Armagnac, an ancient territory of France, in the province of Gascony, now forming the department of Gers, and a part of Lot-et-Ga-ronne, Tarn-et-Garonne, and Haute-Garonne. It was successively included in Aquitaine, in the duchy of Gascony, and in the county of Fesenzac, and was erected into a separate county in 9G0. Its rulers during the 14th and loth centuries became very powerful. Louis XL united it to the crown in 1481. but it was restored by Charles VIII., reunited to the crown on the death of the last count in 1497, and, after new changes, descended to Henry of Navarre, who incorporated it with the kingdom of France on his accession in 1589. Louis XIV. gave the title to Henry of Lorraine in 1G45, and it was borne by his descendants until the revolution. Of the ancient counts of Armagnac, the most distinguished were the following: I. Bernard VII., killed June 12, 1418. He distinguished himself in the war with the English in Guienne. When the murder of Louis, duke of Orleans, brother of Charles VI., by the emissaries of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, left the Or-leanists without a chief (1407), he married his daughter to young Charles of Orleans, became the leader of the faction which henceforth assumed the name of Armagnac, and was appointed by the queen constable of France. He succeeded in seizing on Paris, which he governed with an iron rule.

At last the Parisians became tired of his tyranny, and by treason delivered the city into the hands of L'Isle-Adam, one of the Burgundian chiefs. Bernard hid himself, but was betrayed by a mason in whom he had confided, and was imprisoned. A few days later the jails were mobbed by the populace, when all the Arma-gnacs were murdered, Bernard among the rest.

II. Jean V., grandson of the preceding, born about 1420, assassinated in 1473. He made himself notorious by his uncontrollable passions, and publicly married his own sister, Jeanne Isabelle, who had been engaged to King Henry VI. of England. This crime was made a pretext by Charles VII. for depriving him of his possessions, which were afterward restored to him by Louis XI. Notwithstanding this, Jean entered the league of the public weal against Louis, and was driven into Aragon; but by the aid of Louis's brother, the duke of Guienne, he recovered his estates, and withstood a siege in the castle of Lectoure. The royalists obtained an entrance by stratagem, put the count to death, and forced his wife to drink of a poison which killed both herself and her unborn child.