François de Montmorency-Bouteville

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Portrait of François' de Montmorency by Daniel Dumonstier

François de Montmorency (* 1600 , † 22. June 1627 in Paris ), Seigneur of Bouteville and Count of Luxe , baillif and governor of Senlis , was a French nobleman who for his frequent duels was notorious and therefore sentenced to death and executed was .

Life

François was the son of Louis de Montmorency († 1615), Seigneur von Bouteville and Precy, Vice Admiral of France, and Charlotte Catherine de Luxe, from the Fosseux line of the Montmorency family . He was the father of the famous Marshal of Luxembourg and the Duchess of Châtillon , who played an important role during the Fronde .

In 1616, after the early death of his older brother Henri de Montmorency-Bouteville (1597-1616), he was sovereign Count of Luxe and Governor of Senlis. In the campaigns against the Huguenots in 1621 and 1622, he distinguished himself at the siege of Saint-Jean-d'Angély , the siege of Montauban , the siege of Royan and the siege of Montpellier .

François de Montmorency was considered high-flying, proud and quick-tempered and was therefore involved in numerous duels despite the current ban on duels. Allegedly, he is said to have fought more than forty, according to other sources twenty-two, fatal duels in a single year.

In 1625 he killed the Marquis de Portes in a duel, on March 25, 1626 the Comte de Thorigny. After he had wounded the Baron de la Frette in a duel in 1627, he fled to Brussels to face the wrath of Louis XIII. to escape. Although high-ranking personalities, even the governor Isabella Clara Eugenia , interceded for him, the king refused to forgive him. Angry, Montmorency-Bouteville swore to fight in the middle of Paris in broad daylight, although Cardinal Richelieu had made the duel a death penalty by an edict of June 2, 1626.

The duel took place on May 12, 1627 on what was then Place Royale in Paris. François de Montmorency fought in a draw against his opponent Guy d'Harcourt, Comte de Beuvron. Her seconds , François de Rosmadec, Comte de Chapelles (a cousin de Montmorencys), and Henri de Clermont-d'Amboise, Marquis de Bussy-d'Amboise, also fought with each other. Bussy-d'Amboise was fatally wounded. While d'Harcourt was able to flee to England, Montmorency and Rosmadec were arrested, sentenced to death and beheaded on the Place de Grève on June 22nd, 1627 on the orders of Richelieu, despite the appeals of numerous nobles .

Although forbidden as a capital crime, duels were the order of the day at the time. But they were only rarely persecuted and punished; Usually it was enough for the surviving duelists to keep quiet after the duel until the matter was forgotten. But Montmorency-Bouteville was not just a notorious hotspur and duelist; his execution, which made waves in Paris at the time, was above all a royal show of force. In a time of constant power struggles between king and nobility, which later found their climax and their end in the Fronde , Richelieu and Louis XIII wanted . not accept the deliberate provocation by de Montmorency and show that even the high and highest nobility were not inviolable and had to submit to the law of the king.

François de Montmorency married Elisabeth Angélique de Vienne on March 17, 1617, with whom he had the following children:

literature

personal data
SURNAME Montmorency-Bouteville, François de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Montmorency, François de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French nobleman who was executed for frequent duels
DATE OF BIRTH 1600
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1627
Place of death Paris