Louis de L'Hôpital

When the king was assassinated, and his Protestant heir Henri IV succeeded him, Vitry was the highest profile noble to defect to the ligueur cause.

As reward for his service, the lieutenant-general of the ligue, Mayenne made him maître de camp of the ligueur light cavalry, and governor of Meaux.

Vitry played a role in the royalist capture of Paris in March 1594, leading a column of troops into the city ahead of the king.

As early as 1602 he was serving as the captain of the king's bodyguard, and on the day when Henri was assassinated, Vitry had warned him of the risks of going into the city without him, only to be dismissed.

[3] In August 1580, Vitry married Françoise de Brichenteau, the younger sister of the royal favourite Beauvais-Nangis.

Given Henri had no children with his wife, this meant that succession defaulted on his distant cousin the Protestant king of Navarre.

Vitry was the first great noble to heed this call and on 12 August promised to deliver the town of Dourdan of which he was governor to the late duke of Guise's mother duchesse de Nemours.

[12] At the head of a cavalry force, he put himself at the service of his ligueur uncle La Châtre, forming the basis of the military of his little fiefdom carved out around Bourges.

The Seize were frustrated by Mayenne's cautious conservativism and decided to strike out in November 1591 against those they perceived to be royalists, killing the premier président of the Parlement Barnabe Brisson.

On 4 December Vitry, on his orders rounded up several leading members of the Parisian Seize, Auroux, Émonnot, Ameline and Louchard and put them under arrest.

[15] For Henri the defection of Meaux was a key stepping point to Paris, and he highlighted his generous treatment of the city in the letters he had smuggled into the capital.

[18] Vitry for his part used the surrender as an opportunity to publish a manifesto (Le Manifeste à la noblesse de France) in which he elaborated that he had only rebelled due to Henri being a Protestant, and now that he was Catholic there was no cause to defy him.

[19] Vitry was richly rewarded for his defection, receiving confirmation of his ligueur granted post as governor of the city, with a promise that his son could succeed him in the role.

[17] Vitry's defection came only days before his uncle La Châtre wrote to Mayenne informing him that it was not imperative to negotiate with Henri.

On the day of the king's assassination, he ordered Vitry to leave him and go deal with preparations for the queens entry into Paris.

[28] After teasing Vitry that his true motive was to hang around the Louvre and flirt with the court ladies, Henri dismissed him, a few hours later the king would be dead.