Guillaume Fouquet de la Varenne

Impressed by the young man's personality and skill, in 1580 Catherine recommended him to her brother, and he subsequently became a portmanteau[2] at the court of Henry IV.

For thirty years, until the King's assassination in 1610, Fouquet lived in the shadow of Henry IV, but nevertheless took an active part in important events of the realm.

The King's sister, Catherine de Bourbon, Duchess of Bar and wife of Henry II, Duke of Lorraine, once said to Fouquet, whom she had known as a cook: "It seems, la Varenne, that you have earned more by carrying my brother's chickens (i.e.: his messages) than by skewering mine.

Fouquet also donated to the ecclesiastical abbeys of Ainay (near Lyon), Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire, Saint-Nicolas d'Angers, Saint-Loup de Troyes, and the Esvière priory near Angers.

The land attached to Saint-Romans in Poitou had previously been elevated into a barony for Fouquet and his second wife, Jeanne de Poix, citing "services rendered by them in acts wars, or in several other ways".