"COMMISSION OF CHARLES II DE FOUILLEUSE - Governor of Gisors, Lord of Flavacourt " Signed by Louis XIII on January 19 1619

Countersigned by Louis Potier, Baron de Gesvres, Secretary of State during the Reign of Kings Henri III, Henri IV and Louis XIII

Size: 16.4" x 10.4" (42 cm x 26.5 cm)

Charles II de Fouilleuse, Lord of Flavacourt, Knight, Councilor & Chamberlain to the King, knight of His Order, Bailli & Governor of Gisors during the League.

Ensign lieutenant of a company of one hundred men-at-arms of Sieur d'Estrées then of a company of men-at-arms of Charles de Lorraine, Duke of Elbeuf, Governor of Gisors for Henri IV (by Letters of 03/21/1590 to Mantes). Disgraced (12/1591) then reinstated (pensioned at £3,000 by Louis XIII by patent of 08/16/1615, confirmed on 12/08/1649), arrests the army of the Count of Mansfeld at Fleurus (08/1622) (Receipt to the Treasurer of Wars in 1578)

His seal: a papered shield or with parts removed in crescents, each supporting a trefoil, surrounded by the collar of Saint-Michel.


Louis XIII (27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who was King of France from 1610 to 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown.

Shortly before his ninth birthday, Louis became king of France and Navarre after his father Henry IV was assassinated. His mother, Marie de' Medici, acted as regent during his minority. Mismanagement of the kingdom and ceaseless political intrigues by Marie and her Italian favourites led the young king to take power in 1617 by exiling his mother and executing her followers, including Concino Concini, the most influential Italian at the French court.

Louis XIII, taciturn and suspicious, relied heavily on his chief ministers, first Charles d'Albert, duc de Luynes and then Cardinal Richelieu, to govern the Kingdom of France. King and cardinal are remembered for establishing the Académie française, and ending the revolt of the French nobility. They systematically destroyed castles of defiant lords and denounced the use of private violence (dueling, carrying weapons, and maintaining private armies). By the end of 1620s, Richelieu established "the royal monopoly of force" as the ruling doctrine. The reign of Louis "the Just" was also marked by the struggles against the Huguenots and Habsburg Spain.