I don't get out as much as I used to.

Jehan du Lac is the fifth son of Aymer and Bertrande. He was born in the Perigord region of the province of Guyenne in southwest France in 1553. He was tutored at home and was put out to live with his Uncle Raymond's family near Ste. Foix la Grande when he was 13. In 1572 he accompanied his uncle to Paris for the marriage of Henry de Navarre and Marguerite de Valois. He was a witness to and survivor of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in which his uncle and cousin were killed. He escaped back to the southwest and joined the Protestant troops in La Rochelle. He spent most of the next 15+ years soldiering around in various campaigns in the region and was with King Henry's army that went north in 1589. He participated at the great victories at Coutras in 1587 and at Ivry in 1590, both of which added considerably to his personal net worth. He met Luke Knowlton during the Normandy campaign in the early 1590s and they soldiered together off and on for the next several years. Jehan was with the King's troops when they entered Paris in 1594. He decided at that time to retire from the service and do as so many old Huguenot captains had done and retire to a country estate and take a wife. His happiness was short-lived however as his young wife and baby boy died in childbirth the next year and he headed back to the front for the seige of Amiens in 1597. It was his good fortune to meet his old friend Capt. Knowlton there and he settled into the soldier's life again. Being badly wounded towards the end of 1597, Luke escorted him home and endedup staying in the area for some time, looking into possibilities in the wine trade. Nowadays, Jehan lives the life of a country squire. He and Luke hunt and do a bit of angling, he tends his estate (with the help of his well-thumbed Maison Rustique), and he reads the latest news sheets from Bordeaux. Try as she might, his sister has not yet been successful in finding him a new wife, so he lives the life of a bachelor.

For those of you who know the tavern keeper of Calais, this is an alternate history that diverged at that crucial battle of Ivry in 1590. The tavern keeper lost his eye, cracked some vertebrae, fractured his leg, and suffered a decline in his fortunes. This one not only emerged healthy, but made a considerable profit in ransoms and loot. His fortunes have continued to improve, to the point of inheriting a large and prosperous barony.