Jacques de Beaune

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Jacques de Beaune-Semblançay.jpg

Jacques de Beaune (* around 1445 in Tours ; † August 12, 1527 ) was a French financial politician. From 1516 he carried the title of Baron de Semblançay .

Life

Career

Jacques de Beaune began his professional career in the financial service of King Louis XI. (ruled 1461–1483), gradually made a career under Charles VIII (1483–1498) and Louis XII. (1498–1515) until he was appointed Surintendant des Finances in 1518 by King Francis I. During this time he acquired a considerable fortune, which he used, among other things, to build the castles of Ballan-Miré ("La Carte") and Semblançay. A dispute with the queen mother Luise of Savoy led to the end of his ascent.

During the 6th Italian War , France suffered the defeat of Bicocca (1522), which was attributed, among other things, to the fact that some of the French troops had previously been demobilized because the soldiers did not receive the outstanding wages. A request from Jacques de Beaune - now called Semblançay - for the whereabouts of the 400,000 Écu provided for this purpose resulted in the admission that she had given it to the Queen Mother, who pretended to have a corresponding financial claim against the Crown. Luise of Savoy did not forgive Jacques de Beaune for this denunciation. On March 11, 1524, a commission was set up to check Jacques de Beaune's bookkeeping.

execution

The controversial result of this audit was that Semblançay owed the king 910,000 écu (January 27, 1525). He retired to Ballan and was arrested two years later, in January 1527, while on a trip to Paris and imprisoned in the Bastille . On August 9, 1527, he was to death by the strand convicted and on August 12 at the Gibbet of Montfaucon , the gallows of Paris , executed . He was later rehabilitated, and it now appears that in fact the king owed him a large sum of money.

His execution inspired Clément Marot to write a famous epigram that he published in "Adolescence clémentine":

Lorsque Maillart, juge d'Enfer, menoit
À Monfaulcon Samblançay l'ame rendre,
À votre advis, lequel des deux tenoit
Meilleur maintien? Pour le vous faire entender,
Maillard sembloit homme qui mort va prendre
Et Samblançay fut si ferme vieillart
Que l'on cuydoit, pour vray, qu'il menast pendre
À Montfaulcon le lieutenant Maillart.
As executioner Maillart in Montfaucon
Semblançay gave up his ghost -
In your opinion: which of the two
Has held up better? To make you hear
Maillart seemed to be the man whom death should bring,
And Semblançay such a sprightly old man
That it was truly believed that he was hanging
In Montfaucon, Lieutenant Maillart.

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