Soldier and memorialist, born in Saint Gemme, France. The eldest son of an impoverished branch of the Montesquiou family, he was brought up as a page at the court of Lorraine. He fought in N Italy (15212), and as a lieutenant played a brilliant part in the relief of Marseille (1536) and in the victory at Ceresole in Italy (1544). In the French Wars of Religion, his victory at Vergt (1562) broke the Huguenot power in Guyenne, and he later became a powerful force within the league of Catholic nobles in the SW. He published Commentaires (1592) in the fashion of Julius Caesar.
Marshal Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Montluc (d. 1577), author of the Commentaires, had a son, Pierre Bertrand, called the Capitaine Peyrot, who perished in an expedition to Madeira in 1566, and another son, Fabien de Monluc, whose granddaughter, Jeanne de Monluc (d. 1657), countess of Carmaing, princess of Chabanais, brought the estates of her house to the family of Escoubleau by her marriage with Charles d'Escoubleau, marquess of Sourdis and Alluyes. Jean de Monluc, brother of the marshal, was bishop of Valence and Dié, and distinguished himself in several embassies. He died in 1579, leaving a natural son, Jean de Monluc (d. 1603), seigneur de Balagny, who was at first a zealous member of the League, but made his submission to Henry IV, and received from him the principality of Cambrai and the baton of a marshal of France.
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