Note 31 — Chapter I

Brissac was governor of Piedmont under Henry II, where he sustained the interests of France so energetically that Philip hated him. The Guises made great efforts to attach him to their party, with the hope of playing him against the Bourbons and Montmorencys (Paris, Négociations, 73, note). After the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, the fortresses of the duke of Savoy were dismantled, to the intense anger of the latter. Cf. Fillon Collection, 2,654: Letter of July 16, 1560, to the duchess of Mantua, complaining that the people of Caluz have revolted against the authority of the marshal Brissac. This hard feeling probably explains Brissac’s transfer to the government of Picardy, in January, 1560, to the chagrin of the prince of Condé, who asked for the place (Varillas, Hist. de François II, II, 35; De Thou, Book XXV, 518) after the marriage of Emanuel Philibert to the sister of Henry II. See Marchand, Charles I de Cossé, comte de Brissac, Paris, 1889, chap. xvi.