which serves to throw up the relief of his actual narratives. He has sometimes been compared to Pepys, but, except in point of garrulity and of readiness to set down on paper anything that came into their heads, there is little likeness between the two. Brantome was emphatically an _ecrivain_ (unscholarly and Italianised as his phrase sometimes appears, if judged by the standards of a severer age), and some of the best passages from his works are among the most striking examples of French prose. [Sidenote: Montluc.] Next to Brantome, and in some respects above him, though of a somewhat less remarkable idiosyncrasy, come Montluc, La Noue, and D'Aubigne, with Marguerite de Valois not far behind. Blaise de Lasseran-Massencome, Seigneur de Montluc[220], was a typical _cadet de Gascogne_, though he was not, strictly speaking, a cadet, being the eldest son of a fortuneless house. He became page to Antoine of Lorraine, and made his first campaign under the orders of Bayard, fighting through the whole of the Italian war, and being knighted on the field at Cerisoles. In the next reign he was promoted to high command, and held Sienna against the Imperialists with distinguished gallantry and skill. When the civil war broke out he was made Governor of Guyenne, where he maintained order with the strong hand, 'heading and hanging' Catholics and Protestants alike, if they showed signs of disloyalty. Ruthless as he was, he was one of the few great officers who refused to participate in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. He was made a marshal in 1574, and died three years later. Montluc's Memoirs are purely military, and the most famous description of them is that of Henri IV., who called them the soldier's Bible. His style is concise, free from the slightest attempt at elaborate ornament, but admirably picturesque and clear. His account of his exploit at Sienna is one of the capital chapters of French military history. But almost any page of Montluc possesses eminently the characteristics which great generals from Caesar downwards have almost uniformly displayed, when they possess any literary talent at all. The words and sentences are marshalled and managed like an army; everything goes straight to the point; there is no confusion, and the whole complicated scene is as clear as a geometrical diagram. [Sidenote: La Noue.]