in 1620 by royal grant, the duchy of Angoulême. Soon after he was engaged on an important embassy to the Holy Roman Empire, the result of which was the treaty of Ulm, signed July 1620. In 1627 he commanded the large forces assembled at the siege of La Rochelle; and some years after in 1635, during the Thirty Years' War, he was general of the French army in Lorraine. In 1636 he was made lieutenant-general of the army. He appears to have retired from public life shortly after the death of Richelieu in 1643. The duke was the author of the following works: , from the assassination of Henri III. to the battle of Arques (1589–1593) published at Paris by Boneau, and reprinted by Buchon in his Choix de chroniques (1836) and by Petitot in his Mémoires (1st series, vol. xliv.) (1620) a translation of a Spanish work by Diego de Torres. La générale et fidèle Relation de tout ce qui s'est passé en l'Isle de Ré, envoyée par le Roy à la Royne sa mère (Paris, 1624). Angoulême died on 24 September 1650. Personal life In 1591 he obtained a dispensation from the vows of the Order of Malta, and married Charlotte, daughter of Henry, maréchal d'Amville, afterwards Duke of Montmorency and his first wife. They had had three children: Henri Louis-Emmanuel de Valois, Count d'Alais, who succeeded his father as duke of Angoulême and was colonel-general of light cavalry and governor of Provence; his daughter Marie Françoise de Valois married Louis, Duke of Joyeuse; François, who died in 1622. Charles' first wife died in 1636, and in 1644 he married Françoise de Narbonne, daughter of Charles, baron of Mareuil. They had no children and survived her husband until 1713. References Sources 189 Attribution 1573 births 1650 deaths Dukes of Angoulême Charles French memoirists 17th-century French writers 17th-century French male writers Illegitimate children of French monarchs Prisoners of the Bastille 17th-century memoirists Sons of kings