Gaspard de Saulx

Gaspard de Saulx, sieur de Tavannes (March 1509–June 1573) was a French Roman Catholic military leader during the Italian Wars and the French Wars of Religion. He served under four kings during his career, participating in the Siege of Calais (1558) and leading the royal army to victory in the third civil war at the Jarnac and Moncontour. A strong Catholic, he founded the confraternity of the holy ghost in 1567 which would be a template for other militant Catholic organisations across France. He died in 1573, shortly after the opening assassinations of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, which he had helped plan. Early life and family The Saulx family was well established in Dijon, Gaspard's great-grandfather having been a judge in the Paris Parlement and a councillor to the Duke of Burgundy. Gaspard was born in 1509 in the house Jean de Saulx had commissioned in 1412. He was the son of Jean de Saulx, baron of Sully, and of Marguerite de Tavannes; their second child of three. In 1546 he married Françoise de la Baume for a dowry of 20,000 livres. They would have five children, among whom (1553-1633), who would inherit his father's titles. Reign of Francis I As a page of King Francis I, he was captured after the disaster at the Battle of Pavia in 1525. Later he distinguished himself in the War of Provence and in 1544 at the Battle of Ceresole. In the factionalism between Anne de Pisseleu and Diane de Poitiers at court, Tavannes fell in with the group around the king's mistress. Reign of Henri II