Originally from Poitou, he found himself orphaned at a very young age and, like his first cousin
Cardinal Richelieu, he was adopted by their uncle Amador de La Porte, Grand Prior of France, who ensured their education. Lieutenant General of Brittany in 1632, he was appointed Governor of
Nantes, from which he allowed
Cardinal de Retz to escape in 1654. He was regularly present on the battlefields. He was appointed
Grand Master of Artillery of France the same year, and acquired the reputation of being the best General for sieges; he was nicknamed "the taker of cities". In 1635, he was promoted to
Lieutenant-General. In 1636, Cardinal Richelieu sent him to
Port-Louis to make the city's citadel impregnable and said of him : In 1639 he became
Marshal of France after taking
Hesdin. In 1641, he bought the barony of Parthenay. In 1642, after a
ten-month siege, he conquered
Perpignan and
Salses-le-Château, completing the conquest of
Roussillon. Appointed
Superintendent of Finances in 1648, he remained loyal to the King during the troubles of
The Fronde. In 1663, a year before his death,
Louis XIV promoted his lands of Parthenay and
Gâtine Vendéenne to a Duchy-peerage, under the name of Duchy of La Meilleraye, based on
Parthenay and the current commune of
Beaulieu-sous-Parthenay (Deux-Sèvres). This immense domain was divided up and the abandoned castle fell into ruins by the end of the 18th century. The new Duke of La Meilleraye lacked neither skill nor political finesse. Even before the establishment of the
French East India Company, he conceived the audacious plan of colonizing Madagascar, then called
Dauphine Island, and founded his own maritime trading company.
Marriage and children In 1630 he married Marie Coiffié de Ruzé d'Effiat, daughter of Marshal
Antoine Coiffier de Ruzé, marquis d'Effiat and sister of the
Marquis of Cinq-Mars, with whom he had one son: •
Armand-Charles de la Porte, husband in 1661 of
Hortense Mancini, a niece of Mazarin. Widowed in 1633, he remarried in 1637 Marie de Cossé, daughter of François de Cossé-Brissac, who brought him a dowry of 400,000 livres and the government of
Port-Louis. They had no children. In 1653, he legitimized Charles de Montgogué, the son he had with Catherine Fleury. ==External links==