When Henri III. caused the
death of the second Balafre, whose life was a menace to him, the house
of Guise was necessarily ruined. The costs of endeavoring to seize the
crown during a whole century will explain the lowered position of this
great house during the reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., when the
sudden death of MADAME told all Europe the infamous part which a
Chevalier de Lorraine had debased himself to play.
Calling themselves the heirs of the dispossessed Carolovingians, the
duke and cardinal acted with the utmost insolence towards Catherine
de' Medici, the mother-in-law of their niece. The Duchesse de Guise
spared her no mortification. This duchesse was a d'Este, and Catherine
was a Medici, the daughter of upstart Florentine merchants, whom the
sovereigns of Europe had never yet admitted into their royal
fraternity. Francois I. himself has always considered his son's
marriage with a Medici as a mesalliance, and only consented to it
under the expectation that his second son would never be dauphin.
Hence his fury when his eldest son was poisoned by the Florentine
Montecuculi.
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