Charles de Sainte-Maure, duc de Montausier

Charles de Sainte-Maure, duc de Montausier (6 October 1610 – 17 November 1690) was a French soldier and the governor of the dauphin, Louis le Grand Dauphin, the eldest son and heir of Louis XIV, King of France.

Charles was born on 6 October 1610, being the second son of Léon de Sainte-Maure, baron de Montausier. His parents were Huguenots, and he was educated at the Protestant Academy of Sedan under Pierre Du Moulin. He served brilliantly at the siege of Casale in 1629. Becoming marquis de Montausier at the death of his elder brother in 1635, he was the recognised aspirant for the hand of the marquise de Rambouillet's daughter, Julie d'Angennes (1607-1671). Having served under Bernard of Saxe-Weimar in Germany in 1634, he returned to the French service in 1636, and fought in the Rhenish campaigns of the following years. He was taken prisoner at Rantzau in November 1643, and only ransomed after ten months of captivity.

On his return to France, he became a lieutenant-general. On 15 July 1645, he married "the incomparable Julie," thus terminating a fourteen-year courtship famous in the annals of French literature because of the Guirlande de Julie, a garland of verses consisting of madrigals by Montausier, Claude de Malleville, Georges de Scudéry, Pierre Corneille (if Octave Uzanne is correct in the attribution of three of the six poems signed M.C.), Philippe Habert, Simon Arnauld de Pomponne,Jean Desmarets de Saint Sorlin, Antoine Gombaud (Le nain de la Princesse Julie) and others. It was copied by the famous calligraphist Nicolas Jarry in a magnificent manuscript, on each page of which was a flower painted by Nicolas Robert, and was presented to Julie on her fête day in 1641.

...
Wikipedia