[1435] Commentaires et lettres de Montluc, III, 332.
[1436] The actual document is still preserved in the Archives nationales, K. 1,725, No. 41. It is dated June 16, 1570, and countersigned by L’Aubespine.
[1437] He borrowed 4,000 livres, chiefly in Bordeaux; the munitions came from Toulouse and Bayonne. The provinces were required to furnish the supplies (Commentaires et lettres de Montluc, III, 400). The consular registers of Agen and Auch still preserve the records of his requisitions. According to the report of a Spanish spy, in K. 1,576, No. 5, the forces consisted of 10,000 footmen, 1,500 horse, and 18 pieces of artillery. This is surely exaggerated. His Commentaires imply that his men were few in number and he expressly says that he was short of munitions and artillery.
[1438] Commentaires et lettres de Montluc, III, 401.
[1439] Commentaries of Blaise de Montluc, translated by Cotton, 368, 369. This occurred on July 23, 1570. To consummate Montluc’s humiliation, Charles IX filled his place, without giving him opportunity to resign, by appointing the marquis de Villars to be his successor. He did not reach Guyenne until October 22. In the meantime his brother, Jean de Montluc, bishop of Valence, and commissaire des finances in Guyenne, and as much a Politique as the other was a bigot, exercised authority for him. Gascony was governed by the seigneur de Vigues (Commentaires et lettres de Montluc, III, 434).
[1440] C. S. P. Spain, No. 687, February 15, 1570.
[1441] Ibid., For., No. 1,023, June 20, 1570, La Noue to the cardinal of Châtillon; ibid., No. 1,107, July 22, 1570; Hauser, La Noue, 20-22. He received the name “Iron Arm” (Bras-de-fer) from the circumstance that he afterward wore a mechanism made of iron, with which, at least, he was able to guide his horse.
[1442] On Coligny’s campaign in Rouergue and the Cévennes in the spring of 1570, see Revue hist., II, 537-39, letters of the cardinal of Armagnac of April 1, April 11, and May 10.
[1443] Delaborde, III, 209-15.
[1444] Nég. Tosc., III, 618.