Note 91 — Chapter III

Marie de Rohan, Duchess de Chevreuse, who possessed so great an influence over Anne of Austria, was the daughter of Hercule de Rohan, Duke de Montbazon, Governor of Paris, and one of the first noblemen of France. In 1617, she espoused Albert de Luynes, favourite of Louis XIII., who on the occasion of the marriage created his confidant a duke and appointed his wife Superintendent of the Queen’s Household. Shortly after the death of her husband, in 1621, from fever caught at the siege of Montauban, she married Claude de Lorraine, Duke de Chevreuse, the son of that Duke de Guise whom Henry III. caused to be assassinated at Blois. The Duchess de Chevreuse was a charming and beautiful woman, gifted with extraordinary powers of intellect and proud of her high lineage, but incorrigibly given to intrigue.—Trans.