Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon

Henri de La Tour, Marshal of France

Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, comte de Montfort et Negrepelisse, vicomte de Turenne, Castillon, et Lanquais, titular duc de Bouillon (September 28, 1555–March 25, 1623) was prince of the independent principality of Sedan and Marshal of France. He belonged to the La Tour d'Auvergne family. The vicomte de Turenne was born at the castle of Joze, near Clermont-Ferrand, in Auvergne (France). He was son of François III de La Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne and Eléonore, eldest daughter of Anne, 1st Duc de Montmorency. After the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572), he participated in the Siege of La Rochelle (1572-1573), but converted to Protestantism thereafter. Compromised in the conspiracy of La Mole and Coconnat (1574), he joined the party of the Dissatisfied (Parti des Malcontents) headed by the Duke of Alençon (younger brother of kings Charles IX and Henry III) in 1575.

In 1576 he joined the Protestant party of Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV), and he negotiated the Peace of Nérac between Protestants and Catholics (1579).

Appointed governor (lieutenant général) of Upper Languedoc (the region of Toulouse) and Guienne (the region of Bordeaux) in 1580, he took part in the siege of Paris (1590) after the accession of Henry IV to the throne, and conquered Stenay (Meuse département, France) from the Catholic League (1591).

In 1591 Henry IV married him to Charlotte de la Marck, heiress of the claims to the duchy of Bouillon (now in Belgium) and of the principalities of Sedan and Raucourt (now in the Ardennes département, France). In 1592 Henry IV made him Marshal of France.

At the death of his wife in 1594, he married Elisabeth of Nassau, a daughter of William I of Orange-Nassau, the assassinated stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland, by his third wife Charlotte de Bourbon-Monpensier, a former French nun.

Defeated at Doullens (in Picardy) in 1595 by Fuentes, governor of the Spanish Low Countries, he was sent to England to renew the alliance of France with Queen Elizabeth I (1596).

Compromised in the conspiracy of Biron (1602), he fled to Geneva (1603) and had to accept French protectorate over his duchy of Bouillon (1606).

At the death of Henry IV, he entered the Council of Regency during the minority of Louis XIII, and intrigued against Sully and Concini. He died in Sedan in 1623.

Children

(all born of Elisabeth of Nassau)

• Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, duc de Bouillon (1605–1652), who inherited the principalities of Sedan and Raucourt
• Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (1611–1675), the famous Turenne, Marshal of France
• Marie de la Tour d'Auvergne (1600-1665), wife of Henry de La Trémoille, Duc de Thouars, Prince de Talmont
• Julienne Catherine de la Tour d'Auvergne (1604-1637), wife of Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Comte de Roucy, Vidame de Laon
• Elisabeth de la Tour d'Auvergne (1606-1685), wife of Guy Aldonce de Durfort, Marquis de Duras et de Lorges
• Henriette (died in 1677), wife of Amaury III Gouyon, Marquis de La Moussaye, Comte de Quintin

References

• Genealogy of the House of La Tour d'Auvergne
• Account of the Duchy of Bouillon, by François Velde