One daughter Anne married François de Gélas and their younger son Charles later succeeded his uncle Jean as Bishop of Valence in 1574, while Joachim was another soldier whose pillaging of the Dordogne in 1537 was still remembered three centuries later.

[10] Monluc returned home and spent the next three years serving Henry II of Navarre, before joining the "Legion de Languedoc" in 1534, part of an attempt by Francis I to create a national army.

[19] Monluc moved to the nearby town of Montalcino and remained in Italy until May 1558 when he returned to Flanders and took part in the capture of Thionville; he was promoted to colonel-général of infantry and became a client of the powerful House of Guise.

[20] When the Italian Wars ended in April 1559 with the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, Monluc was a well connected and respected military figure, while his brother Jean was a prominent diplomat and close to the Queen Mother, Catherine de' Medici.

[22] [a] His death in December 1560 brought his ten-year-old brother Charles IX of France to the throne and initiated a struggle for power between Protestants, commonly known as Huguenots, moderate Catholics led by the Queen Mother who favoured compromise, and a more extreme faction headed by the Guise family.

[23] Despite being a Catholic bishop, his brother Jean de Monluc was a friend of Calvinist theologian Theodore Beza and a Protestant sympathiser who supported Huguenot leader Condé in his request for freedom of worship.

[25] In his "Memoires", he claimed he did so because its emphasis on freedom of conscience over obedience to Royal authority made Protestantism inherently seditious,[26] but he may also have decided his interests were better served by remaining loyal to Francis, Duke of Guise.

In the early stages of the war, he executed hundreds of Protestants, including the garrisons of Montségur and Terraube, and expressed regret lack of money forced him to ransom captured officers, rather than kill them.

[30] Although the Edict banned political or religious agitation, this provision proved impossible to enforce; the Guise faction felt it made too many concessions and Monluc was one of several military governors who set up Catholic action groups known as "Confraternities of the Holy Ghost".

He was deeply embittered by his injuries, later writing; "Would to heaven this accursed engine [the arquebus] had never been invented, I had not then received those wounds which I now languish under, neither had so many valiant men been slain ...by the most pitiful fellows and the greatest cowards..."[40] [f] He died at his home in Estillac on 24 July 1577.

[43] In addition to his experiences in France and Italy, it contains advice on tactics, strategy, building fortifications and leadership, recommendations such as paying pensions to wounded or crippled soldiers and avoiding reliance on foreign mercenaries, as well as observations on topics like the best way to educate the nobility.

Divided into seven volumes, the first four relate to the campaigns in Italy, ranging from the early 1530s to the French recovery of Thionville in 1558; the final three deal with his appointment as lieutenant du roi in Guyenne and his efforts to re-establish Royal authority.