Charles de Valois ( Fr. Charles de Valois ; April 28, 1573 - September 24, 1650 ) - Count of Auvergne ( 1589 - 1650 ), Duke of Angouleme ( 1619 - 1650 ), Count de Pontier ( 1619 - 1650 ) , peer of France . The illegitimate son of King Charles of France IX Valois and his mistress Marie Touchet . In 1619 he received from the French king Louis XIII the title of Duke of Angouleme . His father, dying the next year after the birth of his son, entrusted the care of him to his younger brother and heir to the throne, Henry III . He honorably fulfilled the request of his elder brother [1] . His mother married Francois de Balzac, Marquis d'Antraga, and one of their daughters, Catherine Henrietta, Marquise de Verneuil , was the mistress of Henry IV .
| Charles de Valois | |
|---|---|
| fr. Charles de Valois | |
 | |
| Date of Birth | April 28, 1573 |
| Place of Birth | Château de Fayet, Dauphiné |
| Date of death | September 24, 1650 (aged 77) |
| A place of death | Paris |
| Citizenship |  France |
| Occupation | illegitimate son of king Charles IX |
| Father | Charles IX |
| Mother | Marie Toucher |
| Spouse | 1) Charlotte, daughter of Henry I de Montmorency ; 2) Francoise de Narbonne, daughter of Baron Charles Mary |
| Children | 1) Henry, weak in mind, 2) Louis Emmanuel, Duke of Angouleme , 3) Francois (d. 1622) |
| Awards and prizes | |
Content
- 1 Biography
- 2 family
- 3 notes
- 4 References
Biography
Charles de Valois was well educated and intended to be the knight of the Order of Malta . At the age of sixteen he reached the highest levels of the order, becoming the Great Prior of France. Soon after, he inherited large possessions left to him by his grandmother Catherine de Medici , one of which brought him the title of Count of Auvergne . In 1591, he was exempted from the vows of the Order of Malta and married with Charlotte, daughter of Henry I de Montmorency , who married his son Louis-Emmanuel de Valois, Count d'Ale [2] .
In 1589, Henry III was killed, but when he died, he handed Charles the goodwill of his heir Henry IV . The new king made Charles colonel of the cavalry, and in that rank he served in the campaigns of the early period of the reign of Henry IV. However, the connection between the king and Madame de Verneuil was not very appealing to Charles, and in 1601 he joined the conspiracy organized by the Duke of Savoy , the Duke of Biron and the Duke of Bouillon , one of whose goals was to force Henry to renounce his wife and marry the Marquise de Bring it back. The plot was uncovered; Biron and Turenne were arrested; Biron was then executed. Charles was released after several months of imprisonment, mainly due to the influence of his uterine sister, her aunt, the Duchess of Angouleme and her father-in-law.
He then became involved in a new intrigue with the court of Philip III of Spain , acting in accordance with Madame de Verneuil and her father d'Antrag. In 1604, d'Antrag and he were arrested and sentenced to death; at the same time, the marquise was sentenced to life imprisonment in a monastery. She easily received forgiveness, and the death sentence of her accomplices was commuted to life imprisonment. Charles spent eleven years in the Bastille , from 1605 to 1616. Parliament's decree (1606) received by Margarita Valois , deprived him of almost all of his possessions, including Auvergne , although he retained his title. In 1616, he was released, reinstated with the rank of colonel general of the cavalry, and sent on a campaign against one of the rebellious feudal lords, the Duke of Longville , who had captured Peronn . The following year, he commanded troops in -le-de-France , having achieved some success.
In 1619 he received the duchy of Angouleme by inheritance, confirmed in 1620 by the king. He soon took part in an important embassy sent to the Holy Roman Empire , as a result of which the Ulm Peace Treaty was signed in July 1620. In 1627, he commands a large army besieging the stronghold of Protestants La Rochelle . A few years later, during the Thirty Years War, he commands the French army in Lorraine . The following year he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general of the army. After the death of Cardinal Richelieu in 1643, Charles de Valois appears to be moving away from public life.
Family
Charles de Valois was married by contract in the city of Pesena (the current department of Erault on May 5, 1591 with Charlotte de Montmorency, Countess de Fleuet, daughter of Henry I de Montmorency and Antoinette de la Marc. Three children were born in this marriage:
- Henry of Angouleme, Count de Loraguet (1594 - 01/08/1668, Martigny-Lanka). He was disinherited in 1608 and spent almost 50 years in prison due to dementia;
- Louis Emmanuel of Angouleme (1596, Clermont-en-Auvergne - November 13, 1653, Paris), Duke of Angouleme;
- Francois of Angouleme (1598 - September 19, 1622), Count of d'Ale, Baron de Coucy and de Folembre. Married on February 26, 1622 to Louise de la Mesonfor.
Charlotte died in 1636 .
February 25, 1644 he marries in the church of the town of Boissy-Saint-Leger (located in the modern department of Val de Marne ) on Francoise de Narbonne, daughter of Baron Mary. Francoise was born in 1623, she had no children and she survived her husband for a long time, having died in 1713 at the age of 90 years.
The Duke of Angouleme died on September 24, 1650, and was buried in the Minimum Church in Paris. After his death, his Memoirs of the reign of Henry III and Henry IV = fr. Mémoires sur les règnes de Henri III et Henri IV . - Paris , 1662 . , the original manuscript of which is stored in the Hotel Angouleme, which now houses the Historical Library of the city of Paris .
Notes
- ↑ Taylor, William Cooke . Romantic Biography of the Age of Elizabeth: Calvin and the church of Geneva. - L .: Richard Bentley, 1842 .-- P. 296.
- ↑ Davenport, RA, The History of the Bastile, and of Its Principal Captives , (Kessinger Publishing), 133.