Blaise de Monluc

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Blaise de Montluc
Order of Saint Michael
Blaise-monluc.jpg
Blaise de Montluc, circa 1574; the dots show the location of the injury in 1570 which destroyed his nose and one of his cheeks
Lieutenant-General of Guyenne
In office
1562–1567
Military governor of Siena
In office
February 1554 – April 1555
Military governor of Moncalieri
In office
March 1548 – September 1549
Personal details
Born1500-1502
Saint-Puy
Died24 July 1577
Château de Monluc, Estillac
NationalityFrench
Spouse(s)(1) Antoinette Ysalguier (died 1562); (2) Isabeau de Beauville
Children(1) Four sons, three daughters; (2) Three daughters
Residence(s)Château de Monluc
OccupationSoldier
Military service
RankMarshal of France 1574
Battles/warsItalian Wars
Pavia 1525; Naples 1528  (WIA); Defence of Marseille 1536; Perpignan 1542; Ceresole 1544; Boulogne 1546; Siege of Siena 1555; Thionville 1558
French Wars of Religion
Vergt 1562

Blaise de Montluc, also known as Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Montluc, (c. 1502 – 26 July 1577) was a professional soldier appointed marshal of France in 1574. Written between 1570 and 1576, an account of his life titled Commentaires de Messire Blaise de Montluc was published in 1592, and remains an important historical source for 16th century warfare.

Born into a family of impoverished Gascon nobility, he rose to prominence during the Italian Wars and was appointed Lieutenant-General of Guyenne in January 1562, shortly before the outbreak of the French Wars of Religion. Fighting for the French crown, he soon gained a reputation as a brutal but effective commander, winning the critical Battle of Vergt in 1562. Badly injured during the Third Civil War in July 1570, he was dismissed for alleged corruption soon after, before being restored to favour in 1574.

Personal details[]

The "Château de Monluc", in Estillac, which Montluc inherited from his mother

Blaise de Montluc was born sometime between 1500 to 1502 in Saint-Puy, eldest son of François de Lasseran-Massencômes, seigneur de Montluc, who held lands in different parts of Gascony, and his first wife, Françoise de Mondenard, Dame d'Estillac, from whom he inherited the family chateau. Suggestions the Lasseran-Massencômes were a cadet branch of the more significant Montesquiou family are disputed.[1]

He had a full brother Jean de Monluc, later Bishop of Valence, as well as five half-sisters and five half-brothers from his fathers second marriage. Little is known of them, other than Joachim de Montluc, another soldier whose pillaging of the Dordogne in 1537 was still remembered three centuries later.[2]

Montluc also married twice, the first time to Antoinette Ysalguier (1505-1562), daughter of the Baron de Clermont. They had three daughters, Françoise, Marguerite and Marie, along with four sons, three of whom died on active service; the eldest, Marc-Antoine, at Ostia in 1557, Pierre-Bertrand (1539-1566), killed on an expedition to Madeira, while Fabian, the youngest, died during the siege of Nogaro in 1573. Jean, his third son, joined the Knights Hospitaller.[3] His second marriage to Isabeau de Beauville produced another three daughters, Charlotte, Suzanne and Jeanne.

Career[]

Italian Wars[]

As was then common for the sons of gentry, in 1512 Montluc entered the service of Antoine, Duke of Lorraine as a page, before joining the ducal army at the age of 14. He later claimed to have served under Bayard in Italy but the dates and his age make this unlikely.[4] At the beginning of the Four Years War in 1521, he enlisted as an archer in a company raised by Lescun, a distant relative. After four years of minor skirmishes, he was captured at Pavia in 1525; a decisive French defeat, he was too poor to be worth a ransom and released. During the War of the League of Cognac, he fought in southern Italy under Lautrec, and was badly wounded at the unsuccessful Siege of Naples in 1528.[5]

Montluc returned home and spent the next three years serving Henry II of Navarre, before joining the "Legion de Languedoc" in 1534, part of an attempt by Francis I to create a national army.[6] In the Italian War of 1536–1538, the latest episode of the long-running conflict between Francis and Emperor Charles V, he helped defend Marseille when Imperial troops invaded Provence in 1536.[7] He spent the next five years on garrison duty in Piedmont and when the war started again in 1542 took part in the unsuccessful attack on Perpignan, then part of Spain. In his "Memoires", Montluc later claimed the failure was because his advice on siege operations was not adopted.[8]

and was knighted after the Battle of Ceresole in April 1544, where he served as an adviser to Francis, Count of Enghien. He would further this success during the defence of Siena in 1555, while his conduct during the 1558 Thionville saw him promoted to colonel-général of France’s infantry and secure a position within the clientele of the powerful Guise family. In addition, his brother Jean was a prominent diplomat who was close to the Queen Mother, Catherine de' Medici.

French Wars of Religion[]

Despite being a Roman Catholic bishop, his brother was sympathetic to the Protestant Reformation in France, and in 1561 supported the Huguenot leader Condé in his request for freedom of worship.[9] Many of the Gascon nobility had converted to Protestantism, and Montluc received religious instruction from Theodore Beza, but ultimately rejected the religion.[10] In his "Memoires", he claimed its emphasis on freedom of conscience above obedience to Royal authority made Protestantism inherently seditious,[11] but he may also have decided his personal interests were better served by supporting the Catholic faith.[5]

In late 1561, Charles IX of France appointed him Lieutenant-General of Guyenne, charged with restoring Royal authority in the province; shortly after this, the French Wars of Religion broke out.[12] By his own admission, Montluc conducted himself with great brutality, later claiming cruelty was an essential part of warfare. In the early stages of the war, he executed hundreds of Protestants, including the garrisons of Montségur and Terraube, and expressed regret lack of money forced him to ransom captured officers, rather than kill them.[13] [a] His victory at Vergt in October 1562 prevented Huguenot forces in southern France from reinforcing their colleagues north of the Loire.[15]

While fighting in the Third French War of Religion in July 1570, he was shot in the face by an arquebus, losing his nose and most of one cheek; he was forced to wear a mask for the rest of his life.[5]

After nearly half a century of service to the crown, Henry III made him marshal of France in 1574. He died at Estillac near Agen three years later.

Works[]

Montluc's literary fame derives from his Commentaires de Messire Blaise de Montluc, written between 1570 and 1576 and published after his death in 1592, which describes his fifty years of service from 1521 to 1570. Originally intended to defend his reputation against accusations of corruption, it gradually expanded into a combined autobiography and military instruction manual.[16]

Called the "soldier's Bible" by Henry of Navarre, it is one of many similar memoirs from this period, which include works by Beza, Tavannes and Jacques Auguste de Thou. Divided into seven volumes, the first four relate to the campaigns in Italy, ranging from the early 1530s to the French recovery of Thionville in 1558; the final three deal with his appointment as lieutenant du roi in Guyenne and his efforts to re-establish Royal authority. His memoirs are "an important source of evidence for these events, an eye-witness account of troubled times".[17]

As a result of his injuries, Montluc condemned the development of the infantry firearm saying:

"Would to heaven that this accursed engine [the arquebus] had never been invented, I had not then received those wounds which I now languish under, neither had so many valiant men been slain for the most part by the most pitiful fellows and the greatest cowards..."[18]

Notes[]

  1. ^ “Had the King paid his companies I should not have suffered ransom to have been in use in this quarrel. It is not...as in a foreign war where men fight for love and honour. In a civil war we must either be master or man, being we live as it were, all under a roof.”[14]

References[]

  1. ^ Hauterive 1841, p. 173.
  2. ^ Joliblois 1872, pp. 5–6.
  3. ^ Gaffarel 1879, p. 273.
  4. ^ Courteault 1908, p. 89.
  5. ^ a b c Knecht 1995, p. 106.
  6. ^ Knecht 1994, p. 351.
  7. ^ Courteault 1908, p. 116.
  8. ^ Courteault 1908, pp. 130–131.
  9. ^ Degert 1904, p. 101.
  10. ^ Salmon 1979, p. 130.
  11. ^ Knecht 1995, p. 112.
  12. ^ Roberts 2013, pp. 57–58.
  13. ^ Knecht 1995, p. 109.
  14. ^ Thompson 1909, p. 157.
  15. ^ Forneron 1876, p. 101.
  16. ^ Knecht 1995, p. 107.
  17. ^ Gould 2013, p. 2.
  18. ^ Holmes 1988, p. 73.

Sources[]

  • Courteault, Paul (1908). Blaise de Montluc; Historien (in French). Bibliothèque Méridionale.
  • Degert, Antoine (1904). "Procès de huit évêques français suspects de Calvinisme". Revue des questions historiques (in French). 32 (86): 61–108.
  • Forneron, H (1876). "Note sur la bataille de Vergt 15 Octobre 1562". Bulletin de la Société historique et archéologique du Périgord (in French). 3.
  • Gaffarel, Paul (1879). "Le Capitaine Peyrot Monluc". Revue Historique (in French). 9 (2). JSTOR 40935833.
  • Gould, Kevin Dr (2013). "The Commentaires de Blaise de Montluc in the Historiography of the French Wars of Religion". Nottingham Trent University. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Hauterive, Borel d' (1841). Revue historique de la noblesse, volume 2 (in French).
  • Holmes, Richard (1988). World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that changed the course of history. Viking. ISBN 978-0670819676.
  • Joliblois, Emile (1872). Dévastation de Albigeois par les companies de Montluc, 1537 (PDF) (in French). Ernest Desrue.
  • Knecht, Robert (1994). Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign of Francis I. CUP. ISBN 978-0521417969.
  • Knecht, Robert (1995). "The sword and the pen: Blaise de Monluc and his "Commentaires"". Renaissance Studies. 9 (1): 104–118. doi:10.1111/j.1477-4658.1995.tb00303.x. JSTOR 24412373.
  • Roberts, Penny (2013). Peace and Authority during the French Religious Wars c. 1560-1600. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137326744.
  • Salmon, J.H.M (1979). Society in Crisis: France in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0416730507.
  • Thompson, James (1909). The Wars of Religion in France 1559–1576: The Huguenots, Catherine de Medici and Phillip II. Chicago University Press.

Retrieved from ""