e Emperor, and make
conquests across the German border. He called himself Protector of the
Liberties of the Germans, and leagued himself with them, seizing Metz,
which the Duke of Guise bravely defended when the Emperor tried to
retake it. This seizure of Metz was the first attempt of France to make
conquests in Germany, and the beginning of a contest between the French
and German peoples which has gone on to the present day. After the siege
a five years' truce was made, during which Charles V. resigned his
crowns. His brother had been already elected to the Empire, but his son
Philip II. became King of Spain and Naples, and also inherited the Low
Countries. The Pope, Paul IV., who was a Neapolitan, and hated the
Spanish rule, incited Henry, a vain, weak man, to break the truce and
send one army to Italy, under the Duke of Guise, while another attacked
the frontier of the Netherlands. Philip, assisted by the forces of his
wife, Mary I. of England, met this last attack with an army commanded by
the Duke of Savoy. It advanced into France, and besieged St. Quentin.
The French, under the Constable of Montmorency, came to relieve the
city, and were utterly defeated, the Constable himself being made
prisoner. His nephew, the Admiral de Coligny, held out St. Quentin to
the last, and thus gave the country time to rally against the invader;
and Guise was recalled in haste from Italy. He soon after surprised
Calais, which was thus restored to the French, after having been held
by the English for two hundred years. This was the only conquest the
French retained when the final peace of Cateau Cambresis was made in the
year 1558, for all else that had been taken on either side was then
restored. Savoy was given back to its duke, together with the hand of
Henry's sister, Margaret. During a tournament held in honour of the
wedding, Henry II. was mortally injured by the splinter of a lance, in
1559; and in the home troubles that followed, all pretensions to Italian
power were dropped by France, after wars which had lasted sixty-four
years.

CHAPTER V.

THE WARS OF RELIGION.

1. The Bourbons and Guises.--Henry II. had left four sons, the eldest
of whom, _Francis II._, was only fifteen years old; and the country was
divided by two great factions--one headed by the Guise family, an
offshoot of the house of Lorraine; the other by the Bourbons, who, being
descended in a direct male line from a younger son of St. Louis, were
the