each of them insatiable, yet never exhibiting a rivalry that
might prove detrimental to their common expectations--throw into
obscurity the surprising success of their father and uncle, by their own
marvellous prosperity. Scarcely had a third part of Henry's reign gone
by, before foreign ambassadors wrote home glowing accounts of the
influence of the younger favorites. "The credit of the house of Guise in
this court," said one, "passeth all others. For albeit the constable
hath the outward administration of all things, being for that service
such a man as hard it were to find the like, yet have they so much
credit _as he with whom he is constrained to sail_, and many times to
take that course that he liketh never a whit."[541] Francis, the eldest
son, known until his father's death as the Count of Aumale, and
afterward succeeding him as Duke of Guise, entered the inviting
profession of arms. The second son, Charles, chose the life of an
ecclesiastic, and soon assumed with respect to his brothers a commanding
position similar to that which John had occupied. At an early age he had
been elevated to the Archbishopric of Rheims, voluntarily ceded to him
by his uncle. Henry, soon after his accession, obtained from the pontiff
a place in the consistory for the young ecclesiastic, who then became
known as the Cardinal of Guise, and, after his uncle's death, in 1550,
as Cardinal of Lorraine. The four younger brothers respectively figured
in subsequent years as the Duke of Aumale, the Cardinal of Guise, the
Marquis of Elbeuf, and the Grand Prior of France.[542]

[Sidenote: Character of Francis.]

Francis of Guise, although but twenty-eight years of age, was already
regarded as a brilliant general and an accomplished courtier. Vain and
ostentatious, yet possessed of more real military ability than his
unfortunate Italian campaign of 1556 would seem to indicate, he won
laurels at Metz, at Calais, and at Thionville.[543] Outside of the
pursuits of war he was grossly ignorant, and in all civil and religious
matters he allowed himself to be governed by the advice of his brother
Charles. Even the Protestants, whom he so deeply injured, would for the
most part have acquiesced in the opinion of the cabinet minister, De
l'Aubespine, that the Duke of Guise was a captain capable of rendering
good service to his native land, had he not been hindered and infected
by his brother's ambition. It is the same trustworthy authority who
states th