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

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 arrogant 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 time abound in personal details of the members of that renowned house; but a work especially devoted to them was still a desideratum, until the appearance of that which M. Réné de Bouillé has just produced. One of the chief difficulties of his task must have been to avoid including the history of the century in that of the extraordinary men so intimately connected with its chief events. Whilst confining himself as much as possible to his immediate subject, he has yet, as he himself says, found his horizon of necessity extensive. And in order to assemble in one frame the various members of that celebrated family, he has been compelled to admit with them a host of other personages, who in their turn have brought a retinue, and have insisted on at least a corner of the canvass being allotted to their deeds. The manner in which M. de Bouillé has treated this great historical picture, whose magnitude and difficulty must have deterred a less zealous and persevering artist, is most judicious. "I have been as sparing as possible of discussion," he says, "prodigal perhaps, on the other hand, of cotemporary evidence, of faithful quotations, of such details as bring facts into a stronger light, exhibit the actors on the stage in a more animated manner, and display and make known, of and by themselves, the personages, parties, manners and spirit of the times, and the character of the situations." M. de Bouillé claims, as a matter of justice, credit for conscientious application, and declares his whole aim will have been attained if his work be admitted to possess historical interest and utility. No impartial critic will refuse it these qualities. It is at once substantial and agreeable; valuable to the student, and attractive to those who consider histories of the Middle Ages as fascinating collections of strange adventures and romantic enterprises.

Réné the Second, reigning duke of Lorraine – the same who fought and conquered with the Swiss at Morat, and defeated Charles the Bold at Nancy – desired to see one of his sons settled in France. He selected the fifth, Claude, to whom he left by will his various lordships in Normandy, Picardy, and other French provinces, causing him to be naturalised a Frenchman, and sending him at a very early age to the court of France, where he was presented as Count de Guise, a title derived from one of his domains. The young count found immediate favour with Louis XII., to the hand of whose daughter Renée he was considered a likely aspirant. But he fell in love with Antoinette de Bourbon, daughter of Count de Vendôme, (the great-grandfather of Henry IV.,) asked and obtained her in marriage, and celebrated his wedding, when he was but sixteen years of age, in 1513, at Paris, in presence of the whole French court. The following year another wedding occurred, but this time youth was on one side only. In his infirm and declining age, Louis XII. took to wife the blooming sister of Harry VIII. of England, and honoured Guise by selecting him to go, in company with the Duke of Angoulême and other princes of the blood, to receive his bride at Boulogne. The wedding was quickly followed by a funeral, and Francis I. sat upon the throne. This chivalrous and warlike monarch at once took his young cousin of Guise into high favour, to which he had a fair claim, not only by reason of his birth, and of his alliance with the house of Bourbon, but on account of his eminent capacity, and of the martial qualities whose future utility Francis doubtless foresaw. To his triumphs in the field, Guise preluded by others less sanguinary, but in their kind as brilliant, in the lists and in the drawing room. His grace and magnificence were celebrated even at a court of which those were the distinguishing characteristics, thronged as it was with princes and nobles, most of them, like the king himself, in the first flush of youth, and with keen appetites for those enjoyments which their wealth gave them ample means to command. He gained great credit by his prowess at the jousts and tournament held at Paris on occasion of the coronation, and his conduct in another circumstance secured him the favour of the ladies of that gallant and voluptuous court. "One night," says his historian, "he accompanied Francis I. to the queen's circle, composed of those ladies most distinguished by their charms and amiability. Struck by the brilliancy and fascination of the scene, unusual at a time when custom, by assigning to women a sort of inferior position, or at least of reserve, interdicted their mingling in the conversation, and to a certain extent in the society of men, Guise communicated his impression to the king, who received it favourably, and at once decided that, throughout the whole kingdom, women should be freed from this unjust and undesirable constraint." It will easily be conceived that such an emancipation insured Guise the suffrages of the fair and influential class who benefited by it. From his first arrival at the French court he seems to have made it his study to win universal favour; and he was so promptly successful that, at the end of a very few months, he had conquered the goodwill 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 signalise 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.