LA NOUE, François de (1531-1591), surnamed Bras-de-Fer, one of the gallant Huguenot captains of the 16th century, was born near Nantes in 1531, of an honourable and ancient Breton family. His first exploit was the capture of Orleans at the head of only fifteen cavaliers in 1567, during the second Huguenot war. At the battles of Jarnac in March 1569 and of Moncontour in the following October, La Noue was taken prisoner; but he was exchanged on the latter occasion in time to resume the governorship of Poitou, and inflict a signal defeat on the royalist troops before Rochefort. At the siege of Fontenay (1570) his left arm was shattered by a bullet; and the iron limb that replaced it won him from his soldiers the sobriquet of IronArm. When peace was made in France in the same year, La Noue carried his sword against the Spaniards in the Netherlands, but was taken at the recapture of Mons by the Spanish in 1572. Permitted to return to France, he was commissioned by Charles IX. to attempt to reconcile the inhabitants of La Rochelle, the great stronghold of the Huguenots, to the king. But the Rochellois were too much alarmed by the recent massacre of St Bartholomew to come to any terms; and La Noue, perceiving that war was imminent, and knowing that his post was on the Huguenot side, gave up his royal commission, and from 1574 till 1578 acted as general of La Rochelle. When peace was again concluded, La Noue once more went to aid the Protestant estates of the Netherlands. Holding a high rank in their army, he took several towns and captured Count Egmont in 1580; but a few weeks afterwards he himself fell into the hands of the Spaniards. Thrust into a loathsome prison at Limburg, La Noue, the admiration of all, of whatever faith, for his gallantry, honour, and purity of ...