FRANCIS OF LORRAINE, 2nd duke of Guise (1519-1563), "le grand Guise," was born at Bar on the 17th of February 1519. As count of Aumale he served in the French army, and was nearly killed at the siege of Boulogne in 1545 by a wound which brought him the name of "Balafre." Aumale was made (1547) a peerage-duchy in his favour, and on the accession of Henry II. the young duke, who had paid assiduous court to Diane de Poitiers, shared the chief honours of the kingdom with the constable Anne de Montmorency. Both cherished ambitions for their families, but the Guises were more unscrupulous in subordinating the interests of France to their own. Montmorency's brutal manners, however, made enemies where Guise's grace and courtesy won him friends. Guise was a suitor for the hand of Jeanne d'Albret, princess of Navarre, who refused, however, to become a sister-in-law of a daughter of Diane de Poitiers and remained one of the most dangerous and persistent enemies of the Guises. He married in December 1548 Anne of Este, daughter of Ercole II., duke of Ferrara, and through her mother Renee, a granddaughter of Louis XII. of France. In the same year he had put down a peasant rising in Saintonge with a humanity that compared very favourably with the cruelty shown by Montmorency to the town of Bordeaux. He made preparations in Lorraine for the king's German campaign of 1551-52. He was already governor of Dauphine, and now became grand chamberlain, prince of Joinville, and hereditary seneschal of Champagne, with large additions to his already considerable revenues. He was charged with the defence of Metz, which Henry II. had entered in 1551. He reached the city in August 1552, and rapidly gave proof of his great powers as a soldier and organizer by the skill with which the place, badly fortified and unprovided with artillery, was put in a state of defence. Metz was invested by the duke of Alva in October with an army of 60,000 men, and the emperor joined his forces in November. An army of brigands commanded by Albert of Brandenburg had also to be reckoned with. Charles was obliged to raise the siege on the 2nd of January 1553, having lost, it is said, 30,000 men before the walls. Guise used his victory with rare moderation and humanity, providing medical care for the sick and wounded left behind in the besiegers' camp. The subsequent operations were paralysed by the king's suspicion and carelessness, and the constable's inactivity, and a year later Guise was removed from the command. He followed the constable's army as a volunteer, and routed the army of Charles V. at the siege of Renty on the 12th of August 1554. Montmorency's inaction rendered the victory fruitless, and a bitter controversy followed between Guise and the constable's nephew Coligny, admiral of France, which widened a breach already existing.