Companion-in-arms of Henry IV, Huguenot captain, author of military treatises. Related to the line of Briord through the L'Épervier family.
Of all the great names that revolve around Briord, that of François de La Noue is the most prestigious — and the most surrounded by legends that must be dispelled.
The link with Briord
Bras-de-fer's connection to Briord runs through the women. Bonaventure L'Épervier, a descendant of Pierre Landais and lady of Briord, married a first François de La Noue, lord of La Noue and Chavannes, baron of Sançay. From this union was born the illustrious captain.
Bonaventure paid homage for Briord in 1533 but did not keep the châtellenie for long: she sold it to Jean des Rouxières. Bras-de-fer's link with Briord is therefore real but indirect: it comes through his mother, not through any personal possession.
Iron Arm
His nickname came from a prosthesis: having lost an arm in battle, he had it replaced by an articulated iron arm. A Huguenot captain during the Wars of Religion, he was one of the most faithful companions-in-arms of the future Henry IV.
A man of war, he was also a man of the pen: held prisoner for several years, he wrote Political and Military Discourses that make him one of the great theorists of the military art of his time.
"A great man of war and a greater man of good"
It was in these terms that Henry IV described La Noue. Wounded at the siege of Lamballe, François de La Noue died in 1591. He leaves the memory of an upright soldier and a clear-sighted writer — and, for Briord, the pride of kinship with one of the finest figures of the sixteenth-century France.