François de Montmorency, eldest son of Anne,…

François de Montmorency, eldest son of Anne, constable of France, had fought in Piedmont in 1551, defended Thérouanne in 1553, and had been appointed lieutenant general of the Île-de-France in 1556.

He had visited Rome the following yea to obtain a papal dispensation releasing him from his betrothal to Jeanne de Piennes so that he could marry Diane de France, the natural daughter of King Henry II of France by a young Piedmontese, Filippa Duc.

She is often thought, however, to be the illegitimate daughter of Diane de Poitiers.

Legitimized in 1547 when she was nine, she had married Orazio Farnese, duke di Castro, in 1553, but he was killed in battle the same year.

She had in 1559 married François, who succeeded his father as Duke de Montmorency in 1567.

Having been a close friend of the Huguenot leader, his cousin the Admiral de Coligny (son of Anne's sister Louise), he had become a leader of the moderate Catholic party of the Politiques working for peace within the realm and been imprisoned in the Bastille in May 1574, but he had been released before the “Peace of Monsieur” in 1576.

Diane, who had helped to make her husband a leader of the Politiques during Charles IX's reign, and who is known also for her culture and intelligence as well as for her beauty, had been widowed a second time in 1579.

Diane enjoys even greater influence with Henry III and in 1582 had received the duchy of Angoulême in appanage.

She has done much to influence the king's reconciliation with Henry of Navarre.