Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
D'Artagnan statue by Gustave Doré in Paris
Castelmore Castle

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, called Comte d'Artagnan (* between 1611 and 1615 at Castelmore Castle in Lupiac ( Département Gers ); † June 25, 1673 outside Maastricht ) made a brilliant career with the French musketeers of the Guard under Louis XIV . He was killed in the Franco-Dutch War during the siege of Maastricht . His eventful life inspired, among others, Alexandre Dumas the Elder to write the famous novel The Three Musketeers and its two sequels. Dumas was very free to deal with historical truth.

When he died, his title was: "Haut et puissant seigneur, Messire Charles de Castelmore, Comte d'Artagnan".

Family and youth

Possible portrait, around 1700

D'Artagnan was born at Castelmore Castle ⊙ near Lupiac in Gascony . He was the son of Bertrand de Batz-Castelmore with the title Seigneur de Castelmore et de la Plagne. He received the title Seigneur de Castelmore from his uncle Bertrand, who died childless. The father's family belonged to the minor nobility (la petite noblesse) . Originally a merchant family, they acquired the Castelmore estate and castle in the mid-16th century. His mother Françoise de Montesquiou was the daughter of Sieur d'Artagnan from the Bigorre , a member of the influential Armagnac family . The parents' marriage took place in 1608. D'Artagnan had seven siblings (four boys, three girls), of whom he was the youngest boy. He married the wealthy widow Charlotte-Anne de Chanlecy, Dame de Sainte-Croix (with an estate in Sainte-Croix (Saône-et-Loire) ) on April 3, 1659 in the church of Saint-André-des-Arts in Paris , however, the marriage and the community of property were dissolved again by their declaration in court in 1665. His wife withdrew to her estate in Burgundy , where she died on December 31, 1683. The marriage resulted in two sons, both named after the king Louis, who was also the godfather; Louis Comte d'Artagnan (1660–1709) and the second-born Louis Chevalier d'Artagnan (1661–1714). The latter also had a son Louis Gabriel (1710–1783), Marquis de Castelmore d'Artagnan, who had no offspring. The Marshal of France Pierre de Montesquiou d'Artagnan was a cousin. His father is said to have been the leader of Henry IV's bodyguard and was killed trying to save his life. Some of the d'Artagnan's brothers were also with the Musketeers. The eldest Charles served there from 1633 and died a few years later, possibly in a duel. Paul (1610-1703), who then took over the inheritance, was seriously wounded in 1640 during the siege of Turin. Jean died around 1648 as a lieutenant in the Persan regiment. Brother Arnaud was a priest and rector in Lupiac.

Soldier career

D'Artagnan wanted to join the Musketeers like his brothers. For this reason he traveled to Paris around 1640 under the name of his mother's family (d'Artagnan) , which is better known in court circles , where his request was initially rejected due to the fact that he had never performed military service. Jean-Armand du Peyrer, comte de Treville , at this time the captain-lieutenant - so de facto the commandant, captain was the king himself - of the first company and a close friend of the family, used his influence to keep him in the same place Year, initially in the "Compagnie de Les Essarts" des Gardes Françaises in Fontainebleau . With this he took part in the campaign in Roussillon and in the campaigns in Flanders under Turenne .

In 1644 he was accepted into the Musketeers of the Guard , and the amount necessary and undoubtedly not insignificant to buy the position was made available to him by Jean-Baptiste Colbert , another confidante of Mazarin's. In 1646 Mazarin disbanded the Musketeer Guard. D'Artagnan already carried out missions for Cardinal Mazarin , who in 1646 appointed him courier (partly messenger and diplomat, partly secret agent) because of his reliable services, including in the fight against the Fronde uprising . He also accompanied Mazarin into exile in Brühl in 1651 . D'Artagnan was probably promoted to ensign (Enseigne) in 1652 .

In 1657 the first company (called "Grands mousquetaires" or "Mousquetaires gris" after their gray saddlecloth ) was set up again. A year later, d'Artagnan became Sous-Lieutenant in the company, increasingly representing the nominal boss and captain-lieutenant, the Duc de Nevers, Philippe-Julien Manzini (Mancini), a nephew of Mazarin who preferred to be an art lover in Italy lived and left d'Artagnan the business. D'Artagnan had his quarters in the N ° 1 Rue du Bac on the corner of today's Quai Voltaire (formerly Quai des Théatins) in the 7th arrondissement in Paris. (The house no longer exists today.)

In 1660, he escorted the young Louis XIV to Saint-Jean-de-Luz for his marriage to the Infanta Maria Teresa of Spain .

Louis XIV, whom d'Artagnan guarded as a child in the dangerous times of the Fronde , trusted him absolutely and entrusted him with secret and delicate missions that required complete discretion. D'Artagnan became famous for the surprise arrest of the Chief Financial Officer Nicolas Fouquet on September 5, 1661.

Fouquet, eager to take the place of Mazarin, who died on March 9, as the first royal advisor, met the opposition of the ambitious Colbert . He was one of the greatest art patrons of the time. After completing his Vaux-le-Vicomte castle , on August 17, 1661, François Vatel hosted one of the largest and most extravagant celebrations that France had ever seen. A horse was given to each of the guests present. The king was jealous of this event and assumed that such a festival could only be paid for if Fouquet had embezzled part of the royal property. D'Artagnan was charged with the arrest on September 5, 1661, and in the following years he was also entrusted with the transfer of the prisoner to various places, to the castle of Angers, Vincennes, the Bastille and finally in 1664 to the fortress from Pignerol , where he was guarded by his comrade Saint-Mars , whom he recommended .

In 1666 he became the "Capitaine des petits chiens du Roi courant le chevreuil" (about: "Captain of the puppies of the king's dogs for hunting deer"), a nominal post that earned him an additional salary and an apartment in Versailles brought in, appointed.

The following year he gave up this post again because he had been promoted to captain lieutenant, de facto company commander, the “Première compagnie des Mousquetaires” (First Company of Musketeers), the monthly pay was 900 livres. It was one of the most coveted posts in the whole kingdom. In 1671 he was responsible for the transfer of the Duke of Lauzun to the fortress Pignerol. As Madame de Sévigné reports, he always treated his prisoners as tactfully as possible. In 1672 he was promoted to Maréchal de camp and (on behalf of Marshal d'Humières, who went into the field) appointed Governor of Lille in 1672 . However, this office was not for him, he came into conflict with the engineer officers Vaubans , who had the order to develop Lille into a fortress. When d'Humières returned in the winter of 1672, d'Artagnan again took over command of the field army with which he went to the Franco-Dutch War . During the siege of Maastricht in 1673, under the personal supreme command of the king, the Musketeers d'Artagnans were involved in the nightly conquest of an advanced bastion ( lunette ) in front of the Tongerer Tor (ndl. Tongerse poort) of the fortress on June 24th was retaken by the Dutch the following morning. D'Artagnan allowed himself to be persuaded by the Duke of Monmouth on the same day (Sunday 25 June) to carry out another attack, which was carried out successfully. However, a musket ball tore d'Artagnan's throat. He died shortly afterwards, deeply mourned by the king and his musketeers.

Siege of Maastricht 1673

There is only one uncertain portrait of d'Artagnan, reproduced above. The Castelmore Castle, where he was born, still exists in Lupiac, where there is also a museum dedicated to him. Statues of him can be found in the Aldenhofpark in Maastricht, on the market square of his birthplace Lupiac, in Auch in Gascogne and on the Place du Général Catroux in Paris. His grave is unknown, but the French historian Odile Bordaz, author of a biography of d'Artagnan and museum director at Vincennes Castle, made a burial in the nearest Catholic church, St. Peter and Paul in Wolder (now part of Maastricht) likely there it was so common with fallen officers at the time. She applied for an excavation permit.

Statue in Aldenhofpark, Maastricht

Statue in Aldenhofpark, Maastricht

On June 21, 2003 - according to the inscription on the base - a statue was unveiled here by Gerd Leers, Mayor of Maastricht, and the French ambassador Anne Gazeau-Secret. “TOUS POUR UN - UN POUR TOUS” (“ALL FOR ONE - ONE FOR ALL”) is written on the square part of the base.

  • The main inscription (in Dutch) on the round part of the base reads: On June 25, 1673, the Musketeer d'Artagnan fell at the Tongerer Tor. On the same evening the French King Louis XIV wrote to his wife: "My lady, I have lost d'Artagnan, in whom I had great confidence."

fiction

The life of d'Artagnans became the basis for Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras ' novel Les mémoires de M. d'Artagnan from 1700. Sandras (1644-1712) was a former soldier and author of novel biographies. He seems to have heard the stories about d'Artagnan during one of his extended stays in the Bastille, where Governor Besmaux was a former comrade d'Artagnan who had joined the Musketeers in the same year as he. He also processed old newspaper reports and stories that he himself had heard as a former soldier with the Musketeers.

Alexandre Dumas used Sandras' novel as the main source for his three D'Artagnan novels, The Three Musketeers , Twenty Years Later and The Viscount of Bragelonne , which tell D'Artagnan's life from his glorious rise to his death at Maastricht.

literature

  • Ria Wegner: D'Artagnan - The true life of the fourth musketeer Matrixmedia, Göttingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-932313-95-0 .
  • Dictionnaire d'Histoire de France . Ed. Perrin, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-262-01321-7 .
  • de Sandras: I d'Artagnan . Kiepenheuer 1994 (with the afterword by the translator Friedrich Wencker-Wildberg from the 1919 edition).
  • Jean-Christian Petitfils: Le Véritable D'Artagnan . Tallandier, 2002 (nouvelle éd.).
  • Jean de Jaurgain: Troisvilles, d'Artagnan et les trois Mousquetaires - Etudes biographiques et héraldiques . Champion, Paris 1910 ( Archives ).
  • Charles Samaran: D'Artagnan, Capitaine des Mousquetaires du Roi- histoire véridique d'un héros de roman . Calmann Levy, Paris 1912 ( Archives ).
  • Odile Bordaz: Sur les chemins de D'Artagnan et des Mousquetaires - Lieux et itinéraires. Balzac Éditeur, Collection: L'Envers du décor, 2005.
  • Odile Bordaz: D'Artagnan. Mousquetaire du Roy - Sa Vie, son époque, ses contemporains. Balzac Éditeur, 1998/2001.

Films (selection)

In the films that take up the theme of the Three Musketeers or the life of d'Artagnan, he was portrayed by the following actors:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ D'Artagnan was known under the name Comte d'Artagnan, he used here the title of his mother's family without owning it
  2. ↑ The title Comte d'Artagnan was not due to him, however, as no nobility letter (Lettre patente) was issued for it. However, it was used by the royal court as a courtesy.
  3. ↑ Samaran: D'Artagnan . Paris 1912, p. 30.
  4. ^ Friedrich Wencker-Wildberg: Afterword . In: Sandrat: I d'Artagnan . Kiepenheuer 1994 (reprint of the 1919 edition), p. 332.
  5. ↑ Jean de Jaurgain: Troisvilles, d'Artagnan et les trois Mousquetaires - Etudes biographiques et héraldiques . Champion, Paris 1910, p. 203.
  6. ^ Friedrich Wencker-Wildberg: Afterword . In: Sandrat: I d'Artagnan . Kiepenheuer 1994 (reprint of the 1919 edition), p. 338.
  7. ^ Friedrich Wencker-Wildberg: Afterword . In: Sandrat: I d'Artagnan . Kiepenheuer 1994 (reprint of the 1919 edition), p. 335.
  8. ↑ Originally Troisville
  9. ^ The godfather of the young king and advisor to the queen mother and regent Anna of Austria
  10. ↑ Les courtisans ( Memento of the original from January 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. émission Deux mille ans d'Histoire sur France Inter du 29 octobre 2010  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sites.radiofrance.fr
  11. ↑ Cette charge était très convoitée car la plus belle du royaume selon Colbert. La Gazette de France, January 28, 1667. Quoted from Le tresor d'Artagnan , 2010, accessed April 17, 2016
  12. ^ D'Artagnan , une Histoire de l'Aquitaine et du Sud-Ouest, accessed on April 17, 2016
  13. ^ Friedrich Wencker-Wildberg: Afterword. In: Sandrat: I d'Artagnan. Kiepenheuer 1994 (reprint of the 1919 edition), p. 337.
  14. ↑ http://www.france-pittoresque.com/spip.php?article5616
  15. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt, November 19, 2008
personal data
SURNAME Artagnan de Batz-Castelmore, Charles d '
ALTERNATIVE NAMES D'Artagnan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Captain of the Musketeers
DATE OF BIRTH between 1611 and 1615
PLACE OF BIRTH Lupiac
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1673
Place of death Maastricht