trust to his sword. He served first as a private archer and man-at-arms in Italy, with Bayard for his captain, fought all through the wars of Francis I., and was knighted on the field of Cérisoles (1544), to which victory he had brilliantly contributed as adviser to the young duke of Enghien. Having apparently enjoyed no patronage, he was by this time a man of middle age. Thenceforward, however, his merits were recognized. His chief feat was the famous defence of Siena (1555), which he has told so admirably. When the religious wars broke out in France, Montluc, a staunch royalist, held Guyenne for the king. Henry III. made him in 1574 marshal of France, an honour which he had earned by nearly half a century of service and by numerous wounds. He died at Estillac near Agen in 1577. Montluc’s eminence above other soldiers of his day is due to his Commentaires de Messire Blaise de Montluc (Bordeaux, 1592), in which he described his fifty years of service (1521–1574). This book, the “soldier’s Bible” (or “breviary,” according to others), as Henry IV. called it, is one of the most admirable of the many admirable books of memoirs produced by the unlearned gentry of France at that time. It is said to have been dictated, which may possibly account in some degree for the singular vivacity and picturesqueness of the style.
The Commentaires are to be found conveniently in the collection of Michaud and Poujoulat, but the standard edition is that of the Société de l’histoire de France, ed. by M. de Ruble (5 vols., 1865–1872). See Rüstow, Militärische Biographien, v. i. (Zürich, 1858).
MONTLUÇON, a town of central France, capital of an arrondissement, and the most important industrial centre in the department of Allier. Pop. (1906), 31,888. It is situated on the Cher, 50 m. S.W. of Moulins by the Orléans railway. The upper town, on an eminence on the right bank, consists of steep, narrow, winding streets, and preserves several buildings of the 15th and 16th centuries; the lower town, traversed by the Cher, is the seat of the industries, which embrace the manufacture of glass, chemicals, mirrors, sewing-machines, and iron and steel production. The Commentry coal-mines and Néris, a town with thermal springs, are a few miles distant to the south-east. Of the churches, Notre-Dame is of the 15th century, St Pierre partly of the 12th and St Paul modern. The town-hall, with a library, occupies the site of an old Ursuline convent, and two other convents are used as college and hospital. Overlooking the town is the castle rebuilt by Louis II., duke of Bourbon, and taken by Henry IV. during the religious wars; it serves as a barracks. Montluçon is the seat of a sub-prefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade arbitration, a chamber of commerce and a lycée. The town, which formed part of the duchy of Bourbon, was taken by the English in 1171, and by Philip Augustus in 1181; the English were beaten under its walls in the 14th century.
MONTMORENCY, the name of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in France, derived from Montmorency, now in the department of Seine-et-Oise, in the immediate neighbourhood of Enghien and St Denis, and about 9 m. N.N.W. of Paris. The family, since its first appearance in history in the person of Bouchard I., sire de Montmorency in the 10th century, has furnished six constables and twelve marshals of France, several admirals and cardinals, numerous grand officers of the Crown and grand masters of various knightly orders, and was declared by Henry IV. to be, after that of the Bourbons, the first house in Europe. Matthieu I., sire de Montmorency, received in 1138 the post of constable, and died in 1160. His first wife was Aline, the natural daughter of Henry I. of England; his second, Adelaide or Alice of Savoy, widow of Louis VI. and mother of Louis VII., and according to Duchesne, he shared the regency of France with Suger, during the absence of the latter king on the second crusade. Matthieu II. had an important share in the victory of Bouvines (1214), and was made constable in 1218. During the reign of Louis VIII. he distinguished himself chiefly in the south of France (Niort, La Rochelle, Bordeaux). On the accession of Louis IX. he was one of the chief supports of the queen-regent Blanche of Castile, and was successful in reducing all the vassals to obedience. He died in 1230. His younger son, Guy, in right of his mother, became head of the house of Montmorency-Laval. Anne de Montmorency (q.v.), so named, it is said, after his godmother Anne of Brittany, was the first to attain the ducal title (1551). His eldest son, François de Montmorency (1530–1579), was married
to Diana, natural daughter of Henry II.; another son, Henri I. de Montmorency (1534–1614), who became duc de Montmorency on his brother’s death in 1579, had been governor of Languedoc since 1563. As a leader of the party called the Politiques he took a prominent part in the French wars of religion. In 1593 he was made constable, but Henry IV. showed some anxiety to keep him away from Languedoc, which he ruled like a sovereign prince. Henry II. (1595–1632), son of duke Henry I., succeeded to the title in 1614, having previously been made grand admiral. He also was governor of Languedoc. In 1625 he defeated the French Protestant fleet under Soubise, and seized the islands of Ré and Oléron, but the jealousy of Richelieu deprived him of the means of following up these advantages. In 1628–1629 he was allowed to command against the duke of Rohan in Languedoc; in 1630 he defeated the Piedmontese, and captured Prince Doria, at Avigliana, and took Saluzzo. In the same year he was created marshal. In 1632 he joined the party of Gaston, duke of Orleans, and placed himself at the head of the rebel army, which was defeated by Marshal Schomberg at Castelnaudary (Sept. 1, 1632); severely wounded, he fell into the enemy’s hands, and, abandoned by Gaston, was executed as a traitor at Toulouse on the 30th of October. The title passed to his sister Charlotte-Margueritte, princess of Condé.
From the barons of Fosseux, a branch of the Montmorency family established in Brabant in the 15th century, sprang the seigneurs de Boutteville, among whom was the duellist François de Montmorency-Boutteville, who was beheaded in 1627. His son, François Henri, marshal of France, became duke of Piney-Luxemburg by his marriage with Madeleine Charlotte Bonne Thérèse de Clermont, daughter of Marguerite Charlotte de Luxemburg, duchesse de Piney. Charles François Frédéric, the son of the marshal, was created duke of Beaufort in 1688 and duke of Montmorency in 1689. In 1767 the title of duke of Beaufort-Montmorency passed by marriage to another branch of the Montmorency-Fosseux. This branch becoming extinct in 1862, the title was taken by the duc de Valençay, who belonged to the Talleyrand-Périgord family and married one of the two heiresses of this branch (1864). There were many other branches of the Montmorency family, among others that of the seigneurs of Laval (q.v.), a cadet branch of which received the title of duke of Laval and settled on the estate of Magnac in 1758. It is to this branch that Mathieu, duc de Montmorency (1767–1826), diplomatist and writer, and tutor of Charles X.’s grandson, Henri, duke of Bordeaux, belonged.
MONTMORENCY, ANNE, Duc de (1493–1567), constable of France, was born at Chantilly, and was brought up with the future King Francis I., whom he followed into Italy in 1515, distinguishing himself especially at Marignano. In 1516 he became governor of Novara; in 1520 he was present at the Field of Cloth of Gold, and afterwards had charge of important negotiations in England. Successful in the defence of Mézières (1521), and as commander of the Swiss troops in the Italian campaign of the same year, he was made marshal of France in 1522, accompanied Francis into Italy in 1524, and was taken prisoner at Pavia in 1525. Released soon afterwards, he was one of the negotiators of the treaty of Madrid, and in 1530 reconducted the king’s sons into France. On the renewal of the war by Charles V.’s invasion of France in 1536, Montmorency compelled the emperor to raise the siege of Marseilles; he afterwards accompanied the king of France into Picardy, and on the termination of the Netherlands campaign marched to the relief of Turin. In 1538, on the ratification of the ten years’ truce, he was rewarded with the office of constable, but in 1541 he fell into disgrace, and did not return to public life until the accession of Henry II. in 1547. In 1548 he repressed the insurrections in the south-west, particularly at Bordeaux, with great severity,
