Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval

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Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval, painted by Jean Clouet

Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval (* 1500 in Carcassonne , † 1560 in Paris ) was a French navigator. Through his friendship with King François I , he became the first lieutenant general of New France . He tried unsuccessfully to establish a colony near Québec . As a privateer , he raided several Spanish colonies in America. La Roque was a supporter of Calvinism and was murdered for his belief.

biography

La Roque came from a long-established noble family in the south of France. He was friends with King François I and accompanied him on several campaigns. As a supporter of Protestantism , he was ostracized in 1535, but soon pardoned. From 1536 to 1538 he was involved in the Italian War . After the death of his father, he inherited extensive estates in Languedoc and the Ardennes , but he owed himself to his relatives because of his lavish lifestyle as a courtier . It is possible that La Rocque had temporarily turned away from Protestantism, as the king appointed him lieutenant general of New France on January 15, 1541. He was given the task of building a French colony in North America with the support of the navigator Jacques Cartier and "spreading the Catholic faith".

Although La Rocque received three ships and financial support from the state, it struggled to meet its obligations and recruit colonists. Cartier sailed without him in May 1541 and brought around 350 colonists on five ships to the region of what is now Québec, where they founded the Charlesbourg-Royal settlement at the mouth of the Rivière du Cap Rouge . In order to raise additional funds, La Rocque went on a pirate voyage with Bidoux de Lartique and hijacked several English merchant ships, whereupon the English ambassador complained to the king. Finally, on April 16, 1542, La Rocque set sail with three ships and 200 settlers from La Rochelle . On June 8th, they met in the port of St. John's ( Newfoundland ) on Cartier's expedition. Due to attacks by the Saint Lawrence Iroquois , a scurvy epidemic and a severe winter, Cartier had decided to give up the colony.

Cartier refused to return to Charlesbourg-Royal. La Rocque, however, reached the abandoned settlement a little later. On the way he had abandoned his close relative Marguerite de La Rocque (the exact relationship is unknown) together with her lover and a maid on an island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence . Marguerite survived there for a few years until Basque fishermen rescued her. Her story has been processed literarily several times, including by Margaret of Navarra ( Heptaméron ) , François de Belleforest and André Thevet . La Rocque's contingent had to struggle with the same problems as Cartier in Charlesbourg-Royal, so that the settlement was finally abandoned in the spring of 1543. For the next six decades there were no more French colonization efforts.

After La Rocque had brought the settlers back to France, he went with his ships on a pirate voyage in the Caribbean , where he attacked Spanish ships and cities. In 1543 he attacked Santa Marta and a year later Cartagena de Indias . Ships under his command raided Baracoa and Havana in 1546 . Spanish sources of that era connect him with a privateer called "Roberto Baal" who made the region unsafe at the time. Despite the pirate trips and the protection of the king, La Rocque continued to have financial problems. His goods were seized in 1555. In the meantime he had turned completely back to Calvinism and was therefore exposed to Catholic repression. One night in 1560 (the exact date of his death is unknown), he was murdered near the Cimetière des Innocents on his way home by a meeting of Calvinists in Paris.

Honor

The city of Roberval in Québec is named after him.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ R. La Roque de Roquebrune: Marguerite de La Rocque . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
  2. ↑ Jean-François de la Rocque (1500-1560), sieur de Roberval. Roberval municipality, accessed on October 3, 2014 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Roberval, Jean-François de La Rocque de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French sailor and privateer
DATE OF BIRTH 1500
PLACE OF BIRTH Carcassonne
DATE OF DEATH 1560
Place of death Paris