Charles de Montmorency, duc de Damville

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Portrait of Charles' de Montmorency after a drawing by Leopold Massard

Charles de Montmorency (born September 1537 in Paris , † 1612 ), also called Amiral de Montmorency , was Duke of Damville and Peer of France . Coming from the house of Montmorency , he dressed under the French kings Henry IV and Louis XIII. from 1596 until his death he was Admiral of France and Brittany .

The French explorer Samuel de Champlain named the 83-meter-high Montmorency Fall (French: Chute Montmorency) near the Canadian city ​​of Québec after him.

family

Charles was born in Paris in September 1537 as the sixth child and thus the third-born son of the Connétables of France , Anne de Montmorency , and his wife Madeleine de Savoie. At first he had the title of Seigneurs von Méru , but after the death of his older brother François he called himself Baron von Damville from 1579 .

In 1571 he married Renée de Cossé († 1622), the eldest daughter and heir to the Marshal of France , Artus de Cossé , Count of Secondigny. She brought a dowry of 30,000 livres into the marriage. The marriage had already been considered by his father in 1567, but after the death of Anne de Montmorency in 1568 the connection with a niece of the Cardinal of Lorraine was discussed to demonstrate the Montmorencys' solidarity with the Catholic cause. After 29 years of marriage, a son was born in 1600, but he died shortly after birth.

Life

Charles, like many members of his family, pursued a military career and fought on the side of the Catholics during the French Huguenot Wars . On August 10, 1557 Jul. he took part in the battle of Saint-Quentin and was captured. In the battle of Dreux in 1562 his participation is guaranteed for December 19th. Before that, King Charles IX had him . appointed Deputy Military Governor of Paris and Île-de-France on March 19, 1562 . He thus represented his older brother François during his frequent absence. Charles de Montmorency held the office until January 1564.

As a member of the Swiss troops who were in the service of the French royal family, he was involved in the battle of Saint-Denis on November 10, 1567 and was this unit's Colonel général (French: colonel-général des Suisses ). Under his command, the Swiss fought on October 3, 1569 in the Battle of Montcour . Then, after six weeks of the siege of Saint-Jean-d'Angély, he negotiated the surrender of the city, which surrendered on December 2 of the same year. On the occasion of his appointment as Colonel général of the Swiss and Graubünden troops (French: colonel-général des Suisses et des Grisons ) on June 17, 1571, he was also raised to Baron von Méru.

After taking part in the siege of La Rochelle in 1573, Charles supported the new French king, Henry III. after the Journée des barricades on May 12, 1588. He was also loyal to his successor, Henry IV. After he had fought under him in the Battle of Arques in September 1589, he took part for him on May 24, 1592 in the battle at Craon . In gratitude for his services, Henry IV appointed him on January 21, 1596 as the successor to André-Baptiste de Brancas , seigneur de Villars, Admiral of France and Brittany. In the same year Charles gave up command of the Swiss troops.

After Charles was accepted as a knight in the order of the Holy Spirit on January 5, 1597 , Henry's son and successor to the French throne, Louis XIII, raised the Seigneurie Damville to a duchy with pairy (French: duché-pairie). This was done in September 1610 in recognition of Montmorency's longstanding loyalty to the royal family in favor of Charles and his nephew Henri II.

literature

  • Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Jullien de Courcelles : Dictionnaire historique et biographique des généraux français, depuis le onzième siècle jusqu'en 1823 . Volume 8. Bertrand, Paris 1823, pp. 50-52 ( digitized version ).
  • Charles Gavard: Galeries historiques du Palais de Versailles . Volume 7, part 2. Imprimerie Royale, Paris 1842, p. 119 ( online ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ blason.fr ( Memento of March 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Joan Davies: The politics of the marriage bed. Matrimony and the Montmorency family 1527-1612 . In: French History. Vol. 6, No. 1, 1992, ISSN  0269-1191 , p. 70, doi : 10.1093 / fh / 6.1.63 .
  3. ^ Auguste Longnon: L'Ile de France. Son origine, ses limites, ses gouverneurs. In: Mémoires de la Société de l'histoire de Paris et de l'Île-de-France. Volume 2. Honoré Champion, Paris 1876.
  4. ↑ JPPJ de Courcelles: Dictionnaire historique et biographique des généraux français ... 1823, p. 50.
  5. ↑ JPPJ de Courcelles: Dictionnaire historique et biographique des généraux français ... 1823, p. 51.
personal data
SURNAME Montmorency, Charles de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Montmorency-Damville, Charles de; Amiral de Montmorency
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duke of Damville, peer and admiral of France
DATE OF BIRTH September 1537
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH 1612