Laval-Guyon  (Vallon-Guidonis)  is  said  to  take  its  name
from  its  founder,  Count  Guy.  Of  its  early  lords,  Hamon
de  Laval  followed  the  Conqueror  to  England  in  1066,  and
Guy  IV.  became  a  Crusader  in  1096.  Emma  de  Laval
brought  the  seigneury  by  marriage  to  the  house  of  Mont-
morency  in  1221,  and  her  descendant  Anne  de  Laval,
in  1404,  to  the  house  of  Montfort,  from  which  it  passed
successively  to  the  families  of  Rieux,  Coligny,  and  La
Tremouille.  In  the  xv.  c.  it  was  bravely  defended  by
Anne  de  Laval  against  the  English,  but  eventually  taken
by  Talbot  in  1428,  though  retaken  in  the  following  year.
At  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  Laval  belonged  to
Antoine-Philippe  de  la  Tre'mouille,  Prince  de  Talmont,
who  afterwards  became  general  of  the  Vendean  cavalry.
202


NORTH-WESTERN  FRANCE.
In  1792  the  Vendean  army  took  the  town,  and  it  was
twice  the  headquarters  of  La  Rochejaquelein.  The  Prince
de  Talmont  was  seized  by  the  royalists  and  executed  at  the
age  of  twenty-eight  before  the  gate  of  the  chateau  of  Laval,
which  had  been  the  home  of  his  family  for  nine  centuries.
It  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Laval  that  the  brothers


iHL


Jean  Pierre,  FranQois,  and  Rene  Cottereau  first  organised
the  bands  of  the  Chouans^  which  played  such  a  conspicuous
part  in  the  wars  of  La  Vendee.
