[95] Charles de Créquy was the representative of one of the most ancient families in France, which traced its descent from Arnoul, called the _Old_, or the _Bearded_, who died in 897. The elder branch of the house became extinct in the person of Antoine de Créquy, Cardinal and Bishop of Amiens, born in 1531, and who at his death, which occurred in the year 1574, left all his personal wealth, together with the family possessions which he inherited from his brothers, to Antoine de Blanchefort, the son of his sister, Marie de Créquy, on condition that he should bear the name and arms of his mother. The son of Antoine was Charles de Créquy, de Blanchefort, and de Canaples, Prince de Poix, Governor of Dauphiny, peer and marshal of France, who became Duc de Lesdiguières by his marriage with Madelaine de Bonne, daughter of the celebrated Connétable de Lesdiguières, in 1611. His duel with Don Philippino, the bastard of Savoy, in which he killed his adversary, acquired for him a great celebrity; but he secured a more legitimate and desirable reputation by his gallantry in the taking of Pignerol and La Maurienne, in 1630. Three years subsequently he was sent as ambassador to Rome; in 1636 he conquered the Spanish forces on the Ticino; and in 1638 he was killed by a cannon ball, at the siege of Bremen, in Hanover. [96] Péréfixe, _Histoire de Henri le Grand_, vol. ii. pp. 329-33. [97] Saint-Edmé, vol. ii. pp. 211, 212. [98] Montfaucon, vol. v. p. 402. [99] L'Etoile, vol. ii. pp. 534-537. [100] _Hist. des Reines et Régentes de France_, vol. ii. p. 28. [101] Malherbe, the favourite poet of Marie de Medicis, profited by the tediousness of her voyage to make it the subject of an allegory, in which he represents that Neptune "Dix jours ne pouvant se distraire Au plaisir de la regarder, Il a, par un effort contraire, Essayé de la retarder." A specimen of his godship's gallantry, with which the young sovereign would, in all probability, most willingly have dispensed. [102] L'Etoile, vol. ii. p. 537. [103] Valadier, year 1600. [104] M. de Sillery. [105] Henri I. de Montmorency, duke, peer, marshal, and Constable of France, Governor of Languedoc, etc., was the second son of the celebrated Anne de Montmorency. He rendered himself famous, during the lifetime of his father, under the name of the Seigneur de Damville, and made prisoner the Prince de Condé at the battle of Dreux in 1562. Having subsequently incurred the displeasure of Catherine de Medicis, he retired to the Court of the Duke of Savoy, and became the leader of the malcontents in Languedoc during the reign of Henri III. Henri IV restored him to all his honours, and made him Constable of France, and a knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost, in 1593. He died at an advanced age, in the town of Agde, in 1614.