Elisabeth Angélique de Montmorency

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Isabelle Angélique de Montmorency, Duchess of Mecklenburg

Isabelle Angélique de Montmorency (born March 8, 1627 in Paris , † January 24, 1695 in Paris) was by marriage Duchess of Châtillon and later of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

biography

Isabelle-Angélique was born shortly before the beheading of her father François de Montmorency-Bouteville, Count of Luxe , and Elisabeth Angélique de Vienne. Together with her siblings Marie-Louise, future Marquise de Valençay, and François-Henri de Montmorency , future Maréchal de Luxembourg, she grew up in Chantilly and Paris, under the protection of Charlotte de Montmorency , Princess of Condé , her father's cousin , and enjoyed a careful upbringing. With the help of her cousin, the Duke of Enghien, Charlotte allowed the Huguenot Gaspard IV. De Coligny to kidnap 18-year-old Isabelle-Angélique in 1645 in order to force the consent of both families to marry. After the death of his father, Marshal Gaspard III. de Coligny , Gaspard became Duke of Châtillon in 1646. Disapproved by both families, the marriage was initially not recognized by the parliament and was stormy. Gaspard, constantly on military campaigns, was seriously wounded in the first fronde in 1649 in an attack on Charenton and died in Vincennes. After his death, Isabelle Angélique gave birth to a son, who was also baptized Gaspard, but died in 1657.

In the battles of the Fronde, which shook France from 1650 and later, she was on the side of the Condé , the opponent of Cardinal Mazarin .

In 1650 Mazarin imprisoned Prince Condé , leader of the Fronde. Isabelle, a skilled negotiator, organized a secret network of rebels in Chantilly, then in Châtillon . Her aunt Charlotte died at the end of 1650, leaving her the Merlou Castle and Jewels. Isabelle negotiated with Mazarin until 1652, but to no avail, was suspected of being involved in a plot against Mazarin, but was again honored by the court in 1655. She drew Marshal Hocquincourt into the Condé party, but was placed under house arrest by Mazarin. In 1659, after the reconciliation of Condé with the 15-year-old king , she learned of Condé's thanks and received a letter of praise from Mazarin.

In 1662 Christian Ludwig I , Duke of Mecklenburg, came to Paris, converted to the Catholic faith and in 1663 took the name Louis in honor of the king. In 1660 he had divorced his first wife Christine Margarete , daughter of Johann Albrecht II, Duke of Mecklenburg "because of malicious abandonment", which was confirmed by a canonical court in 1663, and was now courting Isabelle-Angélique. The wedding took place in Paris in 1664, and the shrewd wife negotiated her advantageous marriage contract herself. Because of the storm of protests by the German in-laws, she initially stayed in Paris. Here she opposed Madame de Montespan . She was involved in Henriette d'Angleterre's intrigues , but neither public protests nor Roger de Bussy-Rabutin's satirical Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules (1665), for which the author was imprisoned in the Bastille for a year , withdrew her favor from the king. Henriette, who was significantly involved in the preparations for the secret treaty of Dover , died unexpectedly in 1670 when she returned to France. Rumors of poisoning made the rounds that Isabelle is said to have drunk Henriette's last drink in order to clear her suspicions.

When Louis XIV started the war against Holland in 1672, in which her brother played an important role, she went to Mecklenburg . In Schwerin she campaigned for the French cause, even using her jewels, and was successful: Christian Ludwig supported her brother-in-law with troops and took over command himself, and in 1673 he appointed his wife as regent for the duration of his absence. Here she continued a pro-French policy. A liaison with the chamberlain Andreas Gottlieb von Bernstorff enraged the Duke of Mecklenburg, and he sent her back to France, where she stayed in Châtillon-sur-Loing . Here she dissolved a Protestant monastery and founded a hospital, a school and the Benedictine monastery of Châtillon-sur-Loing (1688–1792) in its place.

In 1678 she was sent on a diplomatic mission to Braunschweig by Louis XIV as a "specialist" for German affairs, in order to win Hanover as a French ally. Isabelle was also successful at this. In 1681 her brother, the Duke of Luxembourg , became Marshal of France . In the same year she developed smallpox, which left her very disfigured. The lifelong hunt for fame and love was over. Now she collected art and tried to marry her nieces as advantageously as possible, which contemporary judgments accused her of being greedy. Her brother died on January 4, 1695, and she followed him three weeks later.

Historical assessment

Isabelle-Angélique remained loyal to the Condé family throughout her life. The judgments of contemporaries about their person and their way of life diverged tremendously and had to be seen against the background of their clan membership. Her beauty, her intelligence and her political and diplomatic skills, together with her amorous adventures, made her the target of moralizing and misogynous criticism: “Sa beauté, son intelligence et sa capacité politique aussi bien que ses intrigues amoureuses en firent la proie de la pensée moralisatrice et souvent misogyne de son siècle et de la postérité. "

The Duchess of Châtillon lived according to the then loose moral standards of the nobility and even surpassed them in their permissiveness. She was described by contemporaries as adorable and amiable, witty and quick-witted. Her spelling showed that she had not had a solid education

literature

Web links

Sources and Notes

  1. ↑ Depending on the source Isabelle-Angélique , Élisabeth-Angélique , Elisabeth Angélique
  2. ↑ a b c Danielle Haase-Dubosc: Biographical Note, in SIEFAR, Société Internationale pour l'Etude des Femmes de l'Ancien Régime: Dictionnaire des femmes de l'ancienne France , http://www.siefar.org/dictionnaire/ fr / Elisabeth-Ang% C3% A9lique_de_Boutteville-Montmorency , accessed on February 14, 2014
  3. ↑ The spelling of Bouteville / Boutteville fluctuates in the literature, in any case the Counts of Bouteville are not to be confused with the Lorraine aristocratic family Boutteville
  4. ↑ Émile Magne (see literature) writes on p. 13 of his biographical note that she was content with a phonetic orthography. In the footnote, he notes: This phonetic orthography is of particular interest in the correspondence of Mme. De Châtillon because it allows us to establish that the so-called “Parisian accent” was absolutely the same in the 17th century as it is in the present. The words written by our heroine are distorted according to the tone of the oral intonation. […] Phonetic orthography is often encountered at a time when the emerging academy was trying to fix the rules of a syntax, but as far as we know it is the first Times that we find them so faithful to the point of holding the accent.
  5. ↑ The biography is embellished like a novel, but strictly adheres to the primary sources and also reproduces letters and documents that have not been published until then.
personal data
SURNAME Montmorency, Elisabeth Angélique de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Montmorency, Isabelle Angélique de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION by marriage to the Duchess of Châtillon and later of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1627
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1695
Place of death Paris