up such a man; tie that other to a tree; pass him through the pikes instantly, or shoot before my face; cut me in pieces those scoundrels who hold out that steeple against the king; burn this village; set fire to the country for a quarter of a league round, and all this without any intermission of his paters till he had finished them, as he would have thought it a great sin to put them off for another hour, so tender was his conscience." This scrupulous devotion, and his intolerant zeal against heresy, have however, given him the epithet of a christian hero; and he prided himself in nothing more than in being the first christian baron of Europe. His great political maxim was," one faith, one law, one king;" and he steadily supported the royal authority, amid all the storms and vicissitudes of faction. As a general he had little success, yet he maintained the character of a great commander, which he deserved by a long series of useful and active services.

GABRIELLE DE BOURBON, daughter of count de Montpensier, was married, in 1485, to la Tremouille, who was killed at the battle of Marignano, 1515, and she died in 1560. Some published treatises remain as proofs of her great piety and devotion.

CLAUDE D'ANNEBAUT, of an ancient Norman family, was taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia. He was afterwards admiral and marshal in France, and died 1552.

ANTHONY DE MONTPEZAT, a Frenchman, taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia. His attention to Francis I., in his captivity, raised him to the rank of marshal of France. He died 1544.

FRANCIS of Bourbon, was taken prisoner at Pavia, with Francis I., but escaped. He died 1545, aged 55.

LAZARUS BAIF, a native of Pins, near la Keche, was employed by Francis I., as embassador to Venice, &c. He wrote some incoherent treatises, de re navali-de re vestiaria; and died in 1545.

OUDART du BIEZ, a native of Artois, who served under Francis I. His great bravery in the field of battle recommended him to the public favour. After being disgraced for surrendering Boulogne, he was restored to his rank, and died 1553.

PAUL DE LA BARTHE, lord of Thermes, of Conferans, served under Francis I. and his two successors. The victory of Cerizoles, in 1544, was attributed to his valour, and he acquired fresh glory at Saluces and Ravel. He afterwards passed into Scotland, to invade the English territories, and in 1551, was sent as ambassador to Rome, and headed the French forces in Italy. His capture of Dunkirk, and of St. Vernox, was followed by his defeat at Gravelines, in which he was taken prisoner. He died at Paris, 1562, aged 80.

PHILIP DE VILLIERS, de l' Isle Adam, a descendant of an ancient French family, was born in 1464, and erected grand master of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, in 1521. In the year after his election, the island of Rhodes, where he resided, was invaded by 200,000 Turks, against whom he defended it with such vigour, that sultan Soliman came in person to superintend the attack; and after a siege of six months, in which the Turks are said to have lost 100,000 men, he found it necessary to surrender it. Soliman treated him with great respect, declaring to one of his officers, that it was not without regret he obliged this christian to leave his house at his age. Abandoning Rhodes in 1523, with fifty vessels, his remaining knights, and about 4000 of the inhabitants, he arrived at Rome during the papacy of Clement VII., who assigned to him for a present residence the town of Viterbo. In 1527, the emperor Charles V., offered the island of Malta, which in a general chapter it was determined to accept. He then went to Syracuse, and in 1530 received the donation by letters-patent of Malta, Gozo, and Tripoli in Barbary. In this year he fortified Malta; and from that period, the knights of St. John, assumed the title of the knights of Malta. After a life distinguished by piety, courage, and prudence, he died in 1534, aged 70. Upon his tomb was inscribed this appropriate eulogy, "here reposes virtue, victorious over fortune.

JOHN D' ESTREES, grand master of the artillery of France, was born in 1486, of a respectable and ancient family. He first became page to Anne, queen of Brittany, and afterwards was employed by Francis I., and Henry II. He was a great improver of the French artillery. On the taking of Calais in 1558, and on several other occasions he gave signal proofs of skill and courage. It is said he was the first gentleman of Picardy who sanctioned the reformed religion. Brantome, in his Capitaines Francois, says, " that M. d' Estrees was one of the worthy men of his rank; without offence to others, and the most intrepid in trenches and batteries; for he went to them holding up his head, as if it had been to a hunting party in the fields, and the greater part of the time he went on horseback, mounted on a great German hack, above twenty years old, and as intrepid as his master; for as to carronades and arquebusades that were fired in the trench, neither the one nor the other ever lowered their heads for them; and he showed himself half the body high above the trench, for he was tall and conspicuous as well as his horse. He was the ablest man in the world in knowing the fittest spots for erecting a local battery, and in directing it best, accordingly. He was one of the confidents that Mons. de Guise wished to have about him for making conquests and taking towns, as he did at Calais. It was he who the first provided us with those fine founderies of

can.

artillery which we make use of to this day, and even of our cannon, which do not fear being fired a hundred times one after the other, as I may say, without bursting, without splitting, without breaking, as he proved in one before the king, when the first essay was made; but we do not choose to cram them in this manner, for we spare goodness as much as we Before this mode of casting, our cannon were not near so good, but a hundred times more fragile, and requiring to be very often refreshed with vinegar, which occasioned much more trouble. He was of a very large person, a fine and venerable old man, with a beard that reached down very low, and seemed to have been his old comrade in war in the days of yore, which he had all along made his profession, and where he learned to be somewhat cruel." Estrees died in 1567, at the age of eighty-one.

DIANA DE POICTIERS, Duchesse de Valentinois, born about 1496, and died 1566, so that she must have been at least forty years of age, when Henry II., at the age of eighteen, became so deeply attached to her; and though near sixty at the death of this prince, she had always maintained her ascendancy over him. She married, in 1541, Lewis de Breze, at that time grand marshal of Normandy; and married her daughters very advantageously, the second to the prince de Sandan. In 1549, she was made duchess de Valentinois. In 1552 she nursed the queen in a dangerous illness, notwithstanding she did not love her. She preferred the interest of the state to the aggrandizement of her family, and she loved the glory of her king. Her charities were immense; and every man distinguished for genius was sure of her support. Yet, towards the end of the reign of Henry, she did not make so good use of her power, for she persuaded him to break the truce with Spain, which was the source of many evils to France. She had done this at the instigation of the cardinal of Lorraine, who, with the rest of the Guises no sooner saw the event, than they leagued with the queen Catharine de Medicis, to ruin Diana, if she would consent to the marriage of her niece, Mary, queen of Scots, to the dauphin. This was done, and the duchess remained without support; but she lost not her firmness; and on the return of the king, he promised to inform her of all the plots of her enemies. But he died of a wound received in a tournament, 1558, when he wore her colours, black and white, for it was then the custom for widows always to remain in mourning. Catharine sent her an order to deliver up the royal jewels, and retire to one of her castles. "Is the king dead?" said she. "No, madam, but he cannot live till night." "Well then," said she, "I have as yet no master. And when he shall be no more I fear them not. Should I be so unfortunate as to survive him for any length of

time, I shall be too wretched to be sensible of their malice." Catharine, however, was persuaded not to persecute the duchess, who in gratitude made her a present of a superb mansion, situated among the lands belonging to the queen's dowry; and Catharine, in return, gave her another. Diana retired to Anet, but was recalled, in 1561, by Catharine, to detach the constable from his nephews, the Chatillons; which service she performed, as she had the greatest influence over his mind. She was sixty years old at the time of her death. She was tall, had very black curling hair, and a white skin, beautiful teeth, a fine form, and a noble mien.

"Six months before her death," says Brantome, "I saw her so handsome, that no heart of adamant would have been insensible of her charms, though she had some time before broke one of her legs upon the paved stones of Orleans. She had been riding on horseback, and kept her seat as dextrously and well as she had ever done. One would have expected, that the pain of such an accident, would have made some alteration at least in her lovely face: but this was not the case; she was as beautiful, graceful, and handsome, in every respect, as she had always been." She was the only mistress, I believe, whose medal was struck. "M. Pierre," says l'Etoile," sent me the model of the duchess de Valentinois, struck in copper; on one side is her effigy, with this inscription, Diana, Dux Valentinorum clarissima; and on the reverse, Omnium Victorum vici, I have conquered the conqueror of all. I believe it was the city of Lyons, where this duchess was much beloved, that caused this medal to be struck, and that the inscription applied to Henry II., who had another medal struck in 1552, where she is represented under the figure of Diana, with these words, Nomen ad Astra. The Henry and Diana with crescents, that is to say, the H.'s and D.'s, which were cyphered in the Louvre, are still greater proofs of the passion of this prince." She told Henry II., who wished to acknowledge a daughter he had by her, "I was born of a family, the old counts of Poictiers, which entitled me to have had legitimate children by you; I have been your mistress, because I loved you; but I will not suffer any arrêt to declare me so." She was fond of exercise, and enjoyed uninterrupted health.

ANTHONY DUPRAT, an eminent French statesmen, and cardinal, descended of a noble family of Issoires, in Auvergne. He became president of the parliament of Paris, and chancellor of France, in which situations he increased the public burthens, and advised Francis I. to settle the concordat, by which the pope bestowed on the king the nomination to bishoprics, while the latter granted to his holiness the annats of the great benefices. Duprat, on entering into orders, rose to the archbishopric of Sens, and the rank of cardinal. It is asserted, that

the fortune and fame of Duprat, was occasioned by a singular and daring adventure. Observing that his pupil, the count de Angouleme, was affected with the charms of Mary, sister of Henry VIII., king of England, the young and beautiful wife of the infirm Louis XII.; and discovering that the queen had made an appointment with the young prince, who approached her during the night, by a back staircase; just at the moment he was entering Mary's apartment, he was suddenly seized by a stout man, who carried him off confounded and speechless. This man was Duprat, who immediately made himself known

to the prince. "What!" said he sharply, "You want to give yourself a master! and you are going to sacrifice a throne to the pleasure of a moment!" The count received the lesson in good temper; and presently after, on coming to the throne, gave Duprat proofs of his gratitude. Duprat died July 9, 1535, corroded by remorse, and consumed by diseases. In all he did, he sought his own interests, to them he sacrificed all other things. He severed the interests of the king from the welfare of the public, and promoted animosities between the council and the king. His exit excited no regret from his slavish adherents. He built, at the Hotel Dieu of Paris, the hall still called the Legate's Hall. "It would have been much larger," said the king, "if it could contain all the poor he has made."

BURGUNDY.

CHARLES, duke of Burgundy, surnamed the Bold and the Rash, the son of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, by Isabella of Portugal, was born at Dijon in 1433. The people of Liege having revolted, Charles marched an army against them, and severely chastised the town of Dinant, putting to death all the adult males, after plundering and burning the place. In 1467, by the death of his father, he succeeded to the dukedom, at that time comprising all the rich and populous provinces of the Netherlands, as well as Burgundy proper. He was therefore one of the most powerful princes of the age; and might have lived in honour and prosperity, had he not been hurried by ambition, and the natural violence of his temper, to dangerous and unjust attacks on his neighbours. His rival Lewis XI., who was of a very different disposition, was continually intriguing against him, and taking advantage of his mistakes. At first, however, success attended most of the enterprises of Charles. In a second revolt of the Liegeois he gave them an entire defeat at St. Tron, and reduced them to a state of complete humiliation. This, however, did not prevent them from meditating a new rebellion, to which they were secretly solicited by Lewis. That prince, politic and suspicious as he