[62] M. de Frontenac was one of the officers of Henry IV who, before his accession to the throne of France (in 1576), had a quarrel with M. de Rosny, during which he told him that if he were to pull his nose, he could only draw out milk; a taunt to which the future minister replied by an assurance that he felt strong enough to draw blood out of that of his adversary with his sword. The peculiarity of this quarrel existed in the fact that, although De Rosny was a Protestant, and Frontenac a Catholic, M. de Turenne nevertheless espoused the cause of the latter; upon which M. de Lavardin, a Catholic, declared himself ready to second the arms of the adverse party. [63] François, Baron de Bassompierre, was the son of Christophe de Bassompierre and Louise de Radeval, and was born on the 12th of April 1579, at the château of Harouel, in Lorraine. He became at an early age the intimate companion and favourite of Henri IV, by whom he was appointed colonel-general of the Swiss troops. In the year 1603 he was made Marshal of France, and obtained great influence over both Marie de Medicis and her son Louis XIII. Richelieu, who became jealous of his favour, caused him to be imprisoned in the Bastille in 1631, where he remained for twelve years. He was an able diplomatist, a distinguished general, and a polished, though dissolute, courtier. He acquitted himself with great distinction in several sieges, and at his death, which occurred in 1646, he bequeathed to posterity his personal memoirs, which are among the most curious in the rich collections possessed by his countrymen. [64] Rambure, unpublished _Mém_., 1599, vol. i. pp. 151, 152. [65] Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues, subsequently known as the Marquise de Verneuil, was the elder daughter of the celebrated Marie Touchet, who, after having been the mistress of Charles IX, became the wife of François de Balzac, Seigneur d'Entragues, de Marcoussis and de Malesherbes, Governor of Orleans, who was, in 1573, elected a knight of St. Michael by Henri III. Henriette, as her name implies, was, together with her two sisters, the issue of this marriage; while her half-brother the Comte d'Auvergne, subsequently Duc d'Angoulême, was the son of Charles IX. [66] Saint--Edmé, _Amours et Galanteries des Rois de France_, Brussels, vol. ii. pp. 199, 200.