Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, duc de Bouillon

Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, duc de Bouillon (1555-1623) was prince of the independent principality of Sedan and Marshal of France.

The vicomte de Turenne was born at the castle of Joze, near Clermont-Ferrand, in Auvergne (France). He converted to Protestantism after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572). Compromised in the conspiracy of La Mole and Coconnat (1574), he joined the party of the Dissatisfied (Parti des Malcontents) headed by the duke of Alençon (younger brother of kings Charles IX and Henry III) in 1575.

In 1576 he joined the Protestant party of Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV), and he negotiated the Peace of Nérac between Protestants and Catholics (1579).

Appointed governor (lieutenant général) of Upper Languedoc (the region of Toulouse) and Guienne (the region of Bordeaux) in 1580, he took part in the siege of Paris (1590) after the accession of Henry IV to the throne, and conquered Stenay (Meuse département, France) from the Catholic League (1591).

In 1591 Henry IV married him to Charlotte de La Marck, heiress of the duchy of Bouillon (now in Belgium) and of the principalities of Sedan and Raucourt (now in the Ardennes département, France). In 1592 Henry IV made him Marshal of France.

At the death of his wife in 1594, he married Elisabeth of Nassau, daughter of William I of Orange-Nassau, the assassinated stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland.

Defeated at Doullens (in Picardy) in 1595 by Fuentes, governor of the Spanish Low Countries, he was sent to England to renew the alliance of France with Queen Elizabeth I (1596).

Compromised in the conspiracy of Biron (1602), he fled to Geneva (1603) and had to accept French protectorate over his duchy of Bouillon (1606).

At the death of Henry IV, he entered the Council of Regency during the minority of Louis XIII, and intrigued against Sully and Concini.

He died in Sedan in 1623.

Children

(both born of Elisabeth of Nassau)

• Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, duc de Bouillon (1605-1652), who inherited the principalities of Sedan and Raucourt
• Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (1611-1675), the famous Turenne, Marshal of France