a small town of France, in the department of Aisne, and in Tierache, with a very strong castle, and the title of a duchy. It is seated on the river Oise, in E. Long. 3. 42. N. Lat. 49. 54.

Henry, of Lorraine, duke of Guise, eldest son of Francois of Lorraine duke of Guise, memorable in the history of France as a gallant officer; but an impious, turbulent, seditious subject, who placed himself at the head of an armed force, and called his rebel band The League. The plan was formed by the cardinal, his younger brother; and under the pretext of defending the Roman Catholic religion, the king Henry III. and the freedom of the state, against the design of the Huguenots, or French Protestants, they carried on a civil war, massacred the Huguenots, and governed the king, who forbid his appearance at Paris; but Guise now became an open rebel, entered the city against the king's express order, and put to the sword all who opposed him; the streets being barricaded to prevent his progress, this fatal day is called in the French history, The day of the barricades. Masters of Paris, the policy of the Guises failed them: for they suffered the king to escape to Blois, though he was deserted in his palace at Paris by his very guards. At Blois, Henry convened an assembly of the states of France; the duke of Guise had the boldness to appear to a summons sent him for that purpose: a forced reconciliation took place between him and the king, by the advice of this assembly; but it being accidentally discovered, that Guise had formed a design to dethrone the king, that weak monarch, instead of resolutely bringing him to justice, had him privately assassinated, December 23, 1588, in the 38th year of his age. His brother the cardinal shared the same fate the next day.