From such reproaches Guise gladly fled, to buckle on his armor and drive back an invasion of France by the Hispano-Flemings on the north. The services he now rendered his country made the people almost forget the infamy of their king, who was wasting life in his capital, and the oppressive imposts of the financial cardinal, whom the sufferers punningly designated as Cardinal _La Ruine_. The ruin he achieved was forgiven in consideration of the glory accomplished by his brother, who had defeated and destroyed the armies which threatened the capital from the north; and who had effected much greater glory by suddenly falling on Calais with a force of ten to one, and tearing from the English the last of the conquests till then held by them in France. Old Lord Wentworth, the governor, plied his artillery with a roar that was heard on the English coast: but the roar was all in vain. There was a proverb among our neighbors, and applied by them to every individual of mediocre qualifications, that “he was not the sort of man to drive the English out of France.” That man was found in Guise; and the capital began naturally to contrast him with the heartless king, who sat at the feet of a concubine, and recked little of the national honor or disgrace. And yet, the medals struck to commemorate the recovery of Calais bear the names only of Henri and Diana. They omit all mention of the great liberator, Guise! The faults of Henri, however, are not to be entirely attributed to himself. He had some feelings of compassion for the wretched but stout-hearted Huguenots, with whom, in the absence of Guise, he entered into treaties, which, Guise present, he was constrained to violate! In pursuit of the visions of dominion in France, and of the tiara at Rome, the ambitious house sought only to gain the suffrages of the church and the faithful. To win smiles from them, the public scaffolds were deluged with the blood of heretics; and all were deemed so who refused to doff their caps to the images of the virgin, raised in the highways at the suggestion of the duke and the cardinal. This terrific persecution begat remonstrance; but when remonstrance was treated as if it were rebellion, rebellion followed thereupon; as, perhaps, was hoped for; and the swords of the Guisards went flashing over every district in France, dealing death wherever dwelt the alleged enemies of God, who dared to commune with Him according to conscience, rather than according to Rome. Congregations, as at Vassi, were set upon and slaughtered in cold blood, without resistance. In the Huguenot “temple” of this last place was found a Bible. It was brought to the duke. This noble gentleman could spell no better than the great Duke of Marlborough; and Guise was, moreover, worse instructed in the faith which he professed. He looked into the Book of Life, unconscious of what he held, and with a wondering exclamation as to what it might be