FRANCIS DE BOURBON, count Enghien, in the service of Francis I.; took Nice, and obtained the victory of Cerisoles, in 1544. He was killed in 1545, aged 27.

CATHARINE DE MEDICIS, queen of France, was the only daughter of Lorenzo de Medicis, duke of Urbino, by Magdalen de la Tour, and born at Florence in 1519. Through the influence of her uncle, pope Clement VII., she obtained for her husband Henry duke of Orleans, son of Francis I. This marriage took place in 1534. Catharine was one of the chief ornaments of the splendid court of her father-in-law, where the graces of her person and her mental accomplishments shone with inimitable lustre. At the same time, though so young, she practised all those arts of dissimulation and complaisance which were necessary to ingratiate her with so many persons of opposite characters and interests. She even lived upon terms of intimacy with Diana De Poictiers, her husband's mistress. On the death of Francis I., she became queen by the accession of her husband to the throne, under the title of Henry II. Though childless the first ten years of her marriage, she at length bore him children. Three of her sons became kings of France, and one daughter was queen of Navarre. During her husband's life she possessed but little influence in public affairs, and was chiefly employed in instructing her children, and acquiring that ascendancy over them, by which she so long preserved the supreme authority. She was left a widow in 1559, and her son, Francis II., a weak youth of sixteen, succeeded to the French crown. The pow erful and ambitious family of the Guises, had the chief management of affairs during this reign, which was rendered turbulent and bloody by the violent persecutions of the Huguenots. Catharine could only preserve a degree of authority, by acting with the Guises; yet, it is believed that their furious policy did not agree with her inclinations, and it may be regarded as a proof of more moderate designs, that she raised the virtuous Michael de L'Hospital to the chancellorship. Francis died in 1560, and was succeeded by his brother Charles IX., then eleven years of age. Catharine possessed the authority, though not the title, of regent; and in order to counterbalance the power of the Guises, she inclined to the party of the king of Navarre, and the associated princes. A civil war ensued which was excited by the duke of Guise, who thereby became the favourite of the Catholics; but being killed in 1562 a peace was made between the two parties. Catharine was now decidedly at the head of affairs, and began to display all the extent of her dark and dissembling politics. The affairs of France, however, involved her in inextricable difficulties, and the selfishness and ambition of all the party leaders rendered it impossible to treat with them upon any

fair principle of equity and public good. Catharine now paid her court to the Catholics, and plotted the total destruction of the Huguenots, who were driven by the spirit of hostility shown against them, into another civil war. A truce succeeded, and to this a third war, which terminated in a peace favourable to the Huguenots, and which was thought sincere and lasting. In fact, it was now resolved, to destroy by treachery that part which could not be subdued by force of arms. A series of falsehood and dissimulation almost unparalleled in history, in which Catharine found an admirable second, in her execrable son, whom she had carefully initiated in every art of disguise, prepared that massacre on St. Bartholomew's day, 1571, which will ever prove an indelible stain to the French annals, and doom to infamy the name of Catharine de Medicis, the chief contriver. It was not likely that such an act could finally compose the troubles of France. Accordingly affairs were in a very tumultuous state during the remainder of this reign, which terminated by the death of Charles in 1574. On this event Catharine was made regent till her son Henry III. returned from Poland, of which country he had been elected king. It is allowed that at this juncture she displayed great vigour and abilities in preventing those disturbances which the violent state of parties was calculated to produce, and she delivered the kingdom to her son in a condition, which, had he been wise and virtuous, might have secured him a happy reign. But a son and pupil of Catharine could only have the semblance of good qualities, and her own character must ever have prevented any confidence in measures which she directed. The party of the Guises rose again; the league was formed, war was renewed with the Protestants; and all things tended to greater disorder than before. The attachment of Henry to his minions on one hand, and the popularity of the Guises on the other, destroyed the authority of Catharine, and she had henceforth little more than the sad employment of looking on and lamenting her son's misgovernment, and the wretched conclusion of her system of crooked and treacherous policy. She died in January, 1589, aged seventy, loaded with the hatred of all parties. The Parisians, who, notwithstanding her protestations, suspected her of being concerned in the duke of Guise's murder, openly declared that if her body was brought to their city to be interred, they would throw it into the river or the common sewer. Nevertheless, she appears to have given some excellent advice to her son on her death-bed, though little conformable to her former precepts and example. Catharine de Medicis is said to have possessed in a superior degree, all the arts of insinuation and allurement, all the female graces, and the splendid qualities of her station; she was affable, courteous, and magnificent. She

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liberally encouraged learning, and the polite arts. She was likewise endowed with extraordinary courage and presence of mind; strength of judgment, and fertility of genius. But she had the common fault of her country, of aiming at excessive refinement in policy; and by attentively caressing and siding with every party, she in the end lost the confidence of all. With respect to her moral qualities, there is nothing diabolical in the human character with which she has not been charged by her enemies; and even her friends are obliged to make large concessions on this head. Scarcely preserving the de corum of her sex, she was loose and voluptuous in her own conduct, and was continually attended by a train of beauties, whose complaisant charms she employed in debauching those minds which she could not gain by the common allurements of interest. Nearly indifferent to the modes of religion, she was very superstitious, and believed in and employed the delusive practices of magic, and judicial astrology. The depth of her dissimulation, and bloody strain of her perfidious policy, have sufficiently been shown in the sketch of her actions; and many instances may be brought of the savage pleasure or indifference with which she viewed the cruelties she had dictated. Perhaps the heaviest charge against her is, the detestable principles in which she brought up her children, whom she early inured to blood and perfidy, while she weakened their minds by debauchery, that she might the longer retain her power over them. Accordingly, except Francis, who can scarcely be said to have displayed any character, her other sons, Charles, Henry, and the duke of Alençon, were compounds of every thing abominable and despicable. To conclude, the historian, Davila, who was peculiarly attached to her services, and favoured by her, terminates a copious eulogy on her personal and mental qualification, with confessing that she was totally void of faith, and more indifferent to shedding of human blood than became a woman.

GABRIEL ARAMONT, ambassador of France to Constantinople, in the reign of Henry II., was a gentleman of Gascony, who acquitted himself worthily of his employ. The constable de Montmorency, examining the overtures, which pope Paul III. had made, that the only means to recover Placentia out of the emperor's hands, was to cause the Turkish fleet to appear upon the coast of Naples and Sicily, advised the king his master to negociate with Solyman about it. Aramont was chosen to transact this affair. He was neither less artful nor less experienced than la Foret, Rincon, and Baulin, who had preceded him in this embassy. He made friends at the Porte, who procured him free access, and private audiences, and he knew so well how to turn and wind matters, that he reconciled to the French those who had been greatly pre

judiced against them. The only question now was, how his highness's fleet should act; whereupon Aramont returned speedily to France, to consult with his master in what manner the grand signior's assistance might be most usefully applied. The king and the constable informed him that they had intelligence in the isle of Corsica, and that it might easily be taken, if the Turkish fleet and that of France, should at once attack it. He set out again for Constantinople to communicate this project to the grand signior; but, landing at Malta, was instantly requested by the grand master to repair to the Turkish generals, who had besieged Tripoli in Barbary, and employ his credit, and the authority of Henry II. to oblige them to raise the siege. He yielded to their intreaties, and reached the Turkish camp by the time their batteries were in readiness to play. He had several conferences with Sinan Bassa, and Dragut, in which he remonstrated to them, that they had engaged in an undertaking altogether opposite to the treaty, which Solyman was going to conclude with France, since his highness had agreed to attack the emperor only, and that Tripoli belonged to the order of Malta. They replied that the knights of Malta were perjured persons, who, notwithstanding the oath they had taken to Solyman, when they were treated with so much civility at their departure out of Rhodes, committed continual hostilities against the Turks, adding withal, that they had orders to drive them out of Africa; and that they could not suspend the execution of this order. Aramont wanted neither excuses nor replies, but finding that he could not prevail with Sinan Bassa, he resolved to depart with all speed for Constantinople, if possible to obtain from Solyman that Tripoli might not be taken. But as his credit and intrigue were not unknown to Bassa, he could not obtain leave to continue his journey till after the taking of Tripoli. He saved the lives and liberties of the French who were in the place; nor did he decline coming to a feast, to which Sinan and Dragut invited him after their conquest. Charles V. was too politic to overlook this event, he took occasion from it to give out, that France had contributed to the taking of Tripoli. Henry II. did what he could to answer for this complaint. The Golden Isles in Provence were erected into a Marquisate by letters of Henry II., confirmed by the parliament of Aix; and this Marquisate Aramont, ambassador of France to Constantinople, was invested with, and seised of, to hold in fief of the king, with express orders to build in these isles, castles, towers, and fortresses, to the expense of fifty thousand crowns.

PHILIBERT DE MARCILLI, lord of Cipierre, was born in the Maconnois. He gave so many proofs of his courage and prudence in the service of Henry II., both in France and Italy, that that prince made him governor to the VOL. V.

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duke of Orleans, his second son, who afterwards reigned by the name of Charles IX. It is pretended, that if others had not spoiled the excellent education he gave that young prince, he would have proved a very great king. When Charles IX. came to the crown, it was thought proper, in order to do him the greater honour, to have always a prince of the blood with him, to observe his conduct, and they gave this post to the prince de la Roche sur Yon; but Cipierre was still continued in his employment. The two governors preserved a good understanding together; the prince yielded in many things to Cipierre, knowing him to be of as great a capacity as any lord in France. On the other hand, Cipierre, who was a very wise man, shewed a great deal of honour and respect for the prince, -and it was a pleasure to see those two governors maintaining their rank in a becoming manner near the king's person, one superior, the other a little inferior to him. Cipierre was created a knight of the order of St. Francis, in 1560. It is said that, finding himself seized with a mortal disease, and preparing to set out to Aix to drink the waters, he earnestly entreated the queen mother to pacify the difference between the Guises and the Colignis, and thereby to destroy the root of a faction, which would be in a condition to ruin the kingdom. He died at Liege, in September, 1565, without being able to reach the waters. Those of the reformed religion were ill satisfied with his conduct; they made very severe verses against him, both before and after his death.

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FRANCIS DE LORRAINE, duke of Guise, and of Aumale, a great general and party leader, was the eldest son of Claude de Lorraine, duke of Guise. He was born at the castle at Bar, in 1519, and early distinguished himself in arms. acquired great glory by defending Metz, in 1553, against the emperor Charles V., at the head of a powerful army. He obliged Charles to retreat after a siege of sixty-five days; and treated with a humanity unusual at that time, some of his soldiers disabled by the cold from following him. During this siege, a Spanish officer having written to him to request the restitution of one of his slaves who had fled into the city with a horse of value, the duke restored the horse, but refused to send back the man to slavery, alleging "that it would be a violation of the privileges of the kingdom, which consist in giving liberty to all who come thither to seek it." Henry II. afterwards declared him lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and afterwards entrusted him with all the authority of the crown. He justified this confidence by the important capture of Calais in the winter of 1558, which town had from the time of Edward III. been in the hands of the English, and had served as an entrance into France in the wars between the two countries. At the accession of Francis II., whose wife, Mary queen of Scots, was niece to the Guises, the duke, and his bro