The duke of Savoie allied with the ligue for an invasion of France proper, and had considerable success despite losing a battle to La Valette and Lesdiguières.

Shortly before the Estates General closed, it compelled Henri to divest La Valette of the office of Admiral, which he ceded to Beauvais-Nangis in February.

Jean brought the noble family up from a situation of relative poverty to prominence, serving as maître de camp of the royal light cavalry, and then being named lieutenant-general of Guyenne in 1574, one year before his death.

[4] After some years, Bernard and Jean-Louis were dispatched by their father to Paris, where they studied at the Collège de Navarre from 1567 before military events terminated their education.

[2] Charles IX was sickly, and died in 1574 without heir, leaving his brother Anjou, now styled Henri III to succeed him as king.

La Valette had been involved in the negotiations between the crown of France and the duke of Savoie over the rebellious Marshal Bellegarde in the previous year.

[16] Bellegarde took a great deal of time to dislodge from Saluzzo, and negotiations were led by Marshal Retz and Jacques de La Fin.

[18] While negotiations over Saluzzo were ongoing, La Valette was established as governor of the rest of French Piedmont in 1580, granting him authority over the few remaining possession of France in the region.

[21][22] Governing French Piedmont was an expensive responsibility for La Valette, as the location of the towns on France's border necessitated large garrisons.

[27] The following year Épernon and Joyeuse were made premier gentilhomme de la chambre, this freed up the offices they had held previously of Chambellan, which they resigned to their brothers.

[29] In January 1582, La Valette joined the exclusive conseil des affaires which had only eight members and set the policy agenda of the state.

[30] At this time, Henri planned to disposes the governor of the Lyonnais François de Mandelot of his charge, and provide the key post to La Valette.

In January 1585 Épernon secured it for a client of his, Aymar de Poissieu, however Mandelot turned to popular hatred of the brothers, and allowed the population to destroy the citadel in May.

[40] In Dauphiné, the lieutenant-general Laurent de Maugiron, had a difficult relationship with the governor under whose authority he held office, the duke of Montpensier.

Eventually he would be persuaded to resign the charge of lieutenant-general to La Valette, though with the understanding he would remain the chief representative of the king in the province.

The fighting with Lesdiguières would be fierce, and Maugiron would advise him on his lieutenants during the campaign, encouraging him to avoid the sieur de Pongibault, a recent appointment by Montpensier.

After a fruitless private meeting in which he tried to persuade Guise to countenance concessions to Protestantism to avoid the invasion of the kingdom, Henri laid out the plan of campaign.

This culminated in a heated confrontation between the duke and Villeroy in which Épernon accused the secretary of state in front of the king of having squandered funds that were meant to be delivered to La Valette's army in Dauphiné.

Épernon demanded that La Valette receive this office, and it was promptly granted, the king recognising the strategic value in diluting the authority of the ligueur duke of Nemours who was the colonel-general of the light-cavalry.

Left ascendant in the capital, Guise worked to draw up his demands of the king with the cardinal de Bourbon and La Chapelle-Marteau.

On 23 May they presented their demands, Guise was to be established as commander in chief of the war against the Protestants, to disgrace and banish La Valette and Épernon, revoke all fiscal edicts and accept the appointment of Guisard loyalists to various key governorships.

[50] On 27 May Henri began his capitulations to the ligue, revoking en masse forty financial edicts that created venal offices, he promised to convoke an Estates General and further brought about the disgrace of the Nogaret.

While Épernon resigned the governate of Normandie to the duke of Montpensier, he was granted permission to yield his control of the post of governor of Provence and Admiral to La Valette.

[54] Feeling abandoned by Henri after the disgrace of his brother, La Valette took the opportunity of the Estates General at Blois to form a cross confessional alliance in Provence, entering compact with the Protestant commander of Dauphiné, Lesdiguières.

[56] The duke of Savoie meanwhile decided in September as the Estates were ongoing to invade Saluzzo, and he found that with the Nogaret family cut off from royal favour, it fell to him relatively smoothly.

The consulate of Marseille greeted him with a great procession to mourn the death, he was cheered by the assembled crowds, while those royalists in the town, who would be loyal to La Valette were abused as heretics.

[65] At the opening of 1589, Henri wrote to Épernon, to clarify the status of his family as regards the disgrace they had received the prior year at the behest of the ligue.

He confirmed Épernon's governate of Saintonge and the Angoumois, La Valette's authority over Provence and the comte de Brienne's control of Metz.

He confirmed the prior decision to grant La Valette the admiralty, and maintain Épernon in the office of colonel-general though without the ability to exercise its authority.

[66] The Estates General however had other ideas, baulking at the notion of the combining of the charge of Admiral, maître de camp of the light cavalry and governor of Provence.