Diane de France

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Portrait of Dianes de France, painting by an unknown painter from the 16th century, Musée Carnavalet

Diane de France ( German  Diana of France ; * July 25, 1538 in Fossano ; † January 11, 1619 in Paris ), also called Diane de Valois , was the illegitimate daughter of the French King Henry II with the Piedmontese Filippa Duci ( French Philippine Desducs ). From 1563 she carried the title of Duchess of Châtellerault in her own right , which she exchanged for the title of Duchess of Angoulême in 1583 .

Of the approximately 80 years of her life, she spent most of the time at the French royal court and experienced the governments of a total of seven kings, from Francis I to Louis XIII. In doing so, she survived all of her twelve half-siblings.

Life

Diane was born as the first but illegitimate child of the future French King Henry II in Fossano, Italy. The 18-year-old Dauphin met Filippa Duci, who came from the lower nobility, during a campaign in Piedmont in the fall of 1537 and had a child with her. He had mother and child brought to France in 1541 so that his daughter could grow up at the French royal court. Heinrich placed her in the care of his favorite Diane de Poitiers , who also became Diane's godmother. The close connections between Heinrich's mistress and his illegitimate daughter led later writers to the false claim that Diane de Poitiers was the real mother and Filippa Duci was merely a wet nurse of the child. Two tutors provided a thorough training that was appropriate for a French princess. The curriculum of Mademoiselle la Bâtarde , initially the official title Dianes de France, included foreign languages ​​such as Italian, Spanish and Latin. In addition, she received lessons in singing and dance and learned to play several instruments, including the lute . She was also considered an excellent rider and enthusiastic fan of the hunt, which she pursued into old age. Brantôme was of the opinion that there has never been a better rider before her and no woman has cut a better figure on the horse than the princess (“[…] car je pense qu'il n'est pas possible que jamais dame ayt esté mieux à cheval qu'elle, ny de meilleure grâce. ")

Marriage of Diana with Orazio Farnese, fresco by Taddeo Zuccari

At the age of 15, Diane was married to Orazio Farnese , Duke of Castro on February 14, 1553 . The corresponding marriage contract was after long negotiations between the negotiator of Pope Paul III. , who was at the same time the bridegroom's grandfather and a representative of the French royal court, was signed in June 1547. But the young happiness did not last long, because Orazio was badly wounded only five months after the wedding while defending the citadel of Hesdin against imperial troops on July 17th of the same year and died the next day. Diane then returned to the court and remained under the supervision of Dianes de Poitiers until she was married by her father in Villers-Cotterêts to François , the eldest son of the Connétables Anne de Montmorency , for political reasons on May 3, 1557 . This connection was not without problems, because François had previously secretly engaged to Jeanne d'Hallewin de Piennes, a lady of honor of the Queen, without the knowledge of his family. François had to break the bond under pressure from his parents, but in the eyes of the Catholic Church he could not marry another woman because of his marriage vows. François traveled to Rome to obtain a dispensation from Pope Paul IV , but to no avail. Only Paul's successor Pius IV finally issued this in November 1560. In order to still be able to marry his daughter, Henry II issued an order that only permitted secret marriages without parental consent for men aged 30 and over and women aged 25 and over The connection between François' and the lady-in-waiting subsequently made illegal. His marriage to Diane was to save the life of the future Marshal of France twice: Her membership in the royal family saved him from being killed on Bartholomew's Night in 1572 , and through her intercession he escaped execution in 1574 as a member of the so-called Malcontents (German: dissatisfied) and instead was only imprisoned in the Bastille .

Signature of Dianes de France

On June 22, 1563, Charles IX appointed his half-sister to the Duchess of Châtellerault before he legitimized her with a document from April 1572. Since that month she signed as Diane I. [= legitimée] de France . In February 1576 her half-brother Heinrich III. she in addition to the Duchess of Étampes and also gave her various seigneuries for usufruct. On May 6, 1579, the death of her husband widowed Diane for a second time after 22 years of marriage. Since the French crown had never paid Diane their dowry guaranteed by marriage contract, Henry III compensated. after François' death by transferring the much more lucrative Duchy of Angoulême to her in August 1582 instead of Châtellerault and at the same time making her Countess of Ponthieu . With the increased income, Diane de France could afford to start building a hotel in 1585 , which at the time was known as the Hôtel Angoulême and is now known as the Hôtel Lamoignon . The temporary occupation of Paris by the Catholic League in the wake of renewed fighting during the Huguenot Wars , interrupted work on the building, and the princess withdrew to the Touraine . There she lived with her friend Louise de Charansonnet until her death in 1591 and ordered in her will to be buried at her side. The apparently lesbian relationship between the two women was also the subject of two pamphlets published in 1581 and 1585 .

Henry III. esteemed his half-sister very much and therefore entrusted her with the governorate of the Limousin in 1594 , which she exchanged for that of the Bourbonnais in 1605 . At that time, such an office was something very extraordinary for a woman. These favors ensured the king an irrefutable loyalty of his half-sister, which she kept even after his death. When his successor Henry IV intended in 1596, through the Edict of Folembray, all persons who might be involved in the murder of Henry III. were involved in granting amnesty , she and the queen widow Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont openly opposed this plan and tried to stop it by a personal visit to the Parlement of Paris - but in vain. In 1608, Diane made sure that the remains of Henry III. after his death from the Abbey of Saint-Corneille in Compiègne to Paris to the Basilica of Saint-Denis . In the following year she made sure that his mother Catherine de Medici was transferred from the collegiate church Saint-Sauveur in Blois to Paris and buried on April 5, 1609 in the royal burial chapel of Saint-Denis.

Dianes de France tomb

Diane de France died at noon on January 11, 1619 in her Parisian Hôtel Angoulême. Her burial took place on February 5th in the Chapelle Angoulême she had built in the now defunct Paulan Church on Place Royale (today Place des Vosges ). The marble tomb there with a sculpture made by Thomas Boudin is now in a pavilion in the courtyard of the Hotel Lamoignon. She died with no offspring, as her only son Anne died of association with François de Montmorency just one month after his birth in October 1560. In her will she designated her nephew, François de Valois, comte d'Alais , a son of Charles de Valois , as her sole heir and left him with two chests filled with gold, numerous possessions and properties.

Consultant and diplomat

Contemporaries described the Duchess as a clever and prudent woman who was modest, but at the same time also had great assertiveness. These traits earned her the trust of many members of the royal family and the French nobility . After the death of Henry II, the regent Catherine of Medici elected Diane as the crown's representative in peace negotiations with the Huguenot side, including Henri I de Bourbon , Prince of Condé , and Ludwig von Nassau-Dillenburg . During her reign, her half-brothers also frequently sought help from Diana or consulted her on political decisions. Often they sent their half-sister on diplomatic missions as negotiator. In 1589 she was instrumental in the reconciliation of Henry III. involved with Henry of Navarre and paved the way for the latter to take the French throne. To Henry IV, Diane's oral promise was worth even more than any written contract.

Diane was also responsible for the upbringing and training of many offspring from aristocratic circles who were given into her care by their parents. For example, she supervised the education of the future King Louis XIII. The Montmorency family also entrusted the female offspring to Diane: Both Charlotte-Marguerite de Montmorency , who later became Princess of Condé, and Marguerite de Foix-Candale , later Duchess of Épernon , were educated in the princess' house during their childhood and youth.

literature

  • Jules Balteau (Ed.): Dictionnaire de biographie francaise . Volume 2. Paris 1932, Col. 1214-1215.
  • Pierre de Bourdeilles, seigneur de Brantôme: Discours sur Mesdames, filles de la noble maison de France. In: Oeuvres complètes de Pierre de Bourdeille seigneur de Brantôme. Volume 8. Renouard, Paris 1875, pp. 140-145 ( digitized version ).
  • Hilarion de Coste: Diane Legitimée de France, Duchesse d'Angoulesme, de Castres et de Montmorency. In: Les Eloges et vies des reynes, princesses, dames et damoiselles illustres en piété, courage et doctrine, qui ont fleury de nostre temps, et du temps de nos peres. Volume 1, 2nd edition. Sébastien et Gabriel Cramoisy, Paris 1647, pp. 502-520 ( digitized version ).
  • Jean Chrétien Ferdinand Hoefer : Nouvelle biography générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours. Volume 14. Firmin Didot, Paris 1843, columns 30-32 ( digitized version ).
  • Isabelle Pébay, Claude Troquet: Diane de France et la construction des hôtels d'Angoulême. In: Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de Paris et de l'Île-de-France. Paris 1991, ISSN  1148-7968 , pp. 35-69.
  • Isabelle Pébay, Claude Troquet: Diane de France et l'hôtel d'Angoulême en 1619. Paris-Musées, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-87900-260-5 .
  • Isabelle Pébay, Claude Troquet: Philippe Desducs, mère de Diane de France. In: Société de l'École des chartes (ed.): Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des chartes. Volume 148, 1st delivery. 1990, ISSN  1953-8138 , pp. 151-160 ( digitized version )

Web links

Commons : Diane de France  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b c Claude Troquet, Claude Lhôte: Diane de France. In: Dictionnaire des femmes de l'Ancien Régime , accessed on August 15, 2011.
  2. ^ Princess Michael of Kent: The Serpent and the Moon. Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King. Simon & Schuster, New York 2004, ISBN 0-7432-5104-0 , p. 183.
  3. ^ Pierre de Bourdeilles: Discours sur Mesdames, filles de la noble maison de France. 1875, p. 141.
  4. ^ Royall Tyler: Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 11: 1553. 1916, p. 14, note 18 ( online ).
  5. ↑ This year is often wrongly given as the year of the legitimation of Diane.
  6. ↑ a b c Anselme de Sainte-Marie : Histoire généalogique et chronologique de la maison royale de France, des pairs, grands officiers de la Couronne, de la Maison du Roy et des anciens barons du royaume. Volume 1, 3rd edition. Paris 1726, p. 136 ( digitized version ).
  7. ^ William J. Roberts: France. A reference guide from the Renaissance to the present. Facts On File, New York 2004, ISBN 0-8160-4473-2 , p. 254 ( digitized ).
  8. ↑ Isabelle Pébay, Claude Troquet: Philippe Desducs, mère de Diane de France. 1990, p. 155, note 17.
  9. ^ Hilarion de Coste: Diane Legitimée de France, Duchesse d'Angoulesme. 1647, p. 511.
  10. ^ A b Hilarion de Coste: Diane Legitimée de France, Duchesse d'Angoulesme. 1647, p. 517.
  11. ^ 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. 69, doi: 10.1093 / fh / 6.1.63 .
  12. ↑ Louis-Marie Prudhomme: Biography universelle et historique des femmes célèbres mortes ou vivantes. Volume 2. Lebigre, Paris 1830, p. 240 ( digitized version ).
  13. ↑ Diane de France. In: The Riverside Dictionary of Biography. Houghton Mifflin, Boston [et al.] 2005, ISBN 0-618-49337-9 , pp. 229-230 ( digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Diane de France
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Diane de Valois; Diane legitimée de France; Diana of France; Mademoiselle la Batârde
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duchess of Angoulême, illegitimate daughter of the French King Henry II.
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1538
PLACE OF BIRTH Fossano
DATE OF DEATH January 11, 1619
Place of death Paris