the interview.  In the following year (1572) Jeannin was present at the council which was held during the frightful massacre of St. Bartholomew, where he secured the friendship of the Comte de Charny, at that period Grand Equerry of France, Lieutenant-General of Burgundy, and provisional governor of the province during the absence of the Duc d’Aumale, then Governor of Paris; and in the same year he was deputed from the tiers-etat of Burgundy to the States-General, convoked at Blois by Henri III.  It was on that occasion that he began to comprehend the designs of the Guises, and made the celebrated speech in favour of religious toleration which does so much honour to his memory.  By Henri III he was successively appointed governor of the chancelry of Burgundy, councillor of the provincial Parliament, and subsequently president.—­Petitot.

[185] Daniel, vol. vii. pp. 414, 415.  Perefixe, vol. ii. p. 367.  Matthieu, Hist. des Derniers Troubles, book ii. p. 411.

[186] Charles de Bourbon-Conti, Comte de Soissons, espoused the cause of the King of Navarre, whom he accompanied to the battle of Coutras in 1587.  Henry promised to him the hand of his sister, Catherine de Navarre, to whom he presented him immediately afterwards, when a reciprocal affection was the result.  M. de Soissons, however, abandoned the reform party, and did not return to it until after the death of Henri III.  He served actively and zealously during the League; but having discovered that the King did not intend to fulfil his promise of marrying him to the Princess, he quitted him during the siege of Rouen in 1592, on the pretext of illness, and hastened to Bearn, hoping to induce Catherine to become his wife before the King could interfere to prevent their union, and by engaging himself to support his brother, the Cardinal de Bourbon, to make himself master of the possessions of the house of Navarre beyond the Loire.  On reaching Bearn, however, he found Henry already there, and was obliged to withdraw without having accomplished either object.  A short time subsequently he renewed his friendship with that monarch, and officiated as Duke of Normandy at his coronation at Chartres in 1594.

[187] Perefixe, vol. ii. p. 369.

[188] Louis de l’Hopital de Vitry, knight of all the Royal Orders, and Captain of the King’s bodyguard, was descended from the illustrious and ancient family of the Marquis de Sainte-Meme and de Montpellier, Comtes d’Entremons.

[189] Charles de Choiseul, Marquis de Praslin, the representative of one of the most illustrious families of France, was a descendant of the ancient Comtes de Langres.  He distinguished himself at the siege of La Fere in 1580, at that of Paris in 1589, and at the battle of Aumale in 1592.  Henri IV made him a captain of his bodyguard, and Louis XIII, in 1619, bestowed upon him the baton of marshal of France.  He died in 1626, in his sixty-third year.