e Bresteau,
Seigneur de Persigny, etc., was the son of Rene de Laval, second of the
name, Seigneur de Bois-Dauphin, and of Jeanne de Lenoncourt-Monteuil,
his second wife. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Ivry, and was
created Marshal of France by the Due de Mayenne. Henri IV confirmed him
in this dignity, and restored to him his estates of Sably and
Chateau-Gontier.

[347] Jean de Beaumanoir, Marquis de Lavardin, was the son of Charles de
Beaumanoir, who was killed at the massacre of St. Bartholomew. He had
been brought up a Protestant at the Court of Henri IV, when that monarch
was King of Navarre; but after the death of his father he embraced the
Catholic religion, and at the age of eighteen commenced the career of
arms, in which profession he acquired so much celebrity that he
commanded the armies of the King during the absence of the Duc de
Joyeuse. In 1595 he was honoured with the cordon of St. Michael, was
created a Marshal of France, and his estate of Lavardin was erected into
a marquisate. At the coronation of Louis XIII he officiated as Grand
Master, was subsequently ambassador-extraordinary in England, and died
at Paris in 1614.

[348] Hercule de Rohan, Duc de Montbazon, and Prince de Guemenee, was
born in 1568, and was the father, by his first marriage, of Marie de
Rohan, who married Louis Charles d'Albert, Duc de Luynes, from whom she
was divorced in 1621, and who subsequently became the wife of Claude de
Lorraine, Duc de Chevreuse. The Duc de Montbazon had issue by his second
marriage with Marie d'Avaugour of Brittany in 1628, Francois, a branch
of the house of Soubise, which became extinct in 1787; Marie Eleonore,
abbess of the convent of the Trinity at Caen; and Anne, who became the
second wife of Louis Charles d'Albert, Duc de Luynes. M. de Montbazon
died in 1654.

[349] Diane de France, Duchesse d'Angouleme, born in 1538, was the
legitimated daughter of Henri II and Philippa Duco, a Piedmontese lady.
She was first married (in 1553)to Horatio Farnese, Duc de Castro, who
only survived their union six months; and subsequently to the Marechal
de Montmorency, the son of the Connetable, in 1557, of whom she became
the widow in 1579. Her firmness and prudence were conspicuous during the
civil wars, and it was through her exertions that the reconciliation was
effected between Henri III and Henri IV, when the latter was King of
Navarre. She died in 1619.

[350] The Prince de Vaudemont was the brother