Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 68, No. 417, July, 1850

The Duke of Guise's humanity after the siege did him as much honour as his bravery during it. A large number of sick men remained in the Imperialist camp; the rearguard of the retreating army were in a pitiable state, and, unable to proceed, yielded themselves ready prisoners. The commander of a troop of Spanish cavalry, pursued by the Prince of la Roche-sur-Yon , who would fain have brought him to battle, suddenly faced about, exclaiming, "How should we have strength to defend ourselves, when you see we have not enough left to fly?" In the hospitals of Metz and Thionville, the sick and wounded Imperialists were carefully tended by order of Guise; non-combatant prisoners were sent back to the Duke of Alva, with the offer of covered boats to transport his exhausted soldiers; the bodies of the dead received suitable burial. The magnanimous general's courtesy and humanity bore their fruits. In the following campaign, when the town of Therouenne, in Picardy, was surprised by the Imperialists, the Germans and Flemings were putting inhabitants and garrison to the sword, without distinction of age or sex, when the Spanish officers, with a lively and grateful remembrance of the good treatment received from Guise and the French, united their voices and efforts to check the carnage. " Bonne guerre, compagnons, " they cried; " souvenez-vous de la courtoisie de Metz! "

It was during the following campaign (1554) that there occurred the first marked manifestations of discord between the Duke of Guise and the Admiral de Coligny. In the combat of Renty, near St Omer, Coligny commanded the infantry, in his quality of colonel-general of that arm. Victory declared itself for the French; already many trophies had been taken, and heavy loss inflicted on the Imperialists, who were on the brink of a general rout, when Guise "feeling" says M. de Bouillé, "that he was not supported by the Constable de Montmorency – the retreat also, according to a report current at the time, having been sounded by the breath of envy – was unable to follow up his advantage, and could but maintain himself on the field, whilst the Imperialists, although defeated, succeeded in entering the besieged fort." The chief merit of this imperfect victory was attributed by the Constable to his nephew Coligny, who, on his part, was said to have asserted that, during the heat of the fight, Guise had not been in his right place. This led, upon the evening of the action, to a violent altercation, which would have ended with drawn swords but for the intervention of the King, in whose tent it occurred. He compelled them to embrace; but the reconciliation was only skin-deep, and from that day forwards a rancorous dislike was substituted for the close intimacy which had existed in their youth between these two great soldiers, and which had been carried to such a point that they "could not live without each other, wearing the same colours, and dressing in the same manner." Henceforward they were constant antagonists, the chiefs of two parties under whose banners nobles, soldiers, and courtiers ranged themselves, according to the dictates of their sympathies or interests. And soon their rivalry for fame and influence was inflamed and envenomed by the ardour of religious passions, and of combats for their respective creeds.

It is here impossible to trace, even in outline, the events that crowded the reign of Henry II., and in which the Duke, the Cardinal, and their brother d'Aumale played a most conspicuous part. It was a constant succession of battles and intrigues, for the most part terminating, in spite of formidable foes both in the field and at court, to the advantage of the Guises. And when, a few weeks after the battle of St Quintin, so disastrous to the French arms – where the Constable de Montmorency, who had boasted beforehand of victory, beheld his entire army slain or taken, and himself a prisoner – the Duke of Guise returned from Italy, "to save the state," as the King himself expressed it, he found himself at the utmost pinnacle of power a subject could possibly attain. On the very day of his arrival, Henry declared him lieutenant-general of the French armies, in and out of the kingdom; a temporary dignity, it is true, but one superior to that of Constable, and which usually was bestowed only in times of regency and minority. That nothing should be wanting to the exorbitant authority thus conferred upon the man to whom sovereign and nation alike were wont to turn in the day of danger and disaster, the King addressed to all the provincial authorities particular injunctions to obey the orders of the Duke of Guise as though they emanated from himself; and truly it was remarked, says Dauvigny in his Vies des Hommes Illustres , that never had monarch in France been obeyed more punctually and with greater zeal. The whole business of the country now rested upon the shoulders of Guise. But even whilst thus exalting him, Henry, conscious of his own weakness, and haunted, perhaps, by his father's dying injunction, was actually plotting how to lessen the power of his great subject, so soon as the period of peril should have passed, during which his services were indispensable. With strange infatuation, the feeble monarch expected to be able to clip at will the wings of that soaring influence, when victory over the foreigner and the liberation of the country should have confirmed its domination.

Invested with his new dignities, whose importance his sagacity fully appreciated, Guise, with the least possible delay, set out for Compiègne, which, since the recent disasters of the French arms, was a frontier town. Those disasters, he felt, could be effectually repaired only by a brilliant feat of arms, at once useful to the state, and flattering to the national pride. Upon such a one he resolved. Calais, now upwards of two centuries in possession of the English, to the great humiliation of France, was the object of destined attack. Skilled in the stratagems of war, the Duke contrived, by a series of able manœuvres, to avert suspicion of his real design, until, on the 1st January 1558, he suddenly appeared before the ramparts of Calais. The siege that ensued has been often narrated. It terminated, after an obstinate resistance, in the capitulation of the garrison, which had scarcely been executed, when an English fleet appeared off the port, bearing succours that came too late. The triumph excited indescribable astonishment and joy throughout France. It was a splendid revenge for the defeat of St Quintin, and produced a marked change in the sentiments of several foreign potentates, who believed that reverse to have prostrated the French power for some time to come. The Grand Signior offered the co-operation of his fleet, and the German princes hastened, with redoubled good-will, the levies that had been demanded of them. Pope Paul IV., when congratulating the French ambassador, pronounced the highest eulogiums on Guise, and declared the conquest of Calais preferable to that of half England. At court, the partisans of the Constable were in dismay, and tried to lessen the merit of the victor by attributing its success to the adoption of a plan sketched by Coligny. But even if this were true, the merit of the execution was all the Duke's own. Upon the heels of this triumph, quickly followed the capture of Guines and the evacuation by the English of the castle of Hames, their last possession in the county of Oye. "In less than a month," says M. de Bouillé, "Francis of Lorraine had accomplished the patriotic but difficult enterprise so often and fruitlessly attempted during two centuries, and had cancelled the old proverb applied in France, in those days, to generals of slight merit, of whom it was derisively said, 'He will never drive the English out of France.'"

Henry II., accompanied by the Dauphin, the Cardinals of Lorraine and Guise, and several nobles of the court, made a journey to Calais, which he entered with great pomp. The object of this expedition was to sustain the courage and zeal of the troops, who endured much fatigue and hardship, in that inclement season and in the midst of the marshes. The King also wished to testify his gratitude to his lieutenant-general, showing him great confidence, referring to him all who requested audience on business, and presenting him, in the most flattering terms, with a house in Calais. The Duke returned with Henry to Paris, where great feasts and rejoicings were held in his honour, and, on occasion of the Dauphin's marriage with Mary Queen of Scots, which shortly followed, Guise filled, in the absence of Montmorency, the office of grand-master, which he long had coveted. Concurrently, however, with this great apparent favour, Henry was secretly uneasy at the power and pretensions of the family of Guise, and maintained a constant and confidential correspondence with their inveterate enemy the Constable de Montmorency. On the other hand the Guises were on their guard, labouring to countermine and defeat the intrigues levelled against them. Urged on by his brother, and feeling that, in their position, if they did not advance they must recede, the Duke directed all his efforts to an effectual concentration in his own hands of the entire military power of the kingdom. Should he fail in this, he at least was resolved to leave none in those of his rivals. By this time the progress of the Reformed religion in France had attracted great attention. It was an abomination in the eyes of Henry; and of this the Duke and Cardinal took advantage to work the downfall of d'Andelot, brother of Coligny, and colonel-general of the French infantry, the only military commander who at that moment caused them any uneasiness. Accused of heresy, and summoned before the King, who received him kindly, and, expecting he would so reply as to disconcert his enemies, "commanded him to declare, in presence of all the court, his belief with respect to the holy sacrifice of mass; d'Andelot proudly replied that his gratitude for the King's favours doubtless rendered entire devotedness incumbent upon him, but that his soul belonged to God alone; that, enlightened by the torch of Scripture, he approved the doctrines of Calvin, and considered mass a horrible profanation and an abominable invention of man." Furious at what he deemed a blasphemy, the King, who was at supper, snatched a basin from the table and hurled it at d'Andelot; but it struck the Dauphin. He was then tempted, says one of his historians, to pierce the offender with his sword, but finally contented himself with sending him to prison, and the post of colonel-general was bestowed upon Montluc, an ex-page of Guise's grandfather, and a devoted partisan of the house of Lorraine. This brave Gascon officer at first scrupled to accept it, for he feared to incur the hatred of the Colignys and the Constable. Wily and wary, like most of his countrymen, he declared himself willing to serve as a private soldier under the Duke, but modestly declined the command offered him. The King insisting, he alleged a dysentery, as rendering him incapable of the needful activity. This and other objections being overruled, he took possession of his important command, and speedily proved himself worthy to hold it – notably at the siege of Thionville on the Moselle. This fortress, one of the strongest the Imperialists owned, was defended by Jean de Caderebbe, a brave gentleman of Brabant, at the head of three thousand picked men. The Dukes of Guise and Nevers, and Marshal Strozzi, were the leaders of the besieging army; Montluc joined them on the eve of the opening of the batteries, and did excellent service. On the fifteenth day of the siege, Guise was in the trenches, talking to Strozzi, on whose shoulder his hand rested, when the Marshal was struck by an arquebuse ball, a little above the heart. On feeling himself hit, " Ah! tête Dieu, Monsieur ," exclaimed this brave and able general, "the King loses to-day a good servant, and your Excellency also." He did himself no more than justice. Guise was deeply affected, but, repressing his emotion, he tried to fix Strozzi's thoughts on religion. The veteran's death was less exemplary than his life; he died in profession of unbelief; and Guise, much scandalised, but perhaps doubly furious at the thought that the soul as well as the body of his old comrade had perished by the sudden manner of his death, prosecuted the siege with fresh ardour, eager for revenge, and suppressing for the moment, as far as he was able, the disastrous news, which could not but produce a most unfavourable impression. Valiantly seconded by Montluc and Vieilleville, on the 22d June, two days after Strozzi's death, he received the capitulation of the garrison. His triumph was well earned. Besides the exhibition, throughout the siege, of the genius and inventive resource that constitute a general of the highest order, he had toiled and exposed himself like a mere subaltern, constantly under fire, personally superintending the pioneers and artillerymen, and rarely sleeping; so that it was no wonder (considering he had not had a single night's rest during the operations against Thionville) that on the 1st July, when preparing for the siege of the rich little town of Arlon, he complained of being very drowsy, and left Montluc to invest the place – himself retiring to bed in a cottage, and giving orders to let him sleep till he awoke of himself. "It is very quick work," he observed, crossing himself, when he was the next day informed, in reply to his inquiry whether the batteries had opened fire, that Montluc had surprised and taken the place in the night.