[54] Horace del-Monte.

[55] Mezeray, vol. x. p. 123.

[56] Maintenon, Mem., Amsterdam, 1756, vol. ii. p. 115.

[57] Roger de St. Larry, Duc de Bellegarde, was the favourite of three successive sovereigns.  Henri III appointed him master of his wardrobe, and subsequently first gentleman of the chamber, and grand equerry.  Henri IV made him a knight of his Orders in 1595; and ultimately Louis XIII continued to him an equal amount of favour.  The preservation of Quilleboeuf, which he defended with great gallantry during the space of three weeks, with only forty-five soldiers and ten nobles, against the army of the Duc de Mayenne, acquired for him a renown which he never afterwards forfeited.

[58] Henri, Comte, and subsequently Duc, de Lude, was the last male representative of his family.  He was appointed grand-master of the artillery in 1669, and died without issue in 1685.

[59] Jean de St. Larry de Thermes, brother of the Duc d’Aiguillon.

[60] Jacques, Marquis de Castelnau, subsequently Marshal of France, who, in 1658, commanded the left wing of the army at the battle of the Dunes, and died the same year, at the early age of thirty-eight.

[61] Francois de Paule de Clermont, Marquis de Montglat, first maitre d’hotel to the King.

[62] M. de Frontenac was one of the officers of Henry IV who, before his accession to the throne of France (in 1576), had a quarrel with M. de Rosny, during which he told him that if he were to pull his nose, he could only draw out milk; a taunt to which the future minister replied by an assurance that he felt strong enough to draw blood out of that of his adversary with his sword.  The peculiarity of this quarrel existed in the fact that, although De Rosny was a Protestant, and Frontenac a Catholic, M. de Turenne nevertheless espoused the cause of the latter; upon which M. de Lavardin, a Catholic, declared himself ready to second the arms of the adverse party.

[63] Francois, Baron de Bassompierre, was the son of Christophe de Bassompierre and Louise de Radeval, and was born on the 12th of April 1579, at the chateau of Harouel, in Lorraine.  He became at an early age the intimate companion and favourite of Henri IV, by whom he was appointed colonel-general of the Swiss troops.  In the year 1603 he was made Marshal of France, and obtained great influence over both Marie de Medicis and her son Louis XIII.  Richelieu, who became jealous of his favour, caused him to be imprisoned in the Bastille in 1631, where he remained for twelve years.  He was an able diplomatist, a distinguished general, and a polished, though dissolute, courtier.  He acquitted himself with great distinction in several sieges, and at his death, which occurred in 1646, he bequeathed to posterity his personal memoirs, which are among the most curious in the rich collections possessed by his countrymen.

[64] Rambure, unpublished Mem., 1599, vol. i. pp. 151, 152.