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 LAYAL LAVAL-MONTMORENCY 213 ored. It has an undulating surface, partly covered with ash and post-oak timber, and a fertile soil adapted to cotton, sugar, and Indian corn. The chief productions in 1870 were 261,815 bushels of Indian corn, 47,287 of sweet potatoes, 19,508 Ibs. of wool, and 3,528 bales of cotton. There were 5,970 horses, 1,058 mules and asses, 21,012 milch cows, 2,553 working oxen, 56,309 other cattle, 10,890 sheep, and 20,494 swine. Capital, Hallettsville. LAVAL, a fortified town of France, capital of the department of Mayenne, on the Mayenne river, 41 m. E. S. E. of Rennes; pop. in 1866, 27,189. There is a considerable trade in wine, brandy, wood, iron, clover, and marble. It has four parish churches of the first grade, a theological seminary, a college, a convent of Trappists, two castles, three hospitals, a public library, iron works, and a considerable linen industry. In 1855 it was erected by Pius IX. into an episcopal see. It was in the environs of Laval that originated in 1791 the royalist insurrection called the Chouannerie. Laval was taken by the Vendean army, and a bril- liant victory gained near it over the republi- cans, in October, 1793. LAVAL, a county of Quebec, Canada, em- bracing Isle Jesus, which lies at the mouth of the Ottawa river, and is separated from the island of Montreal on the south by the riviere des Prairies; area, 85 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 9,472, of whom 9,325 were of French origin or descent. Capital, Ste. Rose. LA VALETTE, Antoine Marie Chamans, count de, a French officer, born in Paris in 1769, died there, Feb. 15, 1830. At the breaking out of the revolution he became an officer of the na- tional guard, and he was one of the last defend- ers of the king on Aug. 10, 1792. Entering the republican army, he distinguished himself on the Rhine and in La Vendee, and gained the confidence of Bonaparte, who appointed him his adjutant and private secretary. He ac- companied him to Egypt, and became more nearly allied to him by marrying a niece of Josephine. After the 18th Brumaire he was made postmaster general and count. In 1814 he lost his office, but he reoccupied his post immediately on the departure of Louis XVIII. for Ghent. After the restoration of Louis XVIII. he was arrested for having aided the emperor, and condemned to death. He es- caped by the aid of his wife and daughter and three English gentlemen, and went to Munich, where he was kindly received by the king. Mme. de La Valette, after the escape was dis- covered, was kept for some time imprisoned, and became insane; but she survived until June, 1855. In 1822 La Valette was pardoned and returned to France, where he lived in obscu- rity. He left a volume of Memoires et souve- nirs (Paris, 1831), containing an interesting ac- count of his escape. Napoleon I. bequeathed 300,000 francs to La Valette, of which he re- ceived 60,000 ; in 1855 Napoleon III. paid the remainder to his heirs. LA VALETTE, Jean Parisot de. See VALETTE. LA VALLIERE, Fraiifoise Louise de La Banme Le Blanc, duchess de, mistress of Louis XIV., born in Tours in August, 1644, died in Paris, June 6, 1710. After the death of her. father, a nobleman and superior officer, her mother married the baron de Saint-Remy, who was attached to the household of the duchess of Orleans. Introduced at court and appointed maid of honor to Henrietta of England, sister- in-law of Louis XIV., Mile, de La Valliere soon received the homage of several distinguished persons, whose attentions she discountenanced from a feeling of sincere love and admiration for the king. All who became acquainted with the young lady were struck with her modesty, gentleness, and truthfulness, as well as with her personal charms and varied. accomplish- ments ; and the most eminent French writers, as Racine, La Fontaine, and Mme. de S6vign6, bestow the highest encomiums upon her vir- tues and graces. Her love for Louis XIV. was as enthusiastic as it was disinterested ; and after having for some time resisted, his ad- vances, she became his mistress in 1661, but on several occasions felt impelled by conscien- tious scruples to desert her lover, who twice succeeded in bringing her back from the con- vent in which she had taken refuge. In 1674, however, she left him definitely, and took the veil in the Carmelite convent of the faubourg St. Jacques under the name of Sister Louise. She received the visits of the queen, the duch- ess of Orleans, and other warm admirers, and, engaged in works of piety and charity, spent the rest of her life in the seclusion of that convent, of which Mme. de Montespan, who had succeeded her as mistress of the king, also eventually became an inmate. She bore four children to the king, two of whom were legiti- mated, viz., Mile, de Blois, who married the prince of Conti, and the count of Vermandois. She wrote a work entitled Reflexions sur la misericorde de Dieu, par une dame penitente (1680), of which a copy, dated 1688, with cor- rections by Bossuet, was discovered in the Louvre library by M. Damas-Hinard in 1852. The original as well as the corrected work was edited by M. Romaine Cornut (Paris, 1854). A collection of her letters was pub- lished in 1767. Among the works based upon her life, the novel of Mme. de Genlis has at- tained the greatest popularity. Lebrun's " Mag- dalen " in the Val-de-Grace in Paris has been said to represent the features of the duchess, but this is now very generally disbelieved. See Ars6ne Houssaye, Mile, de La Valliere et Mme. de Montespan (Paris, I860). Her grand- nephew, Louis CESAR DE LA VALLIEEE (1708- '80), was a celebrated bibliophile. LAVAL-MONTMORENCY, Francois Xayier de, the first Roman Catholic bishop of Quebec, born in Laval, France, March 23, 1622, died in Que- bec, May 26, 1708. He was ordained priest in Paris, Sept. 23, 1645, was nominated missionary bishop of Cochin China in 1651, but did not