page_title: Charles de Montsaulnin, Comte de Montal
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Charles de Montsaulnin, Comte de Montal / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a french military architect and politician (detail)
context_page_description: Charles de Montsaulnin, Comte de Montal was a 17th-century French military officer and noble who served in the wars of Louis XIV.
context_section_description: The first half of the 17th century in France was a period of intense civil strife; the 1590 Edict of Nantes ended the French Wars of Religion but a series of Huguenot rebellions broke out in the 1620s. French support for the Protestant Dutch Republic in its rebellion against Catholic Spain led to the 1635–1659 Franco-Spanish War, accompanied by a 1648–1653 civil war known as the Fronde.
  De Montal began his military career in 1638 as a captain in the regiment of the duc d'Enghien, later the Grand Condé, the leading French general of the period. He took part in the 1639 capture of the Spanish border fortress of Salses-le-Château, but the French were forced to retreat in 1640 after Condé's army disintegrated. He then joined Turenne during his Rhineland campaign of 1644–1646, fighting at the battles of Freiburg and Nördlingen. 
  When the so-called Fronde des nobles began in 1650, both Turenne and Condé opposed the Court party led by Louis XIV's mother, Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin. Turenne switched sides in 1651 and the Battle of the Faubourg St Antoine in July 1652 ended the Fronde as a serious military threat; de Montal was one of the few to follow Condé when he fought on with the Spanish. 
  In 1648, Louis XIII had granted the county of Clermont-en-Argonne to Condé, who established Sainte-Menehould as the capital; he fortified it in 1652, with De Montal as garrison commander. A young Vauban worked on the fortifications; he came from the same district in Nievre as de Montal and the two were colleagues for many years, although Vauban changed sides when captured by a Royalist patrol in early 1653.
  De Montal surrendered the town in November 1653, allegedly in return for a payment of 50,000 pistoles. However, he was appointed Spanish governor of Rocroi and fought in the 1656 Battle of Valenciennes, a crushing defeat inflicted by Condé on his French countrymen.
  The 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees ending the war with Spain included an agreement that de Montal and Condé be allowed to return home, although it was not until the 1667-1668 War of Devolution that either of them was trusted with a military command again. De Montal served in Condé's army that over-ran Franche-Comté in 1668 but the province was returned to Spain in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
  The French retained the strategic town of Charleroi in the Spanish Netherlands; its fortifications were upgraded by Vauban and de Montal appointed Governor, a position he retained until 1678. During the 1672–1678 Franco-Dutch War, he commanded part of the assault force that stormed Maastricht in June 1673. He later repulsed an attempt by William of Orange to take Charleroi in 1673 and was wounded at Seneffe in 1674. During the winter of 1676/1677, he supported a tight French blockade of the Spanish-held towns of Valenciennes and Cambrai by seizing any grain being transported from Namur and preventing reinforcements reaching either garrison.
  Active campaigning in Flanders largely ended after the two towns surrendered in spring 1677 but de Montal was involved in the last action of the war, the Battle of Saint-Denis in August 1678. In return for his service, he was appointed Governor of the newly-acquired towns of Dinant and Maubeuge, when Charleroi was returned to Spain in the 1678 Treaty of Nijmegen.
  The 1683–1684 War of the Reunions was short but relatively brutal, since Louvois, French Minister of War, sought to pressure the local populace into suing for peace by destroying crops and buildings. As Governor of Maubeuge, de Montal was ordered to burn 20 villages around Charleroi in retaliation for Spanish raids into France.
  Louis XIV reportedly remarked sieges should ideally be conducted by Vauban and defended by de Montal, but could only happen once, since they would kill each other. His confidence in their abilities was demonstrated in 1687 when Vauban was ordered to construct a new fortress called Mont-Royal, with de Montal as Governor. Located on the Moselle, near Traben-Trarbach in modern Germany, Mont-Royal was an advanced position that provided a vital stepping-off point 
caption: Vauban, a near neighbour from Nievre who served with de Montal since 1651
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