Louis d'Angennes

Louis d'Angennes, seigneur de Maintenon (c. 1536 –c. 1610) was a French noble, diplomat, governor and soldier during the French Wars of Religion. The son of Jacques d'Angennes and Isabelle Cottereau, he first achieved prominence in 1568, when he was established as governor of Le Mans. He reinvigorated the cities Catholic ligue for a fight against Protestantism. At that time he became grand maréchal de logis de la maison du roi, a post he would hold until 1579. He fought for the crown during the brief seventh civil war at the Siege of La Fère. In 1580 he was established as one of the king's Chambellan. The following year he would be elevated to the most senior order of French chivalry, being among the 1581 intake as a Ordre du Saint-Esprit. He and his brother Rambouillet participated in the Assembly of Notables that sought to consider a financial reform package from 1583-1584. His selection to participate in the Estates General of 1588 was forced through by the king over the objection of the governor of Chartres who had hoped to select a less royalist delegate. At the Estates, when word arrived that the duke of Savoie had invaded French held Saluzzo he whipped the Second Estate into a patriotic fervour with a speech advocating first the recapture of Saluzzo, and then the declaration of war against Spain. However the ligueur members of the other States got the nobility back into line, and his plan went nowhere.

Henri, increasingly unable to tolerate the humiliations inflicted on him by the duke of Guise and ligue resolved that something needed to be done in December 1588. He took council with Maintenon, Rambouillet, Marshal Aumont and the future Marshal Ornano to discuss how to proceed. Three of them favoured assassinating the duke of Guise. After some more consultation, Henri had the duke killed on 23 December, at a council meeting attended by Maintenon. In retaliation for the assassination, the ligue entered an open war with Henri. Henri in turn was assassinated on 1 August by Jacques Clément. The enraged Maintenon proposed to his heir, the Protestant Navarre that they respond by putting Paris to a sack after their siege was concluded. Navarre, now styling himself Henri IV was unable to do so, as the royal army dissolved from defections of those not willing to serve a Protestant king. Maintenon was among the Catholic nobility who remained royalist and having fought in the brief siege of Paris, he continued to serve Henri, fighting at Arques in September. He died in 1610 at the age of 74.