assassinat de F. de Lorraine, duc de Guise (1897) , where there is a list of the MS. sources available for a history of the house; R. de Bouillé, Hist. des ducs de Guise (4 vols., 1849) ”