Arnaud d'Ossat

Hence the conjecture (which goes back to Scipion Dupleix' Histoire d' Henri IV of 1635) that Armand was the bastard son of the Lord of Ramefort.

[citation needed] On 26 December 1556, he was received into the clergy, by being tonsured by Dominique de Bigorre, Bishop of Albi, administrator of the Diocese of Auch in the name of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este (1551-1563).

[9] Around the same time he agreed to act as a director of the studies of the twenty-three year old Jean de la Barrière, the abbot of the Feuillants and its eventual reformer,[10] who was eager for guidance in the pursuit of an ecclesiastical career.

Despite his diplomatic status, Foix found himself under interrogation for his actions and opinions during the events of 1559 leading to the Edict against heresy of 2 June.

They were evidently impressed by the report of the Bishop of Paris, Pierre de Gondi, who had been in Rome in early 1586, attempting to smooth over difficulties between Pope Sixtus V and the French Ambassador Marquis Pitany.

He was succeeded a month later, on 16 February 1587,[21] by Cardinal François de Joyeuse, who took charge of French affairs upon his arrival in Rome on 20 August 1587, and who also enjoyed Ossat's services as secretary.

[22] In 1588 he refused the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs to Henry III, after the King had dismissed all of his secretaries of state, including Villeroy.

D'Ossat thereupon undertook to serve as the private agent) procurator) in Rome of the widowed queen, Louise de Vaudemont.

[23] He used his unofficial position to support the cause of Henry IV, whose conversion to Catholicism he prepared Pope Clement VIII to accept.

On 1 August 1593, Henri IV wrote directly to d' Ossat in Rome that he was sending the Duc de Nevers to negotiate with the Pope, and he instructed d'Ossat to share all of his knowledge of and influence in the Roman Court, as well as his wise counsel, to advance the affairs of France.

As Envoy Extraordinary for Henri,[26] cooperating with Jacques Davy du Perron, Bishop of Évreux, he negotiated the reconciliation of the King with the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope, which took place on 19 September 1595.

Ossat was pleased to be notified, by a letter and brevet of 6 September 1597, that King Henri IV had named him a Councillor of State.

[32] A measure of Ossat's skill and tact may be gained by the French measures he was able to present successfully to the Holy See: the expulsion of the Jesuits from France, the indefinite postponement of the publication of the decrees of the Council of Trent, the Edict of Nantes, and French alliances with England and even with the Sultan of Turkey, the annulment of Henry IV's marriage with Margaret of Valois, and the marriage of the Duc de Bar with Catherine of Navarre, the king's sister and an unrepentant Calvinist.