divorced in 1373, he had an only son, Gaston, who is said to have been incited by his uncle, Charles II., king of Navarre, to poison his father, and who met his death in 1381. It is probable, as Froissart says, that he was killed by his father. Left without legitimate sons, Gaston was easily persuaded to bequeath his lands to King Charles VI., who thus obtained Foix and Béarn when the count died at Orthes in 1391. Gaston was very fond of hunting, but was not without a taste for art and literature. Several beautiful manuscripts are in existence which were executed by his orders, and he himself wrote Déduits de la chasse des bestes sauvaiges et des oiseaulx de proye. Froissart, who gives a graphic description of his court and his manner of life, speaks enthusiastically of Gaston, saying: “I never saw none like him of personage, nor of so fair form, nor so well made,” and again, “in everything he was so perfect that he cannot be praised too much.”
Almost immediately after Gaston’s death King Charles VI. granted the county of Foix to Matthew, viscount of Castelbon, a descendant of Count Gaston I. Dying without issue in 1398, Matthew’s lands were seized by Archambault, count of Grailly and captal de Buch, the husband of his sister Isabella (d. 1426), who became count of Foix in 1401. Archambault’s eldest son, John (c. 1382–1436), who succeeded to his father’s lands and titles in 1412, had married in 1402 Jeanne, daughter of Charles III., king of Navarre. Having served the king of France in Guienne and the king of Aragon in Sardinia, John became the royal representative in Languedoc, when the old quarrel between Foix and Armagnac broke out again. During the struggle between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, he intrigued with both parties, and consequently was distrusted by the dauphin, afterwards King Charles VII. Deserting the cause of France, he then allied himself with Henry V. of England; but when Charles VII. became king in 1422, he returned to his former allegiance and became the king’s representative in Languedoc and Guienne. He then assisted to suppress the marauding bands which were devastating France; fought for Aragon against Castile; and aided his brother, the cardinal of Foix, to crush some insurgents in Aragon. Peter, cardinal of Foix (1386–1464), was the fifth son of Archambault of Grailly, and was made archbishop of Arles in 1450. He took a prominent part in the struggle between the rival popes, and founded and endowed the Collège de Foix at Toulouse. The next count was John’s son, Gaston IV., who married Leonora (d. 1479), a daughter of John, king of Aragon and Navarre. In 1447 he bought the viscounty of Narbonne, and having assisted King Charles VII. in Guienne, he was made a peer of France in 1458. In 1455 his father-in-law designated him as his successor in Navarre, and Louis XI. of France gave him the counties of Rousillon and Cerdagne, and made him his representative in Languedoc and Guienne; but these marks of favour did not prevent him from joining a league against Louis in 1471. His eldest son, Gaston, the husband of Madeleine, a daughter of Charles VII. of France, died in 1470, and when Gaston IV. died two years later, his lands descended to his grandson, Francis Phoebus (d. 1483), who became king of Navarre in 1479, and was succeeded by his sister Catherine (d. 1517), the wife of Jean d’Albret (d. 1516). Thus the house of Foix-Grailly was merged in that of Albret and subsequently in that of Bourbon; and when Henry of Navarre became king of France in 1589 the lands of the counts of Foix-Grailly became part of the French royal domain. A younger son of Count Gaston IV. was John (d. 1500), who received the viscounty of Narbonne from his father and married Marie, a sister of the French king Louis XII. He was on good terms both with Louis XI. and Louis XII., and on the death of his nephew Francis Phoebus, in 1483, he claimed the kingdom of Navarre against Jean d’Albret and his wife, Catherine de Foix. The ensuing struggle lasted until 1497, when John renounced his claim. He left a son, Gaston de Foix (1489–1512), the distinguished French general, and a daughter, Germaine, who became the second wife of Ferdinand I., king of Spain. In 1507 Gaston exchanged his viscounty of Narbonne with King Louis XII. for the duchy of Nemours, and as duke of Nemours he took command of the French troops in Italy. Having delivered Bologna and taken Brescia, Gaston encountered the troops of the Holy League at Ravenna in April 1512, and after putting the enemy to flight was killed during the pursuit. From the younger branch of the house of Foix-Grailly have also sprung the viscounts of Lautrec and of Meilles, the counts of Bénanges and Candale, and of Gurson and Fleix.
See D. J. Vaissète, Histoire générale de Languedoc, tome iv. (Paris, 1876); L. Flourac, Jean Ier, comte de Foix, vicomte souverain de Béarn (Paris, 1884); Le Père Anselme, Histoire généalogique, tome iii. (Paris, 1726–1733); Castillon, Histoire du comte de Foix (Toulouse, 1852); Madaune, Gaston Phœbus, comte de Foix et souverain de Béarn (Pau, 1865); and Froissart’s Chroniques, edited by S. Luce and G. Raynaud (Paris, 1869–1897).
FOLARD, JEAN CHARLES, Chevalier de (1669–1752),
French soldier and military author, was born at Avignon on the
13th of February 1669. His military ardour was first awakened
by reading Caesar’s Commentaries, and he ran away from home
and joined the army. He soon saw active service, and, young
as he was, wrote a manual on partisan warfare, the manuscript
of which passed with Folard’s other papers to Marshal Belleisle
on the author’s death. In 1702 he became a captain, and aide-de-camp
to the duke of Vendôme, then in command of the French
forces in Italy. In 1705, while serving under Vendôme’s brother,
the Grand Prior, Folard won the cross of St Louis for a gallant
feat of arms, and in the same year he distinguished himself at
the battle of Cassano, where he was severely wounded. It was
during his tedious recovery from his wounds that he conceived
the tactical theories to the elucidation of which he devoted most
of his life. In 1706 he again rendered good service in Italy, and
in 1708 distinguished himself greatly in the operations attempted
by Vendôme and the duke of Burgundy for the relief of Lille,
the failure of which was due in part to the disagreement of the
French commanders; and it is no small testimony to the ability
and tact of Folard that he retained the friendship of both.
Folard was wounded at Malplaquet in 1709, and in 1711 his
services were rewarded with the governorship of Bourbourg.
He saw further active service in 1714 in Malta, under Charles
XII. of Sweden in the north, and under the duke of Berwick in
the short Spanish War of 1719. Charles XII. he regarded as the
first captain of all time, and it was at Stockholm that Folard
began to formulate his tactical ideas in a commentary on Polybius.
On his way back to France he was shipwrecked and lost all his
papers, but he set to work at once to write his essays afresh,
and in 1724 appeared his Nouvelles Découvertes sur la guerre dans
une dissertation de Polybe, followed (1727–1730) by Histoire de
Polybe traduite par ... de Thuillier avec un commentaire ...
de M. de Folard, Chevalier de l’Ordre de St Louis. Folard spent
the remainder of his life in answering the criticisms provoked
by the novelty of his theories. He died friendless and in obscurity
at Avignon in 1752.
An analysis of Folard’s military writings brings to light not a connected theory of war as a whole, but a great number of independent ideas, sometimes valuable and suggestive, but far more often extravagant. The central point of his tactics was his proposed column formation for infantry. Struck by the apparent weakness of the thin line of battle of the time, and arguing from the ἔμβολον or cuneus of ancient warfare, he desired to substitute the shock of a deep mass of troops for former methods of attack, and further considered that in defence a solid column gave an unshakable stability to the line of battle. Controversy at once centred itself upon the column. Whilst some famous commanders, such as Marshal Saxe and Guido Starhemberg, approved it and put it in practice, the weight of military opinion throughout Europe was opposed to it, and eventually history justified this opposition. Amongst the most discriminating of his critics was Frederick the Great, who is said to have invited Folard to Berlin. The Prussian king certainly caused a précis to be made by Colonel von Seers, and wrote a preface thereto expressing his views. The work (like others by Frederick) fell into unauthorized hands, and, on its publication (Paris, 1760) under the title Esprit du Chev. Folard, created a great impression. “Thus kept within bounds,” said
