From Blackwood's Magazine. THE HOUSE OF GUISE. UPON the page of history are inscribed the names of many great men, uncrowned, but more illustrious than most kings, whose biography essentially involves the records of their country and times. The cases are very rare in which this occurs of an entire lineage; when through several successive generations the same extraordinary qualities are transmitted, and the hero or statesman who perished yesterday, to-day and to-morrow seems to start again to life in the persons of descendants, who rival and even eclipse his fame. These remarkable and most unfrequent instances are exemplified in the house of Guise, those puissant nobles of Lorraine, immigrant into and naturalised in France, who for eighty years led the armies and directed the councils of their adopted country. Great warriors, bold and profound politicians, unscrupulous and interested champions of Rome, alternately defenders of, and competitors for, thrones, they upheld their power and pretensions by the double lever of religious enthusiasm, and of skilful appeals to the sympathy of the people. Rich in glory, in wealth, in popularity, they were alternately indispensable and formidable to their sovereigns, and were virtually the last representatives of that energetic, able, and arrrogant aristocracy, whose services to the state were often limited by the jealousy their power inspired, and whose patriotism was not unfrequently tarnished by their factious temper and unbounded ambition. From an early period of the sixteenth century, the influence of Guise was felt in France, for the most part paramount to that of royalty itself; until the might and glory of the house sank and disappeared beneath the daggers of assassins, and before the conquering sword of the Fourth Henry. The history of France during the sixteenth century necessarily comprises the public acts of the family of Guise, and the memoirs of the tim ound in personal details of the 1 work especially devoted to them was st desideratum, until the appearance of which M. Rene de Bouille has just duced. One of the chief difficulties of task must have been to avoid including history of the century in that of the ex ordinary men so intimately connected with chief events. Whilst confining himself much as possible to his immediate subj he has, as yet, as he himself says, found horizon of necessity extensive. And in or to assemble in one frame the various me bers of that celebrated family, he has b compelled to admit with them a host other personages, who, in their turn, ha brought a retinue, and have insisted on least a corner of the canvas being allott to their deeds. The manner in which M. Bouille has treated this great historical p ture, whose magnitude and difficulty mu have deterred a less zealous and perseveri artist, is most judicious. "I have been sparing as possible of discussion," he say "prodigal perhaps, on the other hand, cotemporary evidence, of faithful quotation of such details as bring facts into a strong light, exhibit the actors on the stage in more animated manner, and display an make known, of and by themselves, the per sonages, parties, manners and spirit of th times, and the character of the situations. M. de Bouille claims, as a matter of justice credit for conscientious application, and de clares his whole aim will have been attaine if his work be admitted to possess historica interest and utility. No impartial critic wil refuse it these qualities. It is at once sub stantial and agreeable; valuable to the student, and attractive to those who conside histories of the Middle Ages as fascinating collections of strange adventures and roman tic enterprizes. Rene the Second, reigning duke of Lorraine-the same who fought and conquered with the Mount and his sons settled in France. He sethe fifth, Claude, to whom he left by is various lordships in Normandy, ly, and other French provinces, causing o be naturalized a Frenchman, and g him at a very early age to the court nce, where he was presented as Count ise, a title derived from one of his doThe young Count found immediate with Louis XII., to the hand of whose ter Renee he was considered a likely nt. But he fell in love with Antoinette ourbon, daughter of Count de Ven(the great-grandfather of Henry IV.,) and obtained her in marriage, and celeI his wedding, when he was but sixteen of age, in 1513, at Paris, in presence whole French court. The following nother wedding occurred, but this time was on one side only. In his infirm eclining age, Louis XII. took to wife Doming sister of Harry VIII. of Engand honored Guise by selecting him to company with the Duke of Anne and other princes of the blood, to rehis bride at Boulogne. The Wedding uickly followed by a funeral, and Fransat upon the throne. This chivalrous arlike monarch at once took his young of Guise into high favor, to which he fair claim, not only by reason of his and of his alliance with the hous of on, but on account of his eminent ca, and of the martial qualities whose utility France doubtless foresaw. To umphs in the field, Guise preluded by less sanguinary, but in their kind as nt, in the lists and in the drawing His grace and magnificence were ated even at a court of which those were istinguishing characteristics, thronged as with princes and nobles, most of like the king himself, in the first flush th, and with keen appetites for those nents which their wealth gave them means to command. He gained great by his prowess at the jousts and ments held at Paris on occasion of the tion, and his conduct in another cirance secured him the favor of the laof that gallant and voluptuous court. night," says his historian, "he acnied Francis I. to the Queen's circle, osed of those ladies most distinguished ir charms and amiability. Struck by illiancy and fascination of the scene, the conversation, and to a certain extent in the society, of men, Guise communicated his impression to the king, who received it favorably, and at once decided that, throughout the whole kingdom, women should be freed from this unjust and undesirable constraint." It will be easily conceived that such an emancipation insured Guise the suffrages of the fair and influential class who benefitted by it. From his first arrival at the French court he seems to have made it his study to win universal favor; and he was so promptly successful that at the end of a very few months, he had conquered the good will of both nobility and army. He took pains to study and adapt his conduct to the character of all with whom he came in contact, thus laying the foundation of the long popularity which he and his successors enjoyed in France. But courtly pleasures and diversions were quickly to be succeeded by the sterner business of war. At his death, Louis XII. had left all things prepared for an Italian campaign; and Francis, eager to signalize his accession by the recovery of the Milanese, moved southwards in the month of August, 1515, at the head of the finest troops that had yet crossed the boundary line between France and Italy. His army consisted of fifteen thousand excellent cavalry, twentytwo thousand lansquenets, fourteen thousand French and Gascon infantry, besides pioneers and a numerous artillery. The Constable of Bourbon led the van, the Duke of Alençon commanded the rear; Francis himself headed the main body, accompanied by Duke Anthony of Lorraine (eldest brother of Guise,) with Bayard for his lieutenant, and by the Duke of Gueldres, captain-general of the lansquenets, whose lieutenant was the Count de Guise. If the army was good, none, assuredly, ever reckoned greater warriors amongst its leaders. Guise, during the passage of the Alps-accomplished by extraordinary labor, and which completely surprised the enemy--made himself remarkable by his constancy and activity, by the wisdom of his counsels, and by his generosity to the soldiers, thus further augmenting the affection they already bore him. Bayard and other illustrious officers formed his habitual society, and in him they found the most cordial and affable of comrades, as well as the most zealous advocate of their interests with the king. Devoted to his sovereign, Guise, On in cloth of gold and white velvet." contribute to it to the extent of all he possessed. The treaty, however, was broken by the Swiss. Steel, not gold, was to settle the dispute; and the plains of Marignano already trembled at the approach of the hostile armies. At the age of eighteen, Guise found himself general-in-chief of twenty thousand men. The Duke of Gueldres having been recalled to his dominions by an invasion of the Brabanters, transferred his command to his young lieutenant, at the unanimous entreaty of the lansquenets, and in preference to all the French princes there present. In the quickly ensuing battle, Guise showed himself worthy of his high post. In the course of the combat, when the Swiss, with lowered pikes and in stern silence, made one of those deadly charges which in the wars of the previous century had more than once disordered the array of Burgundy's chivalry, the lansquenets, who covered the Master of the Milanese, Francis I. retur French artillery, gave way. Claude of Lor-ed to France, and beheld his alliance court raine, immoveable in the front rank, shamed by all the powers of Europe, when sudden them by his example; they rallied; the guns, the death of the Emperor Maximilian (15 already nearly captured, were saved; the January, 1519,) proved a brand of discor battle continued with greater fierceness than Francis and Charles were the only serio before, and ceased only with darkness. candidates for the vacant dignity. Guis Daybreak was the signal for its resumption, with a secret view, perhaps, to the crown and at last the Swiss were defeated. After Jerusalem for himself, strained every nerv breaking their battalions, Guise, over eager in exerted all his influence, on behalf of th pursuit, and already twice wounded, had his French King. But Charles, the more ski horse killed under him, was surrounded, ful intriguer, prevailed; and Francis, deepl overmatched, and left for dead, with twenty- wounded and humiliated by his failure, re two wounds. Nor would these have been volved in his mind projects of war. In thes all, but for the devotedness of an esquire, the king did not lose sight of the great as whose name Brantôme has handed down as sistance he might expect from Guise, brave a model of fidelity. Adam Fouvert, of skilful, and prudent, as he was; and the es Nuremburg, threw himself on his master's teem in which the young chief was held a body, and was slain, serving as his shield. court increased so greatly, that the French After the action, Guise was dragged out from nobles came to consider him almost the equa amongst the dead, and conveyed by a Scot- of the members of the royal family. Guise, or tish gentlemen to the tent of the Duke of the other hand, by reason of his enormous for Lorraine. He was scarcely recognizable, by tune and high birth, and in his quality of a reason of his wounds; he gave no sign of foreign prince, spared no effort to place himlife, and his recovery was deemed hopeless. self on the footing of any ally rather than of He did recover, however, thanks to great a subject of the King of France. care, and still more to the vigorons constitution and energetic vitality which distinguished all of his house, and without which the career of most of them would have been very short. Scarcely one of the prominent members of that family but received, in the martial ardor of his youth, wounds, whose severity made their cure resemble a miracle. A month after the battle of Ma Pretexts for hostilities were not wanting: and soon we find Guise, at the head of his lansquenets, fighting victoriously over the very same ground upon which, in our day, French armies contended with very different results. Maya, Fontarabia, and the banks of the Bidassoa, witnessed his prowess; he himself, a half-pike in his hand, led his men through the river, with water to his armpits, braced him warmly, and gaily said, was but fair he should go out to old friend, who, on his part, always ch haste to meet and revenge him nemies." His summer triumphs in enees were followed by a winter n in Picardy, where he succeeded in ng the junction of the English and ists, besides obtaining some advan-at-arms, with which force he deemed himself er the former, and harassing their re- able to keep the field against the twelve the coast. He thus added to his thousand lansquenets that Count Furstemity with the army, and acquired berg fed to meet him. By an odd accident, claims to the gratitude of the Pa- he had no infantry, his adversary no cavalry. deeply alarmed by the proximity of By dividing his horsemen into small parties, my to the capital, and who viewed and maintaining an incessant harassing warheir savior. fare, Guise prevented the Germans from foraging; and at last, compelled by famine, they prepared to recross the Meuse, abandoning two forts they had captured, and carrying off a large amount of spoil. Thus encumbered, and vigorosly pursued, their rearguard was cut to pieces, and their retreat converted into a rout. "With a feeling of chivalrous gallantry," says M. de Bouillé, "Guise desired to procure the duchess, his sister-in-law, Antoinette de Bourbon, and the ladies of the court of Lorraine, then assembled at Neufchâteau, the enjoyment of this spectacle, (the batte,) to them so new. Warned by him, and stationed at windows out of reach of danger, whence they looked out upon the plain, they had the pastime, and were able to recompense, by their applause and cries of joy, the courage of the troops whom their presence animated." of Admiral Bonnivet. Fortune soon afforded the younger general one of those opportunities of high distinction, of which no leader ever was more covetous, or better knew how to take advantage. A large body of Imperialist infantry having made an irruption into Burgundy, he assembled the nobility of the province and about nine hundred men year 1523 opened under menacing grievously suffered by the army of But such partial successes, however glorious to him by whom they were achieved, were all insufficient to turn the tide of disaster that had set in against the French arms. The defeat of Bonnivet, the invasion of Provence by the Constable, were succeeded by that terrible day before the walls of Pavia, when Francis I., vanquished, wounded, made prisoner by a rebellious subject, beheld his army destroyed, and the battle-field strewn with the bodies of his best generals, whilst, bleeding at his feet, slain in his defence, lay Francis of Lorraine, a younger brother of the Count of Guise, the second of that brave brotherhood who had fallen in arms under the fleur-de-lis* When the brave but most imprudent monarch was carried into captivity, his mother, regent in his absence, placed her Francis of Lorraine was eighteen years old chief trust and dependence in Guise. Of these he proved himself worthy. He checked the ambition of the Duke of Vendôme, who, as first prince of the blood, showed a disposition to seize upon the regency; he advised the ransoming of the French prisoners taken at Pavia, and exercised altogether a most salutary influence upon the circumstances of that critical time. His good sword, as well as his precocious wisdom, was soon in request. A large body of German fanatics, proclaiming the doctrine of absolute equality, and the abolition of all human superiority, had swept over Suabia, Wurtemberg, and Franconia, burning churches and slaying priests, and threatened to carry the like excesses into Lorraine and Burgundy. By aid of his brothers, at much expense and with great difficulty, Guise got together ten thousand men, four thousand of whom were cavalry. The double cross was the rallying sign of this little army. The time was come for Guise to perform his promise to Pope Leo, to fight stoutly in defence of the Church. And truly his hand was heavy upon the unfortunate and half frantic Lutherans, although to a certain extent, he tempered its weight with mercy. Besieged in Saverne, the fanatics put to death the herald who summoned them to surrender. Learning that reinforcements from Germany were at hand, Guise hurried to meet them with three thousand men, and encountered them at the village of Lupstein, into which the Germans retreated, after a terrible conflict outside the place, and threw up a barricade, as best they could, of carts, casks, and gabions. From the cover of these and of the adjacent hedges, they kept up so obstinate a defence, that Guise, whose men fell fast, caused fire to be applied to the houses. But hardly had the flames begun their ravages, when the Count, seized with compassion, threw himself from his horse to assist in extinguishing them, and succeeded, at imminent risk to his own life, in saving upwards of four thousand persons of all ages. Nearly double that number perished; as many more at Saverne and in the mountains, to which the unfortunate Germans fled; and about fifteen thousand in a final engagement at Chenouville, which broke the strength of the fanatic host, and finally closed the campaign. During one of these battles, the soldiers of Guise beheld in the air the image of the Saviour attached to the cross—a kingdom; he had also assumed a mos culiar and marked position, and had fi point of departure for himself and his scendants, by striking, of his own ac and without instructions from the go ment, the first blows that Protestantism ceived in France-a circumstance ofte called, with more or less exultation, by panegyrists of that family, and which cured Claude de Lorrraine the nicknan the Great Butcher, given him by the here who were exasperated by the loss of ne forty thousand men, caused them by his in that fatal expedition." Determined foes to the Reformed fait both of them were, a distinction must ye made between the Count of Guise assa and slaughtering, with far inferior force formidable body of armed and aggres foreigners, and the fierce Balafré, wieldin murderous sword against his defenceless inoffensive Huguenot countrymen, on terrible night of St. Bartholomew. If amount of bloodshed at Saverne and Chen ville appears excessive, and implies that tle quarter was given, it must yet be rem bered that greater clemency to the vanqui ed might have had the most disastrous c sequences to the handful of conquerors. Council of Regency disapproved of Guis conduct in the affair; taxing him with ra ness in risking the whole of the small nu ber of regular troops disposable for the fence of the kingdom. But there could ha ly have been more pressing occasion to pose them; and Francis I., on returni from exile, recognized and rewarded that a other good services by elevating the coun of Guise into a duchy and peerage-furth enriching the newly-made duke with a porti of the crown domains. Such honors and a vantages had previously been almost excl sively reserved for persons of the bloo royal. The Parliament remonstrated in vai but Francis himself, before very long, r pented what he had had done. He took un brage at the increasing popularity of th Duke of Guise, and gave ear to the calun nies and insinuations of the French noble who were irritated by the haughty bearing great prosperity, and ambitious views of th house of Lorraine. The manner in whic Francis testified his jealousy and distrus was unworthy of a monarch who has left great name in history. He showed himsel |