mmoned Montmorency to court, and resigned to
him undisputed control of the affairs of state. The Venetian Dandolo,
sent to congratulate the monarch upon his advent to the throne,
felicitated the favorite on his merited resumption of his former rank
and the honor of the "_universal charge_" which he held.[533] He was now
all-powerful. The Duchess d'Etampes, mistress of the late king, to whose
influence his disgrace was in part owing, for this and other offences
was exiled from court and sent to the castle of her husband.[534]
Admiral Annebaut and the Cardinal of Tournon were removed from the head
of the administration. The former, of whose sterling worth Francis
entertained so high an appreciation that he had bequeathed to him the
sum of 100,000 livres, was compelled to resign his place as Marshal of
France in favor of a new favorite--Jacques d'Albon de St. Andre, of whom
more particular mention must be made presently.[535]

[Sidenote: The family of Guise.]

[Sidenote: Duke Claude.]

[Sidenote: The first Cardinal of Lorraine.]

Francis is reported to have included the family of Guise with Constable
Montmorency in the warning addressed to his son, and the story, received
by the people as an undoubted truth, circulated in a poetical form for
many years.[536] The Guises were of foreign extraction, and had but
recently become residents of France. Claude, the fifth son of the Duke
of Lorraine, at that time an independent state, came to the French
court, in the early part of the sixteenth century, in quest of
opportunities to advance his fortunes greater than were open to a
younger member of the reigning family in his father's contracted
dominions. Partly through the influence of Montmorency, partly in
consequence of his marriage with Antoinette of Bourbon, a princess of
royal blood, in some degree also by his own abilities, the young
foreigner was rapidly advanced, from the comparatively insignificant
position at first assigned him, to more important trusts. At length he
became royal lieutenant of the provinces of Champagne and Burgundy, and
his small domain of Guise was erected into a duchy.[537] His younger
brother John, who had entered the church as offering the most promising
road to the attainment of his ambitious designs, had also come westward;
and, proving to be a jovial companion whose presence imposed no
restraint upon the license of a profligate court, he fared even better
in securing ecclesiastical preferment