GUIRAUD, ERNEST (1837-1892), French composer, was born at New Orleans on the 26th of June 1837. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where he won the grand prix de Rome. His father had gained the same distinction many years previously, this being the only instance of both father and son obtaining this prize. Ernest Guiraud composed the following operas: Sylvie (1864); Le Kobold (1870), Madame Turlupin (1872), Piccolino (1876), Galante Aventure (1882), and also the ballet Gretna Green, given at the Opéra in 1873. His opera Frédégonde was left in an unfinished condition and was completed by Camille Saint-Saëns. Guiraud, who was a fellow-student and intimate friend of Georges Bizet, was for some years professor of composition at the Conservatoire. He was the author of an excellent treatise on instrumentation. He died in Paris on the 6th of May 1892.
GUISBOROUGH, or Guisbrough, a market town in the Cleveland parliamentary division of the North Riding of Yorkshire, England, 10 m. E.S.E. of Middlesbrough by a branch of the North-Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 5645. It is well situated in a narrow, fertile valley at the N. foot of the Cleveland Hills. The church of St Nicholas is Perpendicular, greatly restored. Other buildings are the town hall, and the modern buildings of the grammar school founded in 1561. Ruins of an Augustinian priory, founded in 1129, are beautifully situated near the eastern extremity of the town. The church contains some fine Decorated work, and the chapter house and parts of the conventual buildings may be traced. Considerable fragments of Norman and transitional work remain. Among the historic personages who were buried within its walls was Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale, the competitor for the throne of Scotland with John Baliol, and the grandfather of King Robert the Bruce. About 1 m. S.E. of the town there is a sulphurous spring discovered in 1822. The district neighbouring to Guisborough is rich in iron-stone. Its working forms the chief industry of the town, and there are also tanneries and breweries.
GUISE, a town of northern France, in the department of Aisne, on the Oise, 31 m. N. of Laon by rail. Pop. (1906), 7562. The town was formerly the capital of the district of Thiérache and afterwards of a countship (see below). There is a château dating in part from the middle of the 16th century. Camille Desmoulins was in 1762 born in the town, which has erected a statue to him. The chief industry is the manufacture of iron stoves and heating apparatus, carried on on the co-operative system in works founded by J. B. A. Godin, who built for his workpeople the huge buildings known as the familistère, in front of which stands his statue. A board of trade-arbitration is among the public institutions.
GUISE, HOUSE OF, a cadet branch of the house of Lorraine (q.v.). René II., duke of Lorraine (d. 1508), united the two branches of the house of Lorraine. From his paternal grandmother, Marie d’Harcourt, René inherited the countships of Aumale, Mayenne, Elbeuf, Lillebonne, Brionne and other French fiefs, in addition to the honours of the elder branch, which included the countship of Guise, the dowry of Marie of Blois on her marriage in 1333 with Rudolph or Raoul of Lorraine. René’s eldest surviving son by his marriage with Philippa, daughter of Adolphus of Egmont, duke of Gelderland, was Anthony, who succeeded his father as duke of Lorraine (d. 1544), while the second, Claude, count and afterwards duke of Guise, received the French fiefs. The Guises, though naturalized in France, continued to interest themselves in the fortunes of Lorraine, and their enemies were always ready to designate them as foreigners. The partition between the brothers Anthony and Claude was ratified by a further agreement in 1530, reserving the lapsed honours of the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily, Aragon, the duchy of Anjou and the countships of Provence and Maine to the duke of Lorraine. Of the other sons of René II., John (1498-1550) became the first cardinal of Lorraine, while Ferri, Louis and Francis fell fighting in the French armies at Marignano (1515), Naples (1528) and Pavia (1525) respectively.
Claude of Lorraine, count and afterwards 1st duke of Guise (1496-1550), was born on the 20th of October 1496. He was educated at the French court, and at seventeen allied himself to the royal house of France by a marriage with Antoinette de Bourbon (1493-1583) daughter of François, Count of Vendôme. Guise distinguished himself at Marignano (1515), and was long in recovering from the twenty-two wounds he received in the battle; in 1521 he fought at Fuenterrabia, when Louise of Savoy ascribed the capture of the place to his efforts; in 1522 he defended northern France, and forced the English to raise the siege of Hesdin; and in 1523 he obtained the government of Champagne and Burgundy, defeating at Neufchâteau the imperial troops who had invaded his province. In 1525 he destroyed the Anabaptist peasant army, which was overrunning Lorraine, at Lupstein, near Saverne (Zabern). On the return of Francis I. from captivity, Guise was erected into a duchy in the peerage of France, though up to this time only princes of the royal house had held the title of duke and peer of France. The Guises, as cadets of the sovereign house of Lorraine and descendants of the house of Anjou, claimed precedence of the Bourbon princes. Their pretensions and ambitions inspired distrust in Francis I., although he rewarded Guise’s services by substantial gifts in land and money. The duke distinguished himself in the Luxemburg campaign in 1542, but for some years before his death he effaced himself before the growing fortunes of his sons. He died on the 12th of April 1550.
He had been supported in all his undertakings and intrigues by his brother John, cardinal of Lorraine (1498-1550), who had been made coadjutor of Metz at the age of three. The cardinal was archbishop of Reims, Lyons and Narbonne, bishop of Metz, Toul, Verdun, Thérouanne, Luçon, Albi, Valence, Nantes and Agen, and before he died had squandered most of the wealth which he had derived from these and other benefices. Part of his ecclesiastical preferments he gave up in favour of his nephews. He became a member of the royal council in 1530, and in 1536 was entrusted with an embassy to Charles V. Although a complaisant helper in Francis I.’s pleasures, he was disgraced in 1542, and retired to Rome. He died at Nogent-sur-Yonne on the 18th of May 1550. He was extremely dissolute, but as an open-handed patron of art and learning, as the protector and friend of Erasmus, Marot and Rabelais he did something to counter-balance the general unpopularity of his calculating and avaricious brother.