CATHARINE DE MEDICIS.

WITH all the faults of this execrable woman, we cannot help admiring her courage; for when at the fiege of Rouen, in 1562, fhe expofed herfelf like a common foldier to the cannonading of the town, and was reproved by the Duke of Guife and the Cardinal of Lorraine for thus risking the facred person of a Queen; fhe nobly replied, "Why fhould I fpare my perfon more than "you do? Is it because I have lefs intereft in "what is doing, or lefs courage than you? It is 66 true that I am not fo ftrong as you are, but I "am, I truft, as bold."

A medal was ftruck of her with the fame infcription as that on fome of the coins of the Roman Empreffes: "Catharina de Medicis Mater Caf

"trorum."

When one day fhe overheard fome of the foldiers abufing her extremely, the Cardinal of Lorraine faid he would order them immediately to be hung. "By no means," exclaimed the Princefs: "I wifh pofterity to know, that a

woman, a queen, and an Italian, has once in her "life got the better of her anger."

DUC DE GUISE,

CALLED LE BALAFRE, FROM A SCAR THAT HE HAD ON HIS CHEEK.

THE Marechal de Retz, in fpeaking of the Duke of Guife and of his brother, fays, "Ilş "avoient fi bonne mine, ces Princes Lorraines, "qu'apres d'eux les autres Princes paroiffoient « peuples."

The Chancellor of France, Le Tellier, used to tell this anecdote of M. De Guife :-The Duke was married to a Princess of Cleves, a woman of great beauty, and from living in a very gallant court, that of Catharine de Medicis, was fuppofed not to be infenfible to the paffion which a handsome young man of the name of St. Maigrin entertained for her. Catharine de Medicis having on fome. particular day invited the principal ladies at the court to a ball and supper, at which each of them was to be ferved by the young noblemen of the court, who were to be dreffed in the liveries of their mistreffes, the Duke very anxiously intreated the Duchefs not to be prefent, telling her that he did not in the least miftruft her virtue, but that as the Public had talked pretty freely about her and St. Maigrin, it was much better that the fhould

not

not go, and afford fresh matter for fcandal. The Duchess pleaded in excufe, that as the Queen had invited her to go, fhe could not poffibly refufe her. The Duchefs went to the entertainment, which lafted till fix o'clock in the morning. At that very late hour fhe returned home and went to bed. She had, however, fcarcely lain herself down in it, when she faw the door open very flowly, and the Duke of Guife enter the room, followed by an aged fervant, who carried a bason of broth in his hand. The Duke immediately locked the door, and coming up to the bed in a very deliberate manner, thus accofted her in a very firm and determined tone of voice: "Madam, "although you would not do last night what "I defired you, you fhall do it now. Your "dancing of last night has most probably heated

you a little; you must drink immediately this "bason of broth." The Duchess, suspecting it to be poifon, burft into a flood of tears, and begged hard that the Duke would permit her to fend for her Confeffor before fhe drank it, The Duke told her again that she muft drink it; and the Duchess, finding all refiftance to no purpose, swallowed the broth. As foon as he had done this, he went out of the room, having locked the door after him. In three or four hours afterwards the Duke again paid her a vifit, and, with an affected smile

upon his countenance, faid, "Madam, I am "afraid that you have spent your time very un

pleasantly fince I left you; I fear too that I "have been the caufe of this: judge then, "Madam, of all the time that you have made me "pafs as unpleafantly as this. Take comfort, "however; you have, I affure you, nothing to "fear. I am willing to believe, in my turn, "that I have nothing to be apprehenfive of "But however, in future, if you please, we will "avoid playing these tricks with one another."

The bodies of the Duke and of his brother the Cardinal were refufed to their mother, by the Monarch who had caufed them to be murdered: they were confumed by quick-lime immediately after the affaffination, and were buried in the church of the Dominican Convent at Eu in Normandy; where they are depofited under two monuments without any infcription.

The Duke of Guife's perfon was fo majestic, that when his fovereign, Henry the Third, caufed him to be maffacred in his prefence, he could not help exclaiming, as he faw him lying on the ground, "Mon Dieu, comme il eft grand, étant

"" mort!"

The Duke of Guife, on fetting out upon fome very dangerous expedition, was defired by his

brother,

brother, the Duke of Mayenne, to "deliberate maturely upon it before he engaged in it. "Brother," replied he, " be affured, that what I "was not able to refolve on in a quarter of an «hour, I fhould never refolve on, if I were to "spend my whole life in thinking upon it."

BARON D'ADRETS

was, during the celebrated League of France, Governor for the Huguenot Party in the city of Maçon in that kingdom. By way of amufing fome of his fair countrywomen, fome French ladies that he had with him at fupper, he threw headlong from the walls of his caftle, into the river Saone, the Catholic prifoners that were brought in, tied two together,

D'Aubigné calls him," inventeur de tous "cruautez, qui bouffonnoit en les exécutant-an "inventor of all kinds of cruelties, who ufed to "play the buffoon whilft he was executing them,"

He occafionally made his prifoners throw themfelves headlong from the battlements of a high tower upon the pikes of his foldiers. One of thefe unfortunate perfons having approached the battle

ments