Henri II. De Lorraine, duc de Guise

Henri II de Lorraine, portrait by Anthony van Dyck , 1634

Henri II. De Lorraine (born April 4, 1614 in Blois ; † June 2, 1664 Paris ) was Archbishop of Reims from 1629 to 1641 and from 1640 until his death the fourth Duke of Guise , whose rank was linked to a peerage . In addition, he carried the titles of Prince of Joinville and Count of Eu and from 1655 held the office of Grand Chamberlain of France under the French King Louis XIV .

Life

Church career

Henri II. De Lorraine was born in Blois as the fourth son of Charles de Lorraine , Duke of Guise, and his wife Henriette Catherine de Joyeuse . His parents had planned a career in the church for him when he was a baby, and so in 1615, at the age of just one year, he was appointed Commendatar Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel , although against the initial opposition of Pope Paul V. He was appointed in the same year in addition, he was the Commander-in-Chief of Saint-Martin in Pontoise and of Fécamp Abbey . After the death of his uncle Louis III. de Lorraine-Guise in 1621 he followed him as abbot of six monasteries, including Saint-Remi in Reims , Corbie and in October 1622 Saint-Denis in Paris. In May 1626, among other things, the Saint-Nicaise Abbey was added. At the age of nine he was already the abbot of twelve monasteries, and at 14 he had an income of 100,000 livres from his benefices . Although he never entered the clergy, he was appointed Archbishop of Reims in May 1629 at the age of 15 and was able to fall back on an income of 400,000 livres through his numerous church offices.

During his tenure he promoted the establishment of numerous monasteries and religious branches in his diocese. At the request of Queen Anna of Austria , Henri approved the settlement of Carmelites in Reims, before he gave permission to establish an Annuntiate convent in Mézières in July 1634 and in October 1638 approved a religious establishment for the Congregation of Notre-Dame in Réthel. He also supported Charles and Claude Dorigny, who founded a hospital in Reims in 1631. In 1633 he introduced the Reformed Congregation of the Maurinians in Saint-Denis .

Duke of Guise

Despite his upbringing, which prepared him for a career in the church from an early age, and his numerous religious offices, Henri de Lorraine left no doubt that he hated his church career. The early death of his older brother Francois in 1639 and that of his father just a year later made him the fourth Duke of Guise and allowed him to resign from all his unloved offices in 1641. Handsome, chivalrous, charming and adventurous like the Duke was, his numerous gallantries at the royal court soon made a name for themselves. Madame de Motteville described him in her memoirs as the “true image of our old heroes” (“véritable portrait de nos anciens paladins”). Henri had wanted to marry Anna Gonzaga , daughter of Carlo I , Duke of Mantua , for some time and had her Already on June 29, 1636 given a written promise of marriage, which is why she called herself "Madame de Guise" since then. But the powerful first minister Richelieu was against the alliance and thwarted Henri's plans, which is why he made the duke his enemy. Together with other nobles such as Louis de Bourbon, comte de Soissons and Frédéric-Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, Henri opposed Richelieu's absolutist policies and therefore had to flee France to Cologne . In July 1641 he fought in the Battle of La Marfée and then went to Flemish Brussels , where he was appointed commanding general of the imperial troops against France. There he made the acquaintance of Honorine de Glymes (also called Honorée de Glymes or Honorée de Berghes), widow of Albert Maximilien de Hénin, Count, at a reception at his aunt Marie de Rohan-Montbazon , the Duchess of Chevreuse , who had also fled France von Boussu , and married her on November 11, 1641 without first obtaining his mother's consent. He was previously in the absence on September 6 by the Paris Parlement been convicted of Majetätsbeleidigung guilty and sentenced to death. His execution was carried out on behalf of a painted portrait of Henri on the Place de Grève on September 11th.

The Duke financed his time in Brussels from his wife's fortune. When he after the death of Richelieu and Louis XIII. was pardoned by Anna of Austria on July 25, 1643, he had managed 5,000  Écu and was already tired of his wife. He returned to France in August 1643, where his possessions, which had been confiscated when he was sentenced, were returned to him. In 1644 and 1645, Henri took part in the royal campaigns by accompanying the Duke of Orléans on his military ventures. For example, he took part in the siege of Gravelines . When he returned to Paris in 1645, he again took part in the gallant but also scheming court life and was considered one of the confidants of Marie d'Avaugour , Duchess of Montbazon . This intrigued against Anne Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé , the Duchess of Longueville , and assumed an affair with Maurice de Coligny, a grandson of the famous Admiral Gaspard de Coligny . After the intrigue was exposed, she was expelled from court and banished to her lands. Coligny challenged Henri on December 12, 1643 to a duel on the Place Royale (today Place des Vosges ) because the Duke of Guise had also been involved in the intrigue. Henri defeated Coligny, cementing his reputation as a soldier of fortune. During this time he also fell in love with the Queen's maid of honor, Suzanne de Pons, or Mademoiselle de Pons for short, and planned to marry her. At court, “people spoke of their marriage plans as if they had not already been married” (“[…] parloit de ce mariage aussi bien que s'il n'eut point été marié”). Since this did not correspond to reality, however, Henri II turned to the Roman Rota to obtain the dissolution of his marriage. Since a decision in his sense was too long in coming, the Duke himself traveled to Rome to hasten the matter; but in vain.

During his stay in Rome in July 1647 rebellious Neapolitans who, under the leadership of Tommaso Masaniello, revolted against the Spanish government, namely the Spanish viceroy Rodrigo Ponce de León, Duke of Arcos , asked him for help. Henri II intervened in this conflict, supported by the French royal court, referring to old Guise claims to the kingdom , because an ancestor, Isabelle de Lorraine , had married René d'Anjou , King of Naples, in 1420 . In November 1647 he succeeded in defeating the troops sent by the Spanish King Philip IV against the rebels under the leadership of Don Juan de Austria , whereupon the "Republic of Naples" was proclaimed and Henri was appointed commander-in-chief of their troops. In the following years, however, he forfeited the sympathies initially shown to him, so that the voices of his political, Spain-friendly opponents became louder and louder. Finally, the Neapolitan Gennaro Annese took advantage of Henri's absence, who had left Naples to take the island of Nisida , and opened the city's gates to the Spanish troops. Henri's attempts to regain control of Naples failed. Instead he was captured by the Spaniards on April 6, 1648 and brought to Segovia .

There he spent the next four years in captivity and was only released on July 3, 1652 through the intervention of Louis II. De Bourbon, prince de Condé , who at that time was hiring out as general of the Spanish king, who was an enemy of France. Condé hoped that Henri's release could cause unrest at the French court and thus weaken France's position vis-à-vis Spain. In addition, the duke had to undertake in writing to recognize the Spanish claims to the Kingdom of Naples in the future and never to step on its soil again. The first days of August 1652 he stayed in Bordeaux and announced that he would join the Fronde and fight Richelieu's successor Mazarin . However, he quickly gave up on this project and went back to Paris two months later, where he and Louis XIV arrived on October 21. There he found that his adored Mademoiselle de Pons had meanwhile turned to a new galan who was none other than his own stable master Germain Texier, baron de Malicorne . The advocacy of Condé regarding his release, Henri II did not thank him, but supported the resolution of the Paris Parliament, which found Condé and his entire family guilty of high treason and lese majesty.

In October 1654 the Duke of Guise tried, contrary to his promise, to recapture the Kingdom of Naples from Spain. To this end, he was appointed lieutenant general of the relevant French troops on May 18, 1654 . Supported by a French fleet, his journey began in Toulon in Provence . In Italy he succeeded in taking the town of Castellammare and its heavily fortified castle on October 15 , but due to a lack of support from the French side, he was expelled by Spanish troops and had to return to France without success. There he was appointed Grand Chamberlain of France as the successor to his younger brother Louis , Duke of Joyeuse , who died in September 1654 , in 1655, a position which was very much in keeping with the aesthetic spirit and his inclinations for pompous parties, amusements and abundance. His luxurious lifestyle was expressed, for example, in the fact that 36 pages were employed in his household and twelve Moors lived for his entertainment and diversion. Henri II. De Lorraine died at the age of 50 on June 2, 1664 in Paris without heirs and was buried on the 26th of the same month in the collegiate church of Joinville . His remains were moved to the city cemetery during the French Revolution in November 1792. As Duke of Guise, his nephew Louis Joseph , the son of his brother Louis, followed him .

Works

The Duke wrote his memoirs on the revolt in Naples. They were first published in 1668 in Paris by his secretary Saint-Yon (with the help of Philippe Goibaud-Dubois ) under the title Mémoires de feu M., le duc de Guise, contenant son entreprise sur le royaume de Naples, jusqu'à sa prison two-volume work published. By 1703 they had four new editions and were translated into English, German and Italian.

Henri's second work on his second trip to Naples, which was first published in Paris in 1682 in 1564 as a single publication under the title Suite des mémoires du duc de Guise, ou relation du voyage de l'armée navale de France au royaume de Naples, was published in 1564 Published once in 1666 in the Recueil historique de Cologne .

literature

Main literature

• René de Bouillé: Histoire des ducs de Guise . Volume 4. Amyot, Paris 1850, pp. 423-495 ( online ).
• Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Jullien de Courcelles : Dictionnaire historique et biographique des généraux français, depuis le onzième siècle jusqu'en 1820 . Volume 7. Bertrand, Paris 1823, pp. 231–233 ( online )
• Honoré Fisquet : La France pontificale (Gallia christiana), histoire chronologique et biographique des archevêques et évêques de tous les diocèses de France depuis l'établissement du christianisme jusqu'à nos jours, divisée en 17 provinces ecclésiastique. Reims . E. Repos, Paris 1864.
• Henri Forneron: Les ducs de Guise et leur époque. Étude historique sur le seizième siècle . Volume 2. E. Plon et Cie., Paris 1877, pp. 430-445 ( online ).
• Louis Lacour: Guise (Henri II de Lorraine, cinquième duc de) . In: Jean Chrétien Ferdinand Hoefer (ed.): Nouvelle biographie générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours . Volume 22. Firmin Didot, Paris 1843, columns 792-795 ( online ).
• Hippolyte de Laporte: Guise (Henri de Lorraine II, duc de) . In: Eugène Ernest Desplaces, Joseph François Michaud , Louis Gabriel Michaud (eds.) Biography universelle, ancienne et moderne. Nouvelle Édition . Volume 18. C. Desplaces, Paris 1857, pp. 232-233 ( online ).
• Paul de Musset : Le dernier duc de Guise . Hauman, Brussels 1839 ( online ).
• Hugh Noel Williams: The brood of false Lorraine . Volume 2. Hutchinson, London [1918], pp. 563-572 ( online ).

further reading

• Mémoires du duc de Guise. Volume 1 and 2 . In: Alexandre Petitot, Louis Jean Nicolas Monmerqué (ed.): Collection des mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France . Vol. 55 and 56, Foucault, Paris 1826 ( Vol. 1 online , Vol. 2 online)
• Jules Loiseleur: Mazarin et le duc de Guise . In: Questions historiques de XVIIe siècle . Didier et Cie., Paris 1873 ( online ).
• Jules Loiseleur, Gustave Baguenault de Puchesse: L'Expédition du Duc de Guise a Naples. Lettres et instructions diplomatiques de la cour de France (1647-1648) . Didier et Cie., Paris 1875 ( online ).
• Amédée de Pastoret: Le duc de Guise à Naples, ou Mémoires sur les révolutions de ce royaume en 1647 et 1648 . Ladvocat, Paris 1825 ( online ).
• Gédéon Tallemant des Réaux : Les historiettes de Tallemant des Reaux . Volume 4. Techener, Paris 1856, pp. 334–347 ( online )

Web links

Commons : Henri II. De Lorraine, duc de Guise  - collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

1. ↑ Some publications state that Henri was the second son of his parents, disregarding the fact that two of his older brothers died before Henri was born.
2. ↑ H. Forneron: Les Dukes of Guise et leur époque , S. 430th
3. ↑ ^{a b c} H. JP Fisquet: La France pontificale .
4. ↑ JBPJ de Courcelles: Dictionnaire historique et biographique des généraux français , p. 231.
5. ^ HN Williams: The brood of false Lorraine , p. 563.
6. ^ Armand Jean: Les évêques et les archevêques de France depuis 1682 jusqu'à 1801 . Picard, Paris 1891, p. 305.
7. ^ Françoise Bertaut de Motteville: Mémoires de Madame de Motteville, pour servir à l'histoire d'Anne d'Autriche . In: Joseph-François Michaud, Jean-Joseph-François Poujoulat: Nouvelle collection des mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France . Volume 10. Firmin Didot, Paris 1838, p. 141 ( online ).
8. ↑ H. Forneron: Les Dukes of Guise et leur époque , S. 431st
9. ↑ H. Forneron: Les Dukes of Guise et leur époque , S. 432nd
10. ^ Marriage of the Duke of Guise. - A true story . In: The Edinburgh Magazine, or, Literary Miscellany . Volume 7. Edinburgh 1788, p. 224 ( online ).
11. ^ A. Petitot, LJN Monmerqué: Collection des mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France , p. 10.
12. ↑ Information according to H. Forneron: Les ducs de Guise et leur époque , p. 433. In his foreword to the Duke's memoirs, Petitot gives September 3, 1644 as the date of pardon. Cf. A. Petitot, LJN Monmerqué: Collection des mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France , p. 9.
13. ^ HN Williams: The brood of false Lorraine , p. 565.
14. ^ Françoise Bertaut de Motteville: Mémoires de Madame de Motteville, pour servir à l'histoire d'Anne d'Autriche . In: Joseph-François Michaud, Jean-Joseph-François Poujoulat: Nouvelle collection des mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France . Volume 10. Firmin Didot, Paris 1838, p. 64 ( online ).
15. ↑ There are different statements about when the marriage was annulled. Laporte gives the year 1650 in his contribution (cf. H. de Laporte: Guise (Henri de Lorraine II, duc de) , p. 232), while other publications claim that the marriage lasted until the Duke's death. However, there is an undated resolution of the Paris Parliament that declares the marriage null and void. See Center historique des archives nationales: Série K, Monuments historiques. Titre IV: Princes you sang. (K 531 à K 578) . 2000, p. 99 ( PDF ; 536 KB).
16. ^ L. Lacour: Guise (Henri II de Lorraine, cinquième duc de) , Col. 792.
17. ↑ H. Forneron: Les Dukes of Guise et leur époque , S. 439th
18. ↑ H. Forneron: Les Dukes of Guise et leur époque , p 442, respectively.
19. ↑ Some publications indicate Madrid instead of Segovia.
20. ^ H. de Laporte: Guise (Henri de Lorraine II, duc de) , p. 232.
21. ^ L. Lacour: Guise (Henri II de Lorraine, cinquième duc de) , col. 793.
22. ↑ JBPJ de Courcelles: Dictionnaire historique et biographique des généraux français , p. 233.

predecessor	Office	successor
Guillaume de Gifford	Archbishop of Reims 1629–1641	Léonor d'Estampes de Valençay
Charles de Lorraine	Duke of Guise 1640–1664	Louis Joseph de Lorraine
Charles de Lorraine	Prince of Joinville 1640–1641	Henriette Catherine de Joyeuse
Charles de Lorraine	Count of Eu 1640–1657	Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans