Charlotte des Essarts

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Portrait of Charlotte des Essarts in Bussy-Rabutin Castle by an unknown painter, copy of an illustration from the Laruelle collection in the Bibliothèque nationale de France

Charlotte des Essarts (* around 1580 ; † July 8, 1651 ) was the mistress of the French King Henry IV for a short time . Both before him and afterwards she had other high-ranking and influential lovers.

Life

Charlotte des Essarts was born as the daughter of François des Essarts', Seigneur von Sautour, and his second wife Charlotte de Harlay, dame de Champvallon. Her father was a royal lieutenant general in Champagne .

At the beginning of the 17th century she accompanied her relative Christophe de Harlay, Count of Beaumont, and his wife to England, because Christophe was the French ambassador there. In 1602 she became his lover and after his recall in 1605 returned with him to France.

Charlotte went to the royal court and became lady of honor of the French Queen Maria de 'Medici . Her husband Heinrich IV first noticed the young woman described by contemporaries as extraordinarily beautiful in 1606 and made her his mistress during one of his quarrels with Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues in March 1607 . However, after learning of her affair with the Count of Beaumont, he wanted to separate from her again. At that time Charlotte was pregnant by him. The king therefore sent her to Le Tressoir, a country estate near Fontainebleau, to give birth . There she gave birth to her first daughter Jeanne Baptiste, who was legitimized by the king on March 3, 1608. Heinrich reconciled with his mistress, and Charlotte gave birth to a second daughter in 1609: Marie Henriette. After the birth of the second daughter, the king appointed her Countess of Romorantin (French: Comtesse de Romorantin), but the couple soon fell out again. Charlotte responded to the inevitable royal disgrace by asking to be allowed to retire to the Beaumont-lès-Tours monastery . Her request was granted, but the Comtesse did not stay there very long. After the death of Henry IV in May 1610, she returned to the court in the summer of the same year and began a relationship with the later cardinal and archbishop of Reims , Louis III. de Lorraine-Guise . It is even possible that the two secretly married in 1611. Evidence for this are a marriage contract and a dispensation issued by Pope Paul V , which are said to have been found in his desk after the cardinal's death, but a marriage has not yet been proven beyond doubt. Nevertheless, on the basis of these documents, her granddaughter, a daughter of her son Achilles, tried unsuccessfully in court in 1688 to claim the inheritance of the late Duchess Marie de Lorraine , a cousin of Achilles'.

According to the novel Histoire des Amours du Grand Alcandre , written by Louise-Marguerite de Lorraine-Guise , which deals with the numerous love affairs of Henry IV, Charlotte also had a love affair with the Cardinal von Guise (French: Cardinal de Guise ) Dominique de Vic , Archbishop of Auch , a.

In 1630 she married the future Marshal of France , François de L'Hôpital , Count von Rosnay and Seigneur von Hallier. The contract for this was signed on November 4th of that year in Rumilly-L'Albanois. Afterwards she was very politically committed. The ambitious woman and Charles IV , Duke of Lorraine , participated in an unsuccessful intrigue against Cardinal Richelieu in 1633 and was therefore banished to an estate of her husband. There she died on July 8, 1651.

Marriages and offspring

The brief relationship with King Henry IV resulted in two daughters whom the king legitimized:

After the death of Henry IV, Charlotte went into association with Louis III. de Lorraine-Guise, whom she may even married in 1611. There were five children from this relationship:

  • Charles-Louis († July 12, 1668), Bishop of Condom
  • Achille (* around 1615; † 1648), Count von Romorantin, ⚭ Anna Maria von Salm -Dhaun from the house of the Wild and Rhine Counts
  • Henri Hector (* 1620), Chevalier de Lorraine called
  • Charlotte († 1626), Abbess of Saint-Pierre in Lyon
  • Louise († July 5, 1652), dame de Romorantin, ⚭ November 24, 1639 Claude Pot, Seigneur of Rhodes

At the age of 50, she married François de L'Hôpital in November 1630. This connection remained childless.

literature

  • Louis Mayeul Chaudon: Dictionnaire universel, historique, critique, et bibliographique . Volume 6. Imprimerie de Mame frères, Paris 1810, pp. 315-316 ( digitized version ).
  • Jean François Dreux du Radier: Mémoires historiques, critiques, et anecdotes sur les reines et régentes de France . P. Renouard, Paris 1827, pp. 322-336 ( digitized version ).
  • Jean Chrétien Ferdinand Hoefer : Nouvelle biography générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours . Volume 16. Firmin Didot, Paris 1856, col. 440.
  • Auguste Jal : Dictionnaire critique de biographie et d'histoire. Errata et supplément pour tous les dictionnaires historiques, d'après des documents authentiques inédits . Plon, Paris 1867.
  • Pierre Larousse: Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle. Français, historique, geographique, mythologique, bibliographique… Volume 7. Paris 1870, pp. 945–946 ( digitized ).
  • Hugh Noel Williams: Last loves of Henri of Navarre . Hutchinson, London [19xx], pp. 184-187 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Some publications give 1588 as the year of birth.
  2. ↑ a b Cf. the comments by Antoine Adam in: Historiettes . 2 volumes. Galimard, Paris 1960, p. 759.
  3. ↑ Nicolas Louis Achaintre: Histoire et généalogique chronologique de la maison royale de Bourbon . Volume 2. Mansut, Paris 1825, p. 74.
  4. ↑ Many publications of the 19th and early 20th centuries incorrectly state that the daughters are twins.
  5. ^ Jean François Dreux du Radier: Mémoires historiques, critiques, et anecdotes sur les reines et régentes de France. 1827, pp. 326-327.
  6. ^ Jean François Dreux du Radier: Mémoires historiques, critiques, et anecdotes sur les reines et régentes de France. 1827, p. 328.
  7. ^ Hugh Noel Williams: Last loves of Henri of Navarre. [19xx], p. 186.
  8. ^ Online exhibition of the University of Angers on Jeanne Baptiste de Bourbon at musea.univ-angers.fr , accessed on April 6, 2018.
  9. ^ A b Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd (arr.): Burke's Royal Families of the World . Volume 1. Burke's Peerage Ltd., London 1977, p. 85.
personal data
SURNAME Des Essart, Charlotte
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Essars, Charlotte de; Comtesse de Romorantin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mistress of the French King Henry IV.
DATE OF BIRTH around 1580
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 1651