LA NODE, FRANcOIS DE (1531-1591), called Bras-de Fer, Huguenot captain, was born near Nantes in 1531, of an ancient Breton family. His first great exploit was the capture of Orleans at the head of only 15 cavaliers in 1567, during the second Huguenot war. At the battle of Jarnac in March 1569 he commanded the rearguard, and at Moncontour in the following October he was taken prisoner; but he was exchanged in time to resume the governorship of Poitou, and to defeat the royalist troops before Rochefort. At the siege of Fontenay (157o) his left arm was shattered by a bullet ; but a mechanic of Rochelle made him an iron arm (hence his sobriquet) with a hook for hold ing his reins. When peace was made in France in the same year, La Noue carried his sword against the Spaniards in the Nether lands, but was taken at the recapture of Mons by the Spanish in 1572. He was commissioned by Charles IX., after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, to reconcile the inhabitants of La Rochelle, the great stronghold of the Huguenots, to the king. But La Noue gave up his royal commission, and from 1574 till 1578 acted as general of La Rochelle.
When peace was again concluded La Noue once more went to aid the Protestants of the Low Countries. He took several towns
and captured Count Egmont in 158o; but a few weeks afterwards he fell into the hands of the Spaniards, who kept him in close imprisonment at Limburg for five years. In prison he wrote his Discours politiques et rnilitaires (Basel, 1587, and many other editions). La Noue wrote of war as a human drama, before it had been elaborated and codified. In June 1585, La Noue was ex changed. In 1589, he joined Henry of Navarre against the Leaguers. He was present at both sieges of Paris, at Ivry and other battles. He died at Moncontour on Aug. 4, 1591.