"The king sent to tell Madame de Valentinois," writes the Venetian ambassador, "that for her evil influence (_mali officii_) over the king his father she would deserve heavy chastisement; but, in his royal clemency, he did not wish to disquiet her any further; she must, nevertheless, restore to him all the jewels given her by the king his father." "To bend Catherine de' Medici, Diana was also obliged," says De Thou, "to give up her beautiful house at Chenonceaux on the Cher, and she received in exchange the castle of Chaumont on the Loire." The Guises obtained all the favors of the court at the same time that they were invested with all the powers of the state.
In order to give a good notion of Duke Francis of Guise and his brother the Cardinal of Lorraine, the two heads of the house, we will borrow the very words of those two men of their age who had the best means of seeing them close and judging them correctly, the French historian De Thou and the Venetian ambassador John Micheli.

"The Cardinal of Lorraine," says De Thou, "was of an impetuous and violent character; the Duke of Guise, on the contrary, was of a gentle and moderate disposition.

But as ambition soon overleaps the confines of restraint and equity, he was carried away by the violent counsels of the cardinal, or else surrendered himself to them of his own accord, executing with admirable prudence and address the plans which were always chalked out by his brother." The Venetian ambassador enters into more precise and full details.

"The cardinal," he says, "who is the leading man of the house, would be, by common consent, if it were not for the defects of which I shall speak, the greatest political power in this kingdom.

He has not yet completed his thirty-seventh year; he is endowed with a marvellous intellect, which apprehends from half a word the meaning of those who converse with him; he has an astonishing memory, a fine and noble face, and a rare eloquence which shows itself freely on any subject, but especially in matters of politics.