SEIGNEURS AND

COUNTS OF

See also:

• LAVAL
• LAVAL, ANDRE DE, SEIGNEUR DE LOHEAC (c. 1408-1485)

LAVAL  . The castle of Laval was founded at the beginning of the 11th century by a lord of the name of Guy, and remained in the possession of his male descend-ants until the 13th century . In 1218 the lordship passed to the house of Montmorency by the marriage of Emma, daughter of Guy VI. of Laval, to Mathieu de Montmorency, the hero of the battle of Bouvines . Of this union was born Guy VII. seigneur of Laval, the ancestor of the second house of Laval . Anne of Laval (d . 1466), the heiress of the second family, married John de Montfort, who took the name of Guy (XIII.) of Laval . At Charles VII.'s coronation (1429) Guy XIV., who was after-wards son-in-law of John V., duke of Brittany, and father-in-law of King Rene of Anjou, was created count of Laval, and the countship remained in the possession of Guy's male descendants until 1547 . After the Montforts, the countship of Laval passed by inheritance to the families of Rieux and Sainte Maure, to the Colignys, and finally to the La Tremoilles, who held it until the Revolution . See Bertrand de Broussillon, La Maison de Laval (3 vols., 1895-1900) . LA VALLIERE, LOUISE FRANCOISE DE (1644-1710), mistress of Louis XIV., was born at Tours on the 6th of August 1644, the daughter of an officer, Laurent de la Baume le Blanc, who took the name of La Valliere from a small property near Amboise . Laurent de la Valliere died in 1651; his widow, who soon married again, joined the court of Gaston d'Orleans at Blois . Louise was brought up with the younger princesses, the step-sisters of La Grande Mademoiselle .

After Gaston's

death his widow moved with her daughters to the palace of the Luxembourg in Paris, and with them went Louise, who was now a girl of sixteen . Through the influence of a distant kinswoman, Mme de Choisy, she was named maid of honour to Henrietta of England, who was about her own age and had just married Philip of Orleans, the king's brother . Henrietta joined the court at Fontainebleau, and was soon on the friendliest terms with her brother-in-law, so friendly indeed that there was some scandal, to avoid which it was determined that Louis should pay marked attentions elsewhere . The person selected was Madame's maid of honour, Louise . She had been only two months in Fontainebleau before she became the king's mistress . The affair, begun on Louis's part as a blind, immediately developed into real passion on both sides . It was Louis's first serious attachment, and Louise was an innocent, religious-minded girl, who brought usually darker and denser than lavas of acid type, and when fused they tend to flow to great distances, and may thus form far-spreading sheets, whilst the acid lavas, being more viscous, rapidly consolidate after extrusion . The lava is emitted from the volcanic vent at a high temperature, but on exposure to the air it rapidly consolidates superficially, forming a crust which in many cases is soon broken up by the continued flow of the subjacent liquid lava, so that the surface becomes rugged with clinkers . J . D . Dana introduced the term " as " for this rough kind of lava-stream, whilst he applied the term " pahoehoe " to those flows which have a smooth surface, or are simply wrinkled and ropy; these terms being used in this sense in Hawaii, in relation to the local lavas . The different kinds of lava are more fully described in the article VOLCANO .