u, had been a celebrated Leaguer
and brigand. From the year 1597 he had held, in the name of the Duc de
Mercoeur, the fort of Douarnenez in Brittany, and the island of Tristain
in which it is situated. Since that period he had continually been
guilty of acts of piracy upon the English, and had even extended his
system of theft and murder indiscriminately both on sea and land. He
might, had he been willing so to do, have profited by the benefit of the
edict accorded to the Duc de Mercoeur in 1598, but he affected to hold
it as a point of honour to obtain a distinct one for himself, and he
even appears to have continued in the enjoyment of his government
despite this obstinacy; but having been convicted, during a period of
profound peace, of maintaining an intelligence with the Spaniards, he
was made prisoner by a stratagem, by Nicolas Rapin, provost of the
connetablie (or constable's jurisdiction), as an accomplice of the Duc
de Biron, as he was on the point of delivering up both the fort and the
island to his dangerous allies.

[204] L'Etoile, vol. x. pp. 36, 37.

[205] Charles de Lorraine, Duc de Mayenne, was the second son of
Francois de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, and was born in 1554. He
distinguished himself at the sieges of Poitiers and La Rochelle, and at
the battle of Montcontour, and fought successfully against the
Calvinists in Guienne and Saintonge. His brothers having been killed at
the States of Blois in 1588, he declared himself chief of the League,
and assumed the title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom and crown of
France; and by virtue of this self-created authority, caused the
Cardinal de Bourbon to be declared King, under the name of Charles X.
Having inherited the hatred of his brothers for Henri III, and his
successor Henri IV, he marched eighty thousand men against the latter
Prince, but was defeated, both at Arques and Ivry. He annihilated the
faction of the Sixteen; and was ultimately compelled to effect a
reconciliation with the King in 1599, when Henri IV, with his usual
clemency, not only pardoned his past opposition, but bestowed upon him
the government of the Isle of France. The Duc de Mayenne died in 1611,
leaving by his wife, Henriette de Savoie, daughter of the Comte de
Tende, one son, Henri, who died without issue in 1621.

[206] Charles de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, born in 1571, was the son of
Henri, Duc de Guise, who was assassinated at the States of Blois in
1588. At the period of his