For love and bravery, this Guise was unequalled. He conquered all his foes, and made vows to all the ladies. In love he lost, however, all the fruits of bravery. Naples was but a mock Sardanapalian court, when the Spaniards at length mustered strongly enough to attack the new, bold, but enervated King. They took him captive, and held him, during four years, a prisoner in Spain. He gained liberty by a double lie, the common coin of Guise. He promised to reveal to the Court of Madrid the secrets of the Court of Paris; and bound himself by bond and oath never to renew his attempt on Naples. His double knavery, however, brought him no profit. At length, fortune seeming to disregard the greatness of his once highly-favored house, this restless reprobate gradually sunk into a mere court beau, passing his time in powdering his peruke, defaming reputations, and paying profane praise to the patched and painted ladies of the palace. He died before old age, like most of the princes of his house: and in his fiftieth year this childless man left his dignity and an evil name to his nephew, Louis Joseph. The sixth Duke bore his greatness meekly and briefly. He was a kind-hearted gentleman, whose career of unobtrusive usefulness was cut short by small-pox in 1671. When he died, there lay in the next chamber an infant in the cradle. This was his little son Joseph, not yet twelve months old, and all unconscious of his loss, in a father; or of his gain, in a somewhat dilapidated coronet. On his young brow that symbol of his earthly rank rested during only four years. The little Noble then fell a victim to the disease which had carried off his sire, and made of himself a Duke--the last, the youngest, the most innocent, and the happiest of the race. During a greater portion of the career of the Dukes, priest and swordsman in the family had stood side by side, each menacing to the throne; the one in knightly armor, the other in the dread panoply of the Church. Of the seven ducal chieftains of the house, there is only one who can be said to have left behind him a reputation for harmlessness; and perhaps that was because he lived at a time when he had not the power to be offensive. The boy on the mule, in 1506, and the child in the cradle, in 1676, are two pleasant extremes of a line where all between is, indeed, fearfully attractive, but of that quality also which might make not only men but angels weep.