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[64] Rambure, unpublished _Mem_., 1599, vol.i.pp.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 Francois 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'Angouleme, was the son of Charles IX.
[66] Saint--Edme, _Amours et Galanteries des Rois de France_, Brussels, vol.ii.pp.

199, 200.
[67] Louise Marguerite de Lorraine, the widow of Henri III, was the elder daughter of Nicolas de Lorraine, Due de Mercoeur, Comte de Vaudemont, and of the Marquise d'Egmont, his first wife.