Duke of Lorraine

“ Marie of Lorraine, whose birth-place, the old ducal castle of Bar, had—in memory of her—been spared from sack and fire last winter by the Garde du Corps Ecossais; Anthony Duke of Lorraine and Calabria, who fought the Lutherans and conquered Alsace, a stern warrior sheathed in black armour, and bearing on his left wrist a Scottish falcon, the gift of our monarch James V. ”

“ In June, 1476, the Duke saw his second army destroyed by the Swiss and the Lorrainers, whom Comines calls Germans. In the following winter Charles assembled a third army and marched against Nancy, the capital of Lorraine, which was then held by the same allies. They were commanded by the Duke of Lorraine, who went to the relief of the garrison at Nancy from St. Nicholas, six miles away. ”

“ You will not strive with the destiny which makes Charles of Lorraine an older and more experienced, but not a braver man than you; but you will return to your duty, and emulate his greatness. Ambition is inseparable from valor; but it must be checked by reason, or it degenerates into envy. What would you think of a crown prince who should feel humiliated at his subordinate rank when compared with that of his father? When you entered my service, the Duke of Lorraine was already general-in-chief of the armies of Austria ”

“ The seventeenth century witnessed the gradual dismemberment of the duchy of Lorraine, and in Richelieu's days Nancy was again occupied by French invaders. At length, in 1736, the last Duke, Francis III., was compelled to surrender Lorraine in exchange for the grand-duchy of Tuscany, on his marriage with Maria Theresa, the only child of the [Pg 513] Emperor Charles VI. From that time Lorraine ceased to exist as an independent State, and became a province of France, while the ex-King Stanislas of Poland fixed his residence at Nancy and transformed the ancient capital into a modern city. ”

“ On leaving Berne, the marshal returned to Soleure, where he remained until the end of February, for there was much business still to be transacted and many{425} deputations to be received. On the 22nd of the month he received a despatch from Louis XIII directing him to leave Switzerland and proceed to Nancy on a mission to the new Duke of Lorraine, Charles IV, that eccentric prince who was to cause France so much trouble in years to come. ”

“ His brother Francis, in favour of whom he had abdicated, was a cardinal at the age of nineteen and subsequently bishop of Toul, although he had never taken orders. He obtained a dispensation to marry his cousin, Claude of Lorraine, and died in 1670. He had one son, Charles, who in 1675 took the title of duke of Lorraine and was recognized by all the powers except France. After an unsuccessful attempt to seize Lorraine in 1676, Charles vainly solicited the throne of Poland, took an active part in the wars in Hungary, and married Eleanor of Austria, sister of the emperor Leopold I., in 1678. ”

“ But she treats her lover with the utmost haughtiness, as if she were the Duchesse de Lorraine and he M. de Luneville. I never saw a man more passionately attached than he appears to be; when she is not present, he fixes his eyes upon the door with an expression of anxiety; when she appears, he smiles and is calm; it is really very droll to observe him. She, on the contrary, wishes to prevent persons from perceiving it, and seems to care nothing about him. As the Duke was crossing a hall here with her upon his arm, some of the people said aloud, "That is the Duc de Lorraine with his mistress." ”

“ The funerals of the Dukes of Lorraine had always been famous for their magnificence, and there was an old proverb which said: "Fortunate is the man who has seen the coronation of an Emperor, the sacring of a King of France, and the funeral of a Duke of Lorraine." [386] On this occasion nothing that could heighten the imposing nature of the ceremony was neglected. All the Princes of the blood, Nicolas of Vaudemont, the Duke of Guise with his five sons and grandson, rode out from the ducal palace to the Church of St. ”

“ Under the latter two, Duke and Cardinal, was played out the second act of the great political drama of Lorraine. It was altogether a melo-drama, in which there was abundance of light and shadow. At times, we find the hero exhibiting exemplary candor; anon, he is the dark plotter, or the fierce and open slayer of his kind. There are stirring scenes of fights, wherein his adversaries draw their swords against him, at the instigation of a disgusted King, who no sooner saw Guise triumphant, than he devoted to death the survivors whom he had clandestinely urged into the fray. ”

“ Most of the nobles of the kingdom see what the Cardinal de Lorraine and the Duke his brother are driving at. Under pretence of defending the Catholic faith, the House of Lorraine claims the Crown of France as its inheritance. It leans on the Church, and has made it a formidable ally; the monks are its supporters, its acolytes and spies. It asserts itself as a protector of the throne it hopes to usurp, of the Valois whom it hopes to destroy.
"We have decided to rise up in arms, and it is because the liberties of the people are threatened as well as the interests of the nobility. ”

“ Lewis made a sudden irruption into Lorraine; and though he missed seizing the duke himself, who had no surmise of the danger, and who narrowly escaped, he was soon able, without resistance, to make himself master of the whole country. The French monarch was so far unhappy, that, though the most tempting opportunities offered themselves, he had not commonly so much as the pretence of equity and justice to cover his ambitious measures. This acquisition of Lorraine ought to have excited the jealousy of the contracting powers in the triple league, as much as an invasion of Flanders itself ”

“ The assertion of this claim roused Cardinal Granvelle to the highest indignation. "So dangerous a thing," he wrote to [Pg 502] Philip, "cannot possibly be allowed." But, as he confessed, what made the situation awkward was that Madame de Lorraine's claims were strongly supported, not only by her son, Duke Charles, but by the Emperor Rudolf, the Duke of Bavaria, the Archdukes Ferdinand and Charles, and all the Princes of the Empire. ”

“ It was a sharp night, it is true, for cold bathing; but his heart felt [317] warm with the consciousness of freedom, and, getting amongst the low bushes which covered a good part of the ground on the Lorraine side of the castle, he walked rapidly round to the other side, and then struck across the country directly toward the heart of Burgundy.
Edward had many motives for so shaping his course. He had heard a vague rumor that the Duke of Lorraine had made his peace with France, and therefore he was as likely to be interrupted in the duke's territories as anywhere. ”

“ Lorraine in Modern Times.—Francis’s son Charles III. or II., called the Great, succeeded under the tutelage of his mother and Nicholas of Vaudemont, bishop of Metz. Henry II. of France took this opportunity to invade Lorraine, and in 1552 seized the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun. In the same year the emperor laid siege to Metz, but was forced to retreat with heavy loss before the energetic resistance of Duke Francis of Guise. On leaving Lorraine, Henry II. took Charles to France, brought him up at the court and married him to his daughter Claude. ”

“ Throughout the winter Duke William went from town to town, endearing himself to his new subjects; and when the deputies of Lorraine asserted their master's superior claims, he told them that he would never give up Guelders to any mortal man. By the death of his father on the 6th of February, 1539, he succeeded to the rich provinces of Cleves and Jülich, and became the wealthiest and most powerful Prince in North Germany. ”

“ To obviate these difficulties Bruno divided the ducal authority, assigning Lower Lorraine to a certain Duke Godfrey, who was styled dux Ripuariorum, and Upper Lorraine to Frederick (d. 959) , count of Bar, a member of the house of Ardenne and son-in-law of Hugh the Great, with the title of dux Mosellanorum; and it is probable that the partition of the ancient kingdom of Lorraine into two new duchies was confirmed by Otto after Bruno’s death in 965. ”

“ As the year drew to its close, the insolence of the French increased, and their incursions and depredations [Pg 357] were a perpetual source of annoyance to the people of Lorraine. At the same time their intrigues fomented discontent among the nobles, some of whom were annoyed at the appointment of Monsieur de Montbardon to be the young Duke's tutor. This French Baron had originally followed the Constable of Bourbon into exile, and, after being for many years in the Emperor's service, had by his wish accompanied Christina to Lorraine. ”

“ The strong Saxon kings would not tolerate the falling away of Lorraine from their Empire. Otto II. invaded France [see page 38] and vigorously punished the presumptuous Carolingian. Henceforth Lothair had no support against the subtle policy of the new Duke of the French. He even alienated Adalbero, the famous Archbishop of Reims, and the last prominent ecclesiastical upholder of the tottering dynasty, so that he repudiated the traditional policy of his see, and allied himself with the duke and the Emperor. ”

“ His sons hastened to join him, and Christina followed them as soon as she was able to travel, and arrived in time to be present at her father-in-law's death-bed. The fine old man made his will, appointed his brothers, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal, to be his executors, and with his last breath begged his son to rule Lorraine wisely and raise as few extraordinary taxes as possible. ”

“ It was clear that France must intervene at once, if the fruits of the expedition to Susa were not to be lost, and it was decided to send a powerful army into Italy. Louis XIII would have gone in person, but his health was unequal to the trials of another winter campaign, besides which there was trouble with Monsieur, who, in the previous September, as the result of differences with the King over the latter’s refusal to permit his marriage with Marie de Gonzaga, daughter of the Duke of Mantua, had retired into Lorraine and had not yet been persuaded to return ”

“ Even the Protestants, whom he so deeply injured, would for the most part have acquiesced in the opinion of the cabinet minister, De l'Aubespine, that the Duke of Guise was a captain capable of rendering good service to his native land, had he not been hindered and infected by his brother's ambition. It is the same trustworthy authority who states that the duke was more than once induced to exclaim of his brother Charles: "That man in the end will ruin us." [544]
Various estimates of the second Cardinal of Lorraine. ”

“ From their safe retreat at Denœuvre, Christina and Anne watched the course of the campaign anxiously, and kept up a constant correspondence with Mary of Hungary. The bold measure of placing an Imperialist garrison in Nancy was now proposed by the Duchess, and gladly accepted by her uncle, who realized the advantages of the scheme, and wrote that Lorraine might well be occupied, on the ground of the Duke's detention, and would be restored to him as soon as he was released. ”

“ The Duchy of Lorraine, or Lothringen, was, for many centuries, a subject of contention between France and Germany. It was for a long time a fief of the German empire; but from the middle of the sixteenth century, the royal family of France became connected with its rulers, and assumed thenceforth a right to interfere in its internal arrangements. During the Thirty Years' War the French drove Duke Charles from his throne, on account of his close connection with Austria. ”

“ Francis de Lorraine, Duke of Guise (born at the castle of Bar, February 17, 1519) , was thirty-one; his brother, Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine, was only six-and-twenty (he was born at Joinville, February 17, 1524) ; Francis de Scepeaux (born at Durdtal, Anjou, in 1510) , who afterwards became Marshal de Vieilleville, was at this time nearly forty; but he had contributed in 1541 to the victory of Ceresole, and Francis I. had made so much of it that he had said, on presenting him to his son Henry, “He is no older than you, and see what he has done already ”

“ That relative was his niece and favourite, Madame de Comballet, whose hand he had offered to the Cardinal-Duc François de Lorraine, when that Prince succeeded to the sovereignty of the duchy on the abdication of his unfortunate brother Charles; but to avoid this alliance the new Duke had contracted a secret marriage with his cousin the Princesse Claude ”

“ Yolande of Anjou, who in 1444 had married Ferri of Lorraine, count of Vaudémont, became heiress of Nicholas of Anjou, duke of Calabria and of Lorraine, in 1473, and of René of Anjou, duke of Bar, in 1480; thus Lorraine, with Barrois added to it, once more returned to the family of its ancient dukes. United with Lorraine to France in 1634, Barrois remained, except for short intervals, part of the royal domain. It was granted in 1738 to Stanislaus Leszczynski, ex-king of Poland, and on his death in 1766 was once more attached to the crown of France. ”

“ All subjects of the Emperor who hold any office in the government or in the Duke's household are commanded to leave Lorraine without delay. A French garrison of 600 men will be left in Nancy under Monsieur de Thou, but Monsieur de Vaudemont will remain Governor of the city, and take an oath to observe the conditions laid down by the King. A French garrison of 300 men will also be placed in Stenay under the Sieur de Parroy." [458]
These hard conditions filled Christina with dismay. ”