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Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Montluc (or Monluc) (c. 1502 - 1577), was a marshal of France.
He was born at the family seat near Condom in the modern départment of Gers. Despite being the eldest son of a good family, he had, like most gentlemen of Gascony, to rely on his sword. He served first as a private archer and man-at-arms in Italy, with Bayard for his captain, fought all through the wars of King Francis I of France, and was knighted on the field of Cerisoles (1544), to which victory he had brilliantly contributed as adviser to the young Duke of Enghien.
Having apparently enjoyed no patronage, he was already middle-aged. From then on, however, his merits were recognized. His chief feat was the famous defence of Siena (1555) which he related himself. When the religious wars broke out in France, Montluc, a staunch royalist, held Guyenne for the king. Henry III made him in 1574 marshal of France, an honour which he had earned by nearly half a century of service and by numerous wounds. He died at Estillac near Agen.
Montluc's eminence above other soldiers of his day is due to his Commentaires de Messire Blaise de Montluc (Bordeaux, 1592), in which he described his fifty years of service (1521-1574). This book, the "soldier's Bible" (or "breviary," according to others), as Henry IV called it, is one of the best of many books of memoirs produced by the unlearned gentry of France at that time. It is said to have been dictated, which may account for the unusual vivacity and picturesqueness of the style.
The Commentaires are to be found conveniently in the collection of Michaud and Poujoulat, but the standard edition is that of the Societe de I'histoire de France, ed. by M. de Ruble (5 vols., 1865-1872). See Rüstow, Militarische Biographien, v. i. (Zürich, 1858).
Reference
- This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.