Chapter X: Part 10

Sometime after this very successful first appearance, and toward the end of 1445, our doughty squire was traversing the cathedral of Notre Dame of Antwerp, and was on the point of cursing the singers for their bad voices, just as one might be almost justified in doing now, so execrable are they; he was there and thus engaged, when a Sicilian knight, named Bonifazio, came jingling his spurs along the transept, and looking jauntingly and impertinently as he passed by. Jacques looked boldly at this “pretty fellow” of the time, and remarked that he wore a golden fetter ring on his left leg, held up by a chain of the same metal fastened to a circlet above his knee. His shield bore the device, “Who has fair lady, let him look to her well!” “It’s an impertinent device,” said Jacques, touching the shield, by way of token that he would fight the bearer for carrying it. “Thou art but a poor squire, albeit a bold man,” said the Sicilian, with the air of one who was half inclined to chastise the Hainaulter for his insolence. Toison d’Or, the herald, whispered in the ear of the Hainaulter; thereupon, Jacques exclaimed, “If my master, Duke Philip, will give me permission to fight, thou darest not deny me, on his Grace’s territory.” Bonifazio bowed by way of assent. The permission was gained, and the encounter came off at Ghent. The first day’s combat was a species of preliminary struggle on horseback, in which Jacques showed himself so worthy of the spurs he did not yet wear, that Philip fastened them to his heels the next day, and dubbed him Knight in solemn form. As the combatants strode into the lists, on the second day, the Duke of Orleans remarked to his Duchess, that Jacques was not so “gent as the Sicilian.” The Duchess smiled, as Guinever smiled when she looked on Sir Launcelot, while her husband, King Arthur, commented upon him; and she said, in phrase known to all who read Spenser, “he loves a lady gent;” and she added, with more of the smile and less of the blush, “he is a better man than the Sicilian, and, to my thinking, he will this day prove it.”

“We shall see,” remarked the Duke carelessly.

“We shall see,” re-echoed the Duchess, with the sunniest of smiles.

Jacques, like the chivalric “gent” that he was, did honor to the testimony of the Duchess. The combatants went at it, like stout men. Jacques belabored his antagonist with a staff, the Sicilian answered by thrusting a javelin at his adversary’s uncovered face. They then flung away their arms and their shields, and hewed at each other with their battle-axes. Having spoiled the edges of these, and loosened them from their handles, by battering at each other’s skulls, they finally drew their lusty and well-tempered swords, and fought so fiercely that the gleaming of their swiftly manœuvred blades made them seem as if they were smiting each other with lightning. Jacques had well-nigh dealt a mortal thrust at the Sicilian, when, at the intervention of the Duke of Orleans, Philip the Good flung his truncheon into the lists, and so saved the foreign knight, by ending the fray. The Duchess reproved her consort for being over-intrusive, but she smiled more gleesomely than before. “Whither away, Sir Jacques?” asked she, as the latter modestly bowed on passing her--the multitude the while rending the welkin with their approving shout. “To the chapel in the wood,” replied Jacques, “to render thanks for the aid vouchsafed to me by our Lady.” “Marry,” murmured the Duchess, “we will be there too.” She thought it not less edifying to see knight at his devotions than at beholding him in the duello. “I am grateful to the Lady of Good Succor,” said Jacques. “And thou doest right loyally,” was the comment of the Duchess.

The victory of the Belgian cavalier over the Sicilian gained for him the distinctive name which he never lost, that of “the Good Knight.” To maintain it, he proceeded to travel from court to court, as pugilists itinerate it from fair to fair, to exhibit prowess and to gather praise. The minor pugilist looks to pence as well as praise, and the ancient knight had an eye to profit also--he invariably carried off the horse, armor, and jewels of the vanquished. As Sir Jacques deemed himself invincible, he looked to the realization of a lucrative tour. “Go on thy way, with God’s blessing,” exclaimed his sire. “Go on thy way, Jacques,” murmured his mother through her tears; “thou wilt find ointment in thy valise, to cure all bruises. Heaven send thee a surgeon, and thou break thy bones.”

Across the French frontier merrily rode Sir Jacques, followed by his squire, and attended by his page. From his left arm hung a splendidly-wrought helmet, by a chain of gold--the prize offered by him to any one who could overcome him in single combat. Jacques announced that, in addition, he would give a diamond to any lady or demoiselle indicated to him by his conqueror. He stipulated that whichever combatant first dropped his axe, he should bestow a bracelet upon his adversary; and Jacques would only fight upon the condition that neither knight should be fastened in his saddle--a regulation which I should never think of seeing insisted upon anywhere, except by equestrian aldermen when they amble on Mr. Batty’s horses, to meet the Sovereign at Temple Bar. For the rest Jacques put his trust in God, and relied upon the strength given him in the love of “the fair lady who had more power over him than aught besides throughout the entire world.” A hundred ladies fair, matrons and maids, who heard of this well-advertised confidence, did not hesitate to exclaim, “Delicious fellow! He means _me_!”

It was the proud boast of Jacques, that he traversed the capital, and the provincial cities of France, without meeting with a knight who would accept his defiance. It would be more correct to say--a knight who _could_ take up his challenge. Charles VII. forbade his chivalry from encountering the fierce Hainaulter anywhere but at the festive board. In the South of France, then held by the English, he met with the same civility; and he rode fairly into Spain, his lance in rest, before his onward career was checked by the presence of an adversary. That adversary was Don Diego de Guzman, Grand-master of Calatrava, and, although he knew it not, ancestor to a future Empress of the French. The Don met the Belgian on the borders of Castile, and accepted his published challenge out of mere love, as the one silly fellow said of the other, out of mere love for his “_très aimée dame_.” The “_dames_” of those days enjoyed nothing so much as seeing the gentlemen thwack each other; and considering what a worthless set these latter, for the most part, were, the ladies had logically comic reasons to support their argument.

It was necessary, however, for Don Diego to obtain the consent of his sovereign to encounter in mortal combat a knight of the household of Burgundy, then in alliance with Spain. The Sovereign was absent from the country, and while an answer was being expected from him to the application duly made, Jacques, at the head of a most splendid retinue, trotted leisurely into Portugal, to tempt the Lusitanian knights to set their lances against him. He rode forward to the capital, and was greeted by the way, as if he had been as illustrious a monarch as his ducal master. It was one ovation, from the frontier to Lisbon, where he was welcomed by the most crowded of royal balls, at which the King (Alphonso XV.) invited him to foot it with the Queen. The King, however, was but an indifferent master of the ceremonies. The late Mr. Simpson of Vauxhall, or the illustrious Baron Nathan of Rosherville, would never have dreamed of taking the lady to introduce her to the gentleman. This uncourteous process was, however, the one followed by Alphonso, who taking his consort by the hand, led her to Sire Jacques, and bad him tread a measure with her. Messire Jacques consented, and there was more than enough of dancing, and feasting, and pleasure-seeking, but no fighting. Lisbon was as dull to the Belgian as Donnybrook Fair without a skrimmage used to be to all its lively _habitués_. “I have had a turn with the Queen,” said Jacques, “let me now have a tourney with your captains.” “Burgundy is my good friend,” answered the King--and he was right in a double sense, for Burgundy was as dear to him as Champagne is to the Czar’s valet, Frederick William, who resides at Berlin. “Burgundy is our good friend,” answered Alphonso, “and Heaven forbid that a knight from such a court should be roughly treated by any knights at mine.” “By St. George! I defy them!” exclaimed Jacques. “And even so let it rest,” said the monarch; “ride back to Castile, and do thy worst upon the hard ribs of the Guzman.” Jacques adopted the suggestion; and on the 3d of February, 1447, there was not a bed in Valladolid to be had “for love or money;” so crowded was that strong-smelling city with stronger-smelling Spaniards, whose curiosity was even stronger than the odors they distilled, to witness the “set-to” between the Belgian Chicken and the Castile Shaver!

I will not detail the preliminary ceremonies, the processions to the field, the entry of the sovereigns, the fluttering of the ladies, the excitement of the knights, and the eagerness of the countless multitude. Jacques was on the ground by ten o’clock, where Guzman kept him waiting till three; and then the latter came with an axe so much longer than that wielded by the Belgian, that even the Spanish umpires forbade its being employed. Don Diego’s own “godfather” for the occasion was almost minded to thump him with the handle; and there was all the trouble in the world to induce him to select another. This being effected, each knight was conducted to his tent, with the understanding that he was not to issue therefrom until the clarions had thrice sounded by way of signal. At the very first blast, however, out rushed the Guzman, looking as ferocious as a stage Richard who has killed five false Richmonds, and is anxiously inquiring for the real one wherewith to finish the half-dozen. The too volatile Don was beckoned back by the chief herald as haughtily as when the sempiternal Widdicombe points out with his whip some obvious duty to be performed by Mr. Merryman. Diego retired muttering, but he again appeared in front of his tent at the second note of summons from the trumpet, and only withdrew after the king had assailed him “with an ugly word.” At the third “flourish,” the two champions flew at each other, battle-axe in hand. With this weapon they hammered at each other’s head, until there was little sense left in either of them. At length, Diego was disarmed; then ensued a contest made up partly of wrestling and partly of boxing; finally, they had recourse to their swords, when the king, perceiving that murder was likely to ensue, to one or both, threw his bâton into the lists, put an end to the combat, and refused permission to the adversaries to continue the struggle on horseback. The antagonists shook hands, and the people shouted. The Spanish knight is deemed, by Belgian chroniclers, as having come off “second best” in the struggle; but it is also clear that Diego de Guzman was by far the “toughest customer” that ever confronted Jacques de Lelaing. There was some jealousy on the part of the Iberian, but his behavior was, altogether, marked by generosity. He praised the prowess of Jacques, and presented him with an Andalusian horse covered with the richest trappings; and de Lelaing, as unwilling to be outdone in liberality as in fight, sent to Guzman, by a herald, a magnificent charger, with coverings of blue velvet embroidered in gold, and a saddle of violet velvet, to be seated in which, was of itself a luxury. Much dancing at court followed; and finally, the “good knight” left Valladolid loaded with gifts from the king, praises from men, and love from the ladies, who made surrender of more hearts than he had time to accept.

In Navarre and in Aragon he challenged all comers, but in vain. Swords slept in scabbards, and battle-axes hung quietly from saddle-bows, and there was more feasting than fighting. At length Jacques, after passing through Perpignan and Narbonne, arrived at Montpelier, where he became the guest of the famous Jacques Cœur, the silversmith and banker of Charles VII. Old Cœur was a hearty old host, for he offered the knight any amount of money he would honor him by accepting; and he intimated that if De Lelaing, in the course of his travels had found it necessary to pawn any of his plate or jewelry, _he_ (Jacques Cœur) would redeem it free of expense. “My good master, the Duke of Burgundy,” replied the errant chevalier, “provides all that is necessary for me, and allows me to want for nothing;” and thereupon he went on his way to the court of Burgundy, where he was received with more honor than if he had been executing a mission for the especial benefit of humanity.

But these honors were little, compared with the rejoicings which took place when the “good knight” revisited his native château, and the parents who therein resided. His sire hugged him till his armor was warm again; and his lady mother walked about the halls in a state of ecstacy and thanksgiving. Finally, the rafters shook at the efforts of the joyous dancers, and many a judicious matron instructed her daughter how Jacques, who subdued the stoutest knights, might be himself subdued by the very gentlest of ladies. The instruction was given in vain. The good chevalier made love alike to young widows, wives, and daughters, and having broken more hearts than he ever broke lances, he suddenly left home in search of new adventures.

Great was the astonishment, and _that_ altogether of a pleasurable sort, when the herald Charolais appeared at the Scottish court in July, 1449, and delivered a challenge from Jacques to the whole of the Douglases. It was accepted in their name by James Douglas, the brother of the lieutenant-general of the kingdom; and in December of the year last named, Jacques, with a retinue of fighting uncles, cousins, and friends, embarked at Ecluse and set sail for Caledonia. The party were more battered about by the sea than ever they had been by enemy on land; and when they arrived at Leith, they looked so “shaky,” were so pale and haggard, and had so little of a “slashing” look, wrapped up as they were in surcoats and comforters, that the Scottish cavaliers, observing the draggled condition of the strangers and of the plumes which seemed to be moulting from their helmets, fairly asked them what motive induced them to come so far in so sorry a plight, for the mere sake of getting bruised by knights ashore after having been tossed about, sick and sorry, during whole nights at sea. When the northern cavaliers heard that honor and not profit had moved the Belgian company, they marvelled much thereat, but prepared themselves, nevertheless, to meet the new-comers in dread encounter at Stirling.

James II. presided at the bloody fray, in which three fought against three. What the Scottish chroniclers say of the struggle, I can not learn, but the Belgian historians describe their champions as having been eminently victorious with every arm; and, according to them, the Douglases were not only soundly drubbed, but took their beating with considerable sulkiness. But there is much poetry in Belgian history, and probably the doughty Douglas party may not have been so thoroughly worsted as the pleasant chroniclers in question describe them to have been. No doubt the conquerors behaved well, as we know “les braves Belges” have never failed to do, if history may be credited. However this may be, Jacques and his friends hurried from Scotland, appeared at London before the meek Lancastrian king, Henry VI.; and as the latter would not license his knights to meet the Burgundians in the lists, the foreign fighting gentlemen had their passports _visé_, and taking passage in the fast sailer “Flower of Hainault,” duly arrived at home, where they were hailed with enthusiasm.

Jacques had short space wherein to breathe. An English knight, named Thomas Karr, speedily appeared at the court of Philip the Duke, and challenged De Lelaing, for the honor of old England. This affair caused a great sensation, and the lists were dressed in a field near Bruges. The English knight was the heavier man in flesh and armor, but Jacques, of course, was the favorite. Dire was the conflict. The adversaries strove to fell each other with their axes, as butchers do oxen. Karr paralyzed, if he did not break, the arm of Jacques; but the Belgian, dropping his axe, closed with his foe, and after a struggle, fell with and upon him. Karr was required, as a defeated man, to carry the gauntlet of the victor to the lady pointed out by him. But obstinate Tom Karr protested against this, as he had only fallen on his elbow. The umpires declared that he had had a full fall, “head, belly, arms, and legs;” Jacques, however, was generous and would not insist. On the contrary, adverting to the fact that he had himself been the first to drop his own axe, he presented Karr with a rich diamond, as the forfeit due by him who first lost a weapon in the combat.

Karr had terribly wounded Jacques, and the wound of the latter took long to cure. The Duke Philip hastened his convalescence by naming him counsellor and chamberlain; and as soon as the man so honored by his master, had recovered from his wounds, he repaired to Chalons on Saone, where he opened a “tourney,” which was talked of in the country for many a long year afterward. Jacques had vowed that he would appear in the closed lists thirty times before he had attained his thirtieth year; and this tourney at Chalons was held by him against all comers, in order the better to enable him to fulfil his vow. The detail would be tedious; suffice it to say that the affair was of barbarian magnificence, and that knights smashed one another’s limbs, for personal honor, ladies’ love, and the glory of Our Lady in Tears! Rich prizes were awarded to the victors, as rich forfeits were exacted from the vanquished, and there was not only a sea of good blood spilt in this splendidly atrocious fray, but as much bad blood made as there was good blood shed. But then there was empty honor acquired, a frail sort of affection gained, and an impalpable glory added to the non-existent crown of an imaginary Venus Victrix, decorated with the name of Our Lady of Tears! What more could true knights desire? Chivalry was satisfied; and commonplace men, with only common sense to direct them, had to look on in admiring silence, at risk of being cudgelled if they dared to speak out.

Jacques was now at the height of his renown. He was “the good knight without fear and without doubt;” and Duke Philip placed the last rose in his chaplet of honor, by creating him a knight of the illustrious order of the Golden Fleece. Thus distinguished, he rode about Europe, inviting adversaries to measure swords with him, and meeting with none willing to accept the invitation. In 1451 he was the embassador of Burgundy at Rome, charged to negotiate a project of crusade against the Turks. M. Alexander Henne, the author of the best compendium, gathered from the chronicles, of the deeds of Jacques de Lelaing--says that after the knight’s mission to Rome, he appeared at a passage of arms held in the park at Brussels, in honor of the Duke of Burgundy’s son, the Count of Charolais, then eighteen years of age, and about to mate his first appearance in the lists. The Duchess, tender of her son as the Dowager Czarina who kept her boys at home, and had not a tear for other mothers, whose children have been bloodily sacrificed to the savage ambition of Nicholas--the Duchess careful of the young Count, was desirous that he should make essay before he appeared in the lists. Jacques de Lelaing was accordingly selected to run a lance with him. “Three days before the fete, the Duke, the Duchess, and the Court repaired to the park of Brussels, where the trial was to be made. In the first onset, the Count de Charolais shattered his lance against the shield of Jacques, who raised his own weapon, and passed without touching his adversary. The Duke perceived that the good knight had spared his young adversary; he was displeased thereat, and sent Jacques word that if he intended to continue the same course, he would do well to meddle no further in the matter. Other lances were then brought, and Jacques, running straight against the Count, both lances flew into splinters. At this incident, the Duchess, in her turn, gave expression to her discontent; but the Duke only laughed; and thus mother and father were of different opinions; the one desiring a fair trial, the other security for her son.” On the day of the great tourney, there were assembled, with the multitude, on the great square at Brussels, not less than two hundred and twenty-five princes, barons, knights, and squires. Some of the noblest of these broke a lance with, and perhaps the limbs of, their adversaries. The Count de Charolais broke eighteen lances on that day, and he carried off the the prize, which was conferred upon him by the ladies.

This was the last of the show-fights in which Jacques de Lelaing exhibited himself. The bloodier conflicts in which he was subsequently engaged, were far less to his credit. They formed a part of the savage war which the despotic Duke and the nobles carried on against the free and opulent cities, whose spirit of liberty was an object of hatred, and whose wealth was an object of covetous desire, to the Duke and his body of gentleman-like assassins. Many a fair town was devastated by the Duke and his followers, who affected to be inspired by religious feelings, a desire for peace, and a disinclination to make conquests. Whereby it may be seen that the late Czar was only a Burgundian duke enlarged, impelled by much the same principle, and addicted to a similar sort of veracity. It was a time of unmitigated horrors, when crimes enough were committed by the nobles to render the name of aristocracy for ever execrable throughout Belgium; and atrocities were practised by the enraged commons, sufficient to insure, for the plebeians, the undying hatred of their patrician oppressors. There was no respect on either side for age, sex, or condition. The people, of every degree, were transformed into the worst of fiends--slaying, burning, violating, and plundering; and turning from their accursed work to kneel at the shrine of that Mary whose blessed Son was the Prince of Peace. Each side slaughtered, hung, or drowned its prisoners; but the nobles gave the provocation by first setting the example, and the commons were not cruel till the nobility showed itself alike destitute of honor and of mercy. The arms of the popular party were nerved by the infamy of their adversaries, but many an innocent man on either side was condemned to suffer, undeservedly, for the sins of others. The greatest efforts were made against the people of the district and city of Ghent, but all Flanders sympathized with them in a war which was considered national. In the struggle, the Duke won no victory over the people for which the latter did not compel him to pay a frightful price; he was heartily sick of the war before it was half concluded--even when his banner was being most successfully upheld by the strong arm and slender scruples of Jacques de Lelaing.

The good knight was however, it must be confessed, among the few--if he were not the only one--of the betterminded nobles. He had been commissioned by the Duke to set fire to the Abbey of Eenaeme, and he obeyed without hesitation, and yet with reluctance. He destroyed the religious edifice with all which it contained, and which could be made to burn; but having thus performed his duty as a soldier, he forthwith accomplished his equally bounden duty, as a Christian--and, after paying for three masses, at which he devoutly assisted, he confessed himself to a predicant friar, “making a case of conscience,” says one of his biographers, “of having, out of respect for discipline, committed an act which the uprightness of his heart compelled him to condemn as criminal.” Never was there a better illustration of that so-called diverse condition of things which is said to represent a distinction without a difference.

The repentance of Jacques de Lelaing came, it is hoped, in time. He did well, at all events, not to defer it any longer, for he was soon on the threshold of that world where faith ceases and belief begins. He was engaged, although badly wounded, in inspecting the siege-works in the front of the Chateau de Pouckes, that Flemish cradle of the Pooks settled in England. It was on a June afternoon of the year 1453, that Jacques, with a crowd of nobles half-encircling him, rode out, in spite of the protest of his doctors (because, as he said, if he were to remain doing nothing he should certainly die), in order that he might have _something_ to do. There was a famous piece of artillery on the Burgundian side, which was sorely troublesome to the stout little band that was defending Pouckes. It was called the “Shepherdess,” but never did shepherdess speak with so thundering-unlovely a voice, or fling her favors about her with such dire destruction to those upon whom they were showered. Jacques drew up behind the _manteau_ of this cannon, to watch (like our gallant seamen at Sebastopol) the effects of the shot discharged from it. At the same moment a stone projectile, discharged from a culverin by the hand of a young artilleryman of Ghent, who was known as the son of Henry the Blindman, struck Jacques on the forehead, carrying away the upper part of his head, and stretched him dead upon the field. A Carmelite brother rushed up to him to offer the succor and consolation of religion, but it was too late. Jacques had sighed out his last breath, and the friar decently folded the dead warrior’s arms over his breast. A mournful troop carried the body back to the camp.

The hero of his day died in harness. He had virtues that fitted him for a more refined, a more honest, in short, a more Christian, period. These he exercised whenever he could find opportunity, but such opportunity was rare. He lived at a period when, as M. de Sismondi has remarked, “Knights thought of nothing but equalling the Rolands and Olivers of the days of Charlemagne, by the destruction of the vile canaille”--a sort of pastime which has been recently recommended in our senate, although the days of chivalry be gone. The noble comrades of Jacques, as M. Henne observes, acknowledged but one species of supreme pleasure and glory, which consisted in making flow abundantly the blood of villains--or, as they are now called, the lower orders. But in truth the modern “villain” or the low-class man is not exclusively to be found in the ranks which have had such names applied to them. As Bosquier-Gavaudan used so joyously to sing, some thirty years ago, in the _Ermite de St. Avelle_:--

“Les gens de bien
Sont souvent des gens de rien;
Et les gens de rien
Sont souvent des gens de bien!”

For a knight, Jacques was really a respectable man, and so disgusted with his butcher-like occupation, that, just before his death, he had resolved to surrender his estate to a younger brother, and, since fate had made of him a licensed murderer, to henceforth murder none but eastern infidels--to slay whom was held to be more of a virtue than a sin. Let us add of him, that he was too honest to earn a reputation by being compassionate to half-a-dozen helpless foes, after directing his men to slaughter a score of the mutilated and defenceless enemy. Jacques de Lelaing would sooner have sent his dagger up to the hilt in his own heart, than have violated the safeguard of a flag of truce. _Such_ days and such doings of chivalry are not those most agreeable to Russian chivalry. Witness Odessa, where the pious governor directed the fire on a flag of truce which he swore he could not see; and witness the massacre of Hango, the assassins concerned in which exploit were defended by their worthy superior De Berg.

Jacques de Lelaing, however, it must not be forgotten, fell in a most unworthy cause--that of a despot armed against free people. His excellent master swore to avenge him; and he kept his word. When the Château de Pouckes was compelled to surrender, Philip the Good ordered every one found alive in it to be hung from the walls. He made exception only of a priest or two, one soldier afflicted with what was called _leprosy_, but which has now another name in the catalogue of avenging maladies, and a couple of boys. It was precisely one of these lads who had, by his well-laid shot, slain “the good knight without fear and without doubt;” but Philip was not aware of this till the lad was far beyond his reach, and in safety at Ghent.

Those who may be curious to know the course taken by the war until it was terminated by the treaty of Lille, are recommended to study the Chronicles of De Lettenhooe, of Olivier de la Marche, of Chastellain, and Du Clery. I had no intention, at setting out, to paint a battle-piece, but simply to sketch a single figure. My task is done, however imperfectly, and, as old chroniclers were wont to say, May Heaven bless the gentle reader, and send pistoles and abounding grace to the unworthy author.

Such is the history of an individual; let us now trace the fortunes of a knightly house. The story of the Guises belongs entirely to chivalry and statesmanship.

THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY.

“This deals with nobler knights and monarchs,
Full of great fears, great hopes, great enterprises.”
_Antony Brewer, “Lingua.”_

In the pleasant spring-time of the year 1506, a little boy, mounted on a mule, and accompanied by a serving man on foot, crossed over the frontier from Lorraine into France. The boy was a pretty child, some ten years old. He was soberly clad, but a merry heart beat under his gray jerkin; and his spirits were as light as the feather in his bonnet. The servant who walked at his side was a simple yet faithful follower of his house; but there was no more speculation in his face than there was in that of the mule. Nothing could have looked more harmless and innocent than the trio in question; and yet the whole--joyous child, plodding servitor, and the mule whose bells rang music as he trod--formed one of the most remarkable invasions of which the kingdom of France has ever been the victim.

The boy was the fifth child of René and Philippa de Gueldres, the ducal sovereigns of Lorraine. This duchy, a portion of the old kingdom of Lotharingia--in disputes for the possession of which the children of Charlemagne had shed rivers of blood--had maintained its independence, despite the repeated attempts of Germany and France to reduce it to subjection. At the opening of the sixteenth century, it had seen a legal succession of sovereign and independent masters during seven centuries. The reigning duke was René, the second of that name. He had acquired estates in France, and he had inherited the hatred of Lorraine to the Capetian race which had dethroned the heirs of Charlemagne. It was for this double reason that he unostentatiously sent into the kingdom of France one of his sons, a boy of fair promise. The mission of the yet unconscious child was to increase the territorial possessions of his family within the French dominions, and ultimately to rule both Church and State--if not from the throne, why then from behind it.

The merry boy proved himself in course of time to be no unfitting instrument for this especial purpose. He was brought up at the French court, studied chivalry, and practised passages of arms with French knights; was the first up at _réveillée_, the last at a feast, the most devout at mass, and the most winning in ladies’ bower. The princes of the blood loved him, and so did the princesses. The army hailed him with delight; and the church beheld in him and his brother, Cardinal John, two of those champions whom it records with gladness, and canonizes with alacrity.

Such was Claude of Lorraine, who won the heart and lands of Antoinette de Bourbon, and who received from Francis I. not only letters of naturalization, but the title of Duke of Guise. The locality so named is in Picardy. It had fallen to the house of Lorraine by marriage, and the dignity of Count which accompanied it was now changed for that of Duke. It was not long before Claude made the title famous. The sword of Guise was never from his grasp, and its point was unceasingly directed against the enemies of his new country. He shed his own blood, and spilled that of others, with a ferocious joy. Francis saw in him the warmest of his friends and the bravest of his soldiers. His bravery helped to the glory that was reaped at Marignan, at Fontarabia, and in Picardy. Against internal revolt or foreign invasion he was equally irresistible. _His_ sword drove back the Imperialists of Germany within their own frontier; and when on the night of Pavia the warriors of France sat weeping like girls amid the wide ruin around them, _his_ heart alone throbbed with hopeful impulses, and _his_ mind only was filled with bright visions of victories to come.

These came indeed, but they were sometimes triumphs that earned for him an immortality of infamy. The crest of his house was a double cross, and this device, though it was no emblem of the intensity of religion felt by these who bore it, _was_ significant of the double sanguinary zeal of the family--a zeal employed solely for selfish ends. The apostolic reformers of France were, at this period, in a position of some power. Their preachers were in the pulpit, and their people in the field. They heard the gospel leaning on their swords; and, the discourse done, they rushed bravely into battle to defend what they had heard.

Against these pious but strong-limbed confederates the wrath of Guise was something terrible. It did not, like that of Francis I.--who banqueted one day the unorthodox friends whom he burned the next--alternate with fits of mercy. It raged without intermission, and before it the Reformers of Alsatia were swept as before a blast in whose hot breath was death. He spared neither sex nor age; and he justified his bloody deeds by blasphemously asserting that he was guided to them by the light of a cross which blazed before him in the heavens. The church honored him with the name of “good and faithful servant;” but there are Christian hearths in Alsatia where he is still whisperingly spoken of as “the accursed butcher.”

When his own fingers began to hold less firmly the handle of his sword, he also began to look among his children for those who were most likely to carry out the mission of his house. His eye marked, approvingly, the bearing of his eldest son Francis, Count D’Aumale; and had no less satisfaction in the brothers of Francis, who, whether as soldiers or priests, were equally ready to further the interests of Lorraine, and call them those of Heaven. His daughter Mary he gave to James V. of Scotland; and the bride brought destruction for her dowry. Upon himself and his children, Francis I., and subsequently Henry II., looked at last with mingled admiration and dread. Honors and wealth were lavished upon them with a prodigal and even treasonable liberality. The generous king gave to the insatiate Guise the property of the people; and when these complained somewhat menacingly, Guise achieved some new exploit, the public roar of applause for which sanctioned a quiet enjoyment of his ill-gotten treasures.

For the purpose of such enjoyment he retired to his castle at Joinville. The residence was less a palace than a monastery. It was inhabited by sunless gloom and a deserted wife. The neglected garden was trimmed at the coming of the duke, but not for his sake nor for that of the faithful Antoinette. Before the eyes of that faithful wife he built a bower for a mistress who daily degraded with blows the hero of a hundred stricken fields. He deprecated the rough usage of the courtesan with tears and gold; and yet he had no better homage for the virtuous mother of his children, than a cold civility. His almost sudden death in 1550 was accounted for as being the effect of poison, administered at the suggestion of those to whom his growing greatness was offensive. The accusation was boldly graven on his monument; and it is probably true. No one however, profited by the crime.

The throne found in his children more dangerous supporters than he had ever been himself; and the people paid for their popular admiration with loss of life and liberty. The church, however, exulted; for Claude of Lorraine, first Duke of Guise, gave to it the legitimate son, Cardinal Charles, who devised the massacre of the day of St. Bartholomew; and the illegitimate son, the Abbé de Cluny, who, on that terrible day, made his dagger drink the blood of the Huguenots, till the wielder of it became as drunk with frenzy as he was wont to be with the fiery wine which was his peculiar and intense delight.

The first Duke of Guise only laid a foundation, upon which he left his heirs and successors to build at their discretion. He had, nevertheless, effected much. He had gained for his family considerable wealth; and if he had not also obtained a crown, he had acquired possession of rich crown-lands. The bestowing upon him of these earned popular execration for the king; the people, at the same time, confessed that the services of Guise were worthy of no meaner reward. When King Francis saw that he was blamed for bestowing what the recipient was deemed worthy of having granted to him, we can hardly wonder that Francis, while acknowledging the merits of the aspiring family, bade the members of his own to be on their guard against the designs of every child of the house of Lorraine.

But _he_ was no child who now succeeded to the honors of his father, the first duke. Francis of Guise, at his elevation to the ducal title, saw before him two obstacles to further greatness. One was a weak king, Henry II.; and the other, a powerful favorite, the Constable de Montmorency, from whose family, it was popularly said, had sprung the first Christian within the realm of France. Francis speedily disposed of the favorite, and almost as speedily raised himself to the vacant office, which he exercised so as to further his remote purposes. In the meantime the king was taught to believe that his crown and happiness were dependent on his Lorraine cousins, who, on their side, were not only aiming at the throne of France for one member of the house, but were aspiring to the tiara for a second; the crown of Naples for a third--to influence in Flanders and in Spain, and even to the diadem of Elizabeth of England, succession to which was recognised as existing in them, by Mary Stuart, in case of her own decease without direct heirs. It is said that the British Romanists looked forward with unctuous complacency to the period when the sceptre of this island should fall into the blood-stained grasp of a “Catholic Guise.”

It was not only the fortune of Francis to repair the ill luck encountered in the field by Montmorency, but to gain advantages in fight, such as France had not yet seen. The Emperor Charles V. had well-nigh got possession of beleaguered Metz, when Guise threw himself into the place, rescued it from the Emperor, and swept the Imperialists out of France. His fiery wrath cooled only in presence of the wounded, to whom he behaved with gentle and helping courtesy. His gigantic labors here brought on an attack of fever; and when he was compelled to seek rest in his house at Marchez, a host of priests and cardinals of his family gathered round his court, and excited him to laughter by rough games that suited but sorrily with their calling.

The second duke inherited his father’s hatred for “heretics.” The great Colligny had been his bosom friend; but when that renowned Reformer gave evidence of his new opinions upon religious subjects, then ensued, first a coldness, then fits of angry quarrelling, and at last a duel, in which, though neither combatant was even scratched, friendship was slain for ever. Duke Francis was prodigal like his father, but then his brother, Cardinal Charles, was minister of the finances: and the king and his mistress, Diana de Poictiers, cared not how the revenue was managed, so that money was forthcoming when necessity pressed. The consequence was, that the king’s exchequer was robbed to supply the extravagances of Guise. But then men began to associate with the name the idea of deliverance from oppression; and they did not count the cost. And yet victory did not invariably select for her throne the glittering helm of the aspiring duke. The pope had selected him as commander of the papal army acting against Naples, but intrigue paralyzed the arm which had never before been conquered, and the pontiff showered epigrams upon him instead of laurels.

In this momentary eclipse of the sun of his glory, the duke placed his own neck under the papal heel. He served in the pope’s chapel as an Acolyte, meekly bore the mantle of obese and sneering cardinals, and exhibited a humility which was not without success. When at a banquet given by a cardinal, Guise humbly sat down at the lower end of the table, he asked a French officer who was endeavoring to thrust in below him, “Why comest thou here, friend?” “That it might not be said,” answered the soldier, “that the representative of the King of France took the very lowest place at a priest’s table!”

From such reproaches Guise gladly fled, to buckle on his armor and drive back an invasion of France by the Hispano-Flemings on the north. The services he now rendered his country made the people almost forget the infamy of their king, who was wasting life in his capital, and the oppressive imposts of the financial cardinal, whom the sufferers punningly designated as Cardinal _La Ruine_. The ruin he achieved was forgiven in consideration of the glory accomplished by his brother, who had defeated and destroyed the armies which threatened the capital from the north; and who had effected much greater glory by suddenly falling on Calais with a force of ten to one, and tearing from the English the last of the conquests till then held by them in France. Old Lord Wentworth, the governor, plied his artillery with a roar that was heard on the English coast: but the roar was all in vain. There was a proverb among our neighbors, and applied by them to every individual of mediocre qualifications, that “he was not the sort of man to drive the English out of France.” That man was found in Guise; and the capital began naturally to contrast him with the heartless king, who sat at the feet of a concubine, and recked little of the national honor or disgrace. And yet, the medals struck to commemorate the recovery of Calais bear the names only of Henri and Diana. They omit all mention of the great liberator, Guise!

The faults of Henri, however, are not to be entirely attributed to himself. He had some feelings of compassion for the wretched but stout-hearted Huguenots, with whom, in the absence of Guise, he entered into treaties, which, Guise present, he was constrained to violate! In pursuit of the visions of dominion in France, and of the tiara at Rome, the ambitious house sought only to gain the suffrages of the church and the faithful. To win smiles from them, the public scaffolds were deluged with the blood of heretics; and all were deemed so who refused to doff their caps to the images of the virgin, raised in the highways at the suggestion of the duke and the cardinal. This terrific persecution begat remonstrance; but when remonstrance was treated as if it were rebellion, rebellion followed thereupon; as, perhaps, was hoped for; and the swords of the Guisards went flashing over every district in France, dealing death wherever dwelt the alleged enemies of God, who dared to commune with Him according to conscience, rather than according to Rome. Congregations, as at Vassi, were set upon and slaughtered in cold blood, without resistance. In the Huguenot “temple” of this last place was found a Bible. It was brought to the duke. This noble gentleman could spell no better than the great Duke of Marlborough; and Guise was, moreover, worse instructed in the faith which he professed. He looked into the Book of Life, unconscious of what he held, and with a wondering exclamation as to what it might be all about, he flung it aside, and turned to the further slaughter of those who believed therein.

In such action he saw his peculiar mission for the moment, but he was not allowed to pursue it unopposed. His intrigues and his cruelties made rebels even of the princes of the blood; and Condé took the field to revenge their wrongs, as well as those of the Reformers. The issue was tried on the bloody day at Dreux, when the setting sun went down on a Protestant army routed, and on Condé a captive; but sharing the bed, as was the custom of the time, of his proved victor Guise. Never did two more deadly enemies lie on the same couch, sleepless, and full of mutual suspicion. But the hatred of Condé was a loyal hatred; that of Guise was marked by treacherous malignity. The Protestant party, in presence of that hot fury, seemed to melt away like a snow-wraith in the sun. He and his Guisards were the terror of the so-called enemies of the Faith. Those whom he could not reach by the sword, he struck down by wielding against them the helpless hand of the king, who obeyed with the passiveness of a _Marionette_, and raised stakes, and fired the pile, and gave the victim thereto, simply because Guise would so have it.

The duke received one portion at least of his coveted reward. At every massacre of inoffensive Protestants, the Catholic pulpits resounded with biblical names, showered down upon him by the exulting preachers. When his banner had swept triumphantly over successive fields, whose after-crops were made rich by heretical blood, then did the church pronounce him to be a soldier divinely armed, who had at length “consecrated his hands, and avenged the quarrel of the Lord.”

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. Scarcely a letter addressed to his officers reached them without having been previously read to their right worshipful master. There was scarcely a mansion in the kingdom, whose lord was a man of influence, but that at that table and the hearth there sat a guest who was the paid spy of Francis of Guise.

It is hardly necessary to add that his morality generally was on a par with the particular specimens we have given of it. Crowds of courtesans accompanied him to the camp, while he deliberately exposed his own wife, Anne of Este, the sister of Tasso’s Leonora, to the insulting homage of a worthless king. Emphatically may it be said that the truth was not in him. He gloried in mendacity. No other personage that I can call to mind ever equalled him in lying--except, perhaps, those very highly professing heroes who swagger in Greek tragedy. He procured, by a lie, the capital conviction of Condé. The latter escaped the penalty, and taxed the duke with his falsehood. Guise swore by his sword, his life, his honor, his very soul, that he was innocent of the charge. Condé looked on the ducal liar with a withering contempt, and turned from him with a sarcasm that should have pierced him like a sword. Pointed as it was, it could not find way through his corslet to his heart. He met it with a jest, and deemed the sin unregistered.

There was a watchful public, nevertheless, observing the progress made toward greatness by the chivalric duke, and his brother the cardinal. Henry II. had just received the mortal blow dealt him at a tournament by the lance of Montgomery. Francis II., his brother, the husband of Mary Stuart, and therewith nephew to Guise, succeeded to the uneasy throne and painful privileges of Henri. On the night of this monarch’s decease, two courtiers were traversing a gallery of the Louvre. “This night,” said one, “is the eve of the Festival of the Three Kings.” “How mean you by that?” asked the other with a smile. “I mean,” rejoined the first, “that to-morrow we shall have three monarchs in Paris--one of them, King of France; the others Kings _in_ France--from Lorraine.”

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.

The battles were fought, on one side, for liberty of conscience; on the other, for the sake of universal despotism. The bad side triumphed during a long season; and field after field saw waving over it the green banner of Lorraine. Catherine de Medicis, and her son Charles IX., accompanied the Duke in more than one struggle, after the short-lived reign of Francis II. had come to an end. They passed, side by side, through the breach at Rouen; but accident divided them at Orleans, where had assembled the gallant few who refused to despair for the Protestant cause.