MONTLUC, Blaisede Lasseran-Massencôme, Seigneur de (c. 1503-1577), marshal of France, was born about 1503, at the family seat near Condom in the modern department of Gers. He was the eldest son, and his family was a good one, but it was large and poor, and, like most gentlemen of Gascony, he had to trust for endowment to 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 Francis I., and was knighted on the field of Cérisoles (1538). Having apparently enjoyed no patronage, he was by this time a man of middle age. Thenceforward, however, his merits were recognized by his appointment to various important posts. His chief feat was the famous defence of Siena (1555), which he has told so admirably. When the religious wars broke out in France, Montluc, a staunch royalist, held Guienne for the king, and exercised severe but impartial justice on Catholics and Protestants alike. He would have nothing to do with the Massacre of St Bartholomew. Henry III., however, made him 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 in 1577. Montluc’s eminence above other soldiers of fortune in his day is due to his Commentaires (Bordeaux, 1592), in which he described his fifty years of service. This book, the “soldier’s Bible” (or “breviary,” according to others), as Henry IV. called it, is one of the most admirable of the many admirable books of memoirs produced by the unlearned gentry of France at that time. It is said to have been dictated, which may possibly account in some degree for the singular vivacity and picturesqueness of the style. Hardly any author excels Montluc in the clearness λvith which he ...

MONTLUÇON, the industrial capital of the centre of France, sometimes called the French Manchester, is the head of an arrondissement, and the largest town (26,079 inhabitants in 1881) of the department of Allier. The upper town consists of steep, narrow, winding streets, and preserves several buildings of the 15th and 16th centuries; the lower town, traversed by the river Cher (there converted into a canal communicating with that along the Loire), is the seat of the manufacturing industries, which embrace glass, steel, and iron works, lime-kilns, saw-mills, and a wool-spinning factory. The Commentry coal-mines are only a few miles distant. There is railway connexion with Moulins (50 miles to the east-north-east), Bourges, Limoges, and Clermont-Ferrand, and a new line is about to be opened to Tours via Chateauroux. Of the churches, Notre Dame is of the 15th century, St Pierre partly of the 12th, and St Paul modern. The town-hall, with a library, occupies the site of an old Ursuline convent, and two other convents now serve as college and hospital.

Montluçon, which existed as early as the 10th century, was taken by the English in 1171 and by Philippe Auguste in 1181; the English were beaten under its walls in the 14th century. The castle, rebuilt by Louis II., duke of Bourbon, was taken by Henry IV. during the religious wars; at present it is occupied as a barracks.