Note 83 — Chapter I · The Early Life of Jean de Dinteville

It was not the first, nor perhaps the second visit, which Anne de Montmorency had paid to our shores. In 1519 he had been one of eight hostages, four nobles and four commoners, sent to England in connection with the cession of Tournay to France. He bore at that time the title of La Rochepot, which has caused Du Bellay to confound him with his younger brother, subsequently known by that name (see Decrue de Stoutz, “Anne de Montmorency,” part i., p. 13, note 1). One of his fellow-hostages in 1519 was Charles de Solier, Comte de Morette, later more than once French ambassador in England, and the subject of the magnificent portrait by Holbein now in the Dresden Gallery. Another was Antoine des Prez, Seigneur de Montpesat, who also returned subsequently as ambassador (see “Mémoires Du Bellay,” ed. Petitot, vol. i., p. 282). Hall is wrong in saying that there were only four hostages altogether, but identifies Montmorency correctly (see Ellis’s “Original Letters,” 3rd series, vol. i., letter lxxviii., where the passage from Hall’s Chronicle is quoted).