The merry boy proved himself in course of time to be no unfitting instrument for this especial purpose. He was brought up at the French court, studied chivalry, and practised passages of arms with French knights; was the first up at _réveillée_, the last at a feast, the most devout at mass, and the most winning in ladies’ bower. The princes of the blood loved him, and so did the princesses. The army hailed him with delight; and the church beheld in him and his brother, Cardinal John, two of those champions whom it records with gladness, and canonizes with alacrity. Such was Claude of Lorraine, who won the heart and lands of Antoinette de Bourbon, and who received from Francis I. not only letters of naturalization, but the title of Duke of Guise. The locality so named is in Picardy. It had fallen to the house of Lorraine by marriage, and the dignity of Count which accompanied it was now changed for that of Duke. It was not long before Claude made the title famous. The sword of Guise was never from his grasp, and its point was unceasingly directed against the enemies of his new country. He shed his own blood, and spilled that of others, with a ferocious joy. Francis saw in him the warmest of his friends and the bravest of his soldiers. His bravery helped to the glory that was reaped at Marignan, at Fontarabia, and in Picardy. Against internal revolt or foreign invasion he was equally irresistible. _His_ sword drove back the Imperialists of Germany within their own frontier; and when on the night of Pavia the warriors of France sat weeping like girls amid the wide ruin around them, _his_ heart alone throbbed with hopeful impulses, and _his_ mind only was filled with bright visions of victories to come. These came indeed, but they were sometimes triumphs that earned for him an immortality of infamy. The crest of his house was a double cross, and this device, though it was no emblem of the intensity of religion felt by these who bore it, _was_ significant of the double sanguinary zeal of the family--a zeal employed solely for selfish ends. The apostolic reformers of France were, at this period, in a position of some power. Their preachers were in the pulpit, and their people in the field. They heard the gospel leaning on their swords; and, the discourse done, they rushed bravely into battle to defend what they had heard.