brother-in-law of the Duc de Bouillon. He died in the castle of Thouars,
to which he had retired, suspected of treason, after refusing to return
to Court to justify himself, on the 25th of October 1604, in his
thirty-eighth year.

[176] Jean Louis de Nogaret de la Valette, Due d'Epernon, was the
younger son of an old Gascon family, who sought his fortunes at the
French Court under the name of Caumont. After the death of Charles IX,
he offered his services to Henri de Navarre, subsequently Henri IV; but
was ultimately admitted to the intimacy of Henri III, who caused him to
be instructed in politics and literature, and made him one of his
_mignons_. He was next created Duc d'Epernon, first peer and admiral of
France, colonel-general of infantry, and held several governments. On
the death of Henri III, this ennobled adventurer once more became a
partisan of his successor, and commanded the royal forces during the war
in Savoy; but throughout the whole of this reign he lived in constant
misunderstanding with the Court and the King, and was even suspected of
the act of regicide which deprived France of her idolised monarch. It
was the Duc d'Epernon who, immediately after that event, convoked the
Parliament, caused the recognition of Marie de Medicis as Regent, and
formed a privy council over which he presided. Banished by the Concini
during their period of power, he reappeared at Court after their fall,
but Richelieu would not permit him to hold any government office, and,
moreover, deprived him of all his governments save that of Guienne. He
died in 1642.

[177] Daniel, vol. vii. p. 408.

[178] Pedro Henriques Azevedo, Conde de Fuentes.

[179] Montfaucon, vol. v. pp. 405-407.

[180] Edme de Malain, Baron de Luz, Lieutenant-Governor of Burgundy, was
the son of Joachim de Malain and Marguerite d'Epinac. He was deeply
involved in the conspiracy of the Marechal de Biron, and would
infallibly have perished with him had he not been induced by the
President Jeannin to reveal all that he knew of the plot to Henri IV, on
condition of a free pardon. He survived his treachery for ten years, and
in 1613 was killed in a duel by the Chevalier de Guise. His son, Claude
de Malain, having sworn to avenge his death, in his turn challenged M.
de Guise, at whose hands he met with the same fate as his father.

[181] Jacques de Lanode, Sieur de la Fin, was a petty Burgundian
nobleman, whose spirit of intrigue was perpetually involving th