[534] Relazioni Venete, ii. 175, 176.
[535] De Thou, i. 237, 245.
[536] A contemporary writer (apud De Thou, i. 237, note) pretends to cite the monarch's precise words. The current quatrain was the following:
Le feu roy devina ce poinct,
Que ceux de la maison de Guyse,
Mettroyent ses enfans en pourpoint,
Et son pauvre peuple en chemise.
Regnier de la Planche, Hist. de l'estat de France sous François II., éd. Panthéon lit., p. 261. The lines are given, with a few variations, by almost every history of the times; Recueil des choses mémorables, etc., 1565, p. 31; Mémoires de Condé, i. 533. De Thou is a firm believer in the truth of the vulgar report (ubi supra), and even Davila (Eng. trans. of Sir Charles Cottrell, 1678, p. 7) admits that later events have added much credit to the current belief.
[537] By arrangement with his elder brother Antoine (A. D. 1530), Claude received, as his portion of the paternal estate, four or five considerable seigniories enclosed within the territorial limits of France: Guise on the north, not far from the boundary of the Netherlands; Aumale and Elbeuf in Normandy; Mayenne in Maine, on the borders of Brittany; and Joinville, in Champagne, on the northeastern frontier of the kingdom; besides others of minor importance. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine (Nancy, 1752), v. 481, 482.
[538] De Thou draws no flattering sketch of his course: "Le dernier de ces deux prélats avoit eu beaucoup de part aux bonnes graces de François Ier, sans autre mérite que de s'être rendu utile à ses plaisirs et d'avoir su se distinguer par une libéralité folle et indiscrète, deux moyens par lesquels il avoit été assez heureux pour adoucir la juste indignation de ce prince contre son frère, Claude duc de Guise." Hist. univ., i. 523.
[539] Soldan, Gesch. des Protestantismus in Frankreich, i. 214. A still longer list is given by Dom Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, v. 482.
[540] In 1518. Abbé Migne, Dictionnaire des Cardinaux; table chronologique.
[541] Sir John Mason to Council, Feb. 23, 1551. State Paper Office.