Acadians Descended From LaTour Family

Charter of Acadia Granted by Henry IV of Gast, Sieur de Monts; December 18, 1603

La Tour d'Au'vergne' is the name of my French royal family, orginally from the village of LaTour in Auvergne, dating from the early 10th century; it divided into several branches, including Counts of Auvergne, Dukes of Bouillon and Al'bert, and Viscounts of Turenne; see BOUILLON and TURENNE.

Henry II de Albert, King of Navarre, grandfather of Henri IV of France.

Henry IV (French: Henri IV, read as Henri-Quatre pronounced: [ɑ̃ʁi.katʁ]; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithet "Good King Henry", was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 to 1610 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first French monarch of the House of Bourbon, a branch of the Capetian dynasty.

Baptised as a Catholic but raised in the Protestant faith by his mother Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, he inherited the throne of Navarre in 1572 on the death of his mother. As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the French Wars of Religion, barely escaping assassination in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, and later led Protestant forces against the royal army.

The Treaty of Loudun was signed on May 3, 1616, in Loudun, France, and ended the war that originally began as a power struggle between queen mother Marie de Medici's favorite Concino Concini (recently made Marquis d'Ancre) and Henry II de Condé, the next in line for Louis XIII's throne.^[1] The war gained religious undertones when rebellious Huguenot princes joined Condé's revolt.

Martaizé is a commune in the Vienne department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in western France. It is a small village about 7 miles from Loudun.

In the early 17th century, Martaizé, along with the nearby village of La Chaussée, was one of the seigneuries of Charles de Menou d'Aulnay. Several of the earliest settlers of Acadia including the Gaudets, LeBlancs, the Bourgs, the Terriots, and the Savoies are believed to have been recruited by d'Aulnay from their original home in Martaizé to colonize New France. ^[1]

There was one of these Acadian families, about who PROTESTANT ANTECEDENTS there can be no question, and which was destined to take a prominent part in the history of the colony. Its founder was Claude de St. Elienne, sieur de la Tour. He is said to have been allied to the NOBLE HOUSE OF BOUILLON. About the year 1609 he came a widower, with his son Charles, then a boy of fourteen (14), to Port Royal, for purposes of trade, having lost the greater part of his estates in the WARS OF RELIGION. When that settlement was broken up, in 1613. La Tour removed to the coast of MAINE, and built a fort and trading house at the mouth of the PENOBSCOT RIVER, which was claimed by the FRENCH as within the limits of ACADIA. Here he continued for a number of years, until finally dispossessed by the ENGLISH OF PLYMOUTH. Meanwhile, Charles de la Tour, now a bold and active youth, had formed a close friendship with young Biencourt, the son of Poutrincourt, the proprietor of PORT ROYAL. Biencourt had remained in ACADIA after the destruction of the settlement, at first seeking a home among the INDIANS, and then engaging, with a few companions, in the attempt to rebuild the trading post whose beginnings had been so unfortunate. The two friends, nearly of the same age, became inseparable; and when in the year 1623, Biencourt died, he appointed Charles his successor in the government of the colony, bequeathing to him all his rights in PORT ROYAL.