Philippe de Courcillon

Philippe de Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau

Philippe de Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau (born September 21, 1638 at Dangeau Castle ; † September 9, 1720 in Paris ) was a French officer, diplomat and author and the Grand Master of the Order of Lazarus .

family

De Courcillon was born in Dangeau and is famous for the diaries he kept from 1684 until his death in 1720. These memoirs contain many facts about the reign of Louis XIV , which offer illuminating insights into the world at the court of the Sun King and his mind.

He is the brother of Louis de Courcillon de Dangeau and was born into a Calvinist family. However, he converted to the Roman Catholic faith in his early years .

Dangeau married Anne Françoise Morin on May 11, 1670 with whom he had a daughter, Marie Anne Jeanne de Courcillon, who married Honoré Charles d'Albert de Luynes . The child of this marriage, his daughter, Charles Louis d'Albert de Luynes, became the Duke of Luynes.

On March 26, 1686 Dangeau married again in Versailles, this time Sophia Maria Wilhelmine zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rochefort , daughter of Count Ferdinand Karl zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rochefort (1616–1672) and Anna-Maria von Fürstenberg (1634–1705). This second marriage resulted in a son named Philippe Egon de Courcillon, who was married to Françoise de Pompadour. The daughter of this marriage, Marie Sophie de Courcillon, granddaughter of Dangeau, was the wife of Charles François d'Albert d'Ailly, Duke of Picquigny and 5th Duke of Chaulnes , son of Louis Auguste d'Albert d'Ailly with whom she had a daughter, Marie-Thérèse, who died in childhood. As a widow, she married Hercule Mériadec de Rohan , Prince of Soubise and Duke of Rohan-Rohan . There were no further descendants from this connection.

Officer and diplomat

Dangeau was first known for his card game skills. The phrase “jouer à la Dangeau” became so popular that Louis XIV became aware of it. The attention of the king owed Dangeau his appointment as colonel of the king's regiment and accompanied him as an adjutant on all his campaigns. Just two years later, Dangeau was appointed governor of Touraine . As a result, he carried out several diplomatic missions on behalf of his king, which took him to Trier, Mainz and Modena. For this he received the dignity of Baron de Bressuire.

writer

As the patron saint of writers, he made friends with Nicolas Boileau , who dedicated his satire on the nobility ( Satire sur la noblesse ) to him. La Bruyère presented his traits in "Pamphile". Although Dangeau had not yet published anything, he was appointed to the Académie Française in 1667 . In 1704 he became an honorary member of the Académie des sciences de l'Institut de France (French Academy of Sciences) and in 1706 its president. Excerpts from his diaries about his daily life at the court of Versailles (kept from 1684 to 1720) were first published by Voltaire in 1770 and 1817 by Madame de Genlis and in 1818 by Pierre Édouard Lémontey . The complete 19 diaries, also known as the “Journal de la cour de Louis XIV”, were first published between 1854 and 1860.

Grand Master of the Order of Lazarus

As Grand Master of the Order of Lazarus (1693-1720), Dangeau achieved the creation of inheritance ( Commanderies graduelles masculines et perpètuelles ) by royal decree, which was issued by King Louis XIV of France on December 9, 1693. A peculiarity in the order of knights, those who are to be inherited are subordinate to the Grand Master of the Order of Lazarus and the respective ruling commander (called hereditary commander) must belong to the family of the first hereditary commander; thus the sons of a hereditary commander are members of the Order of Lazarus by birthright . On the basis of this royal decree ( Louis XIV was the protector of the Order of Lazarus), Dangeau established the following heirs:

• 1701: Commanderie héréditaire de la Motte des Murs for Jean Baptiste des Courtils, Seigneur des Bessy
• 1702: Commanderie héréditaire Saint François de Bailleul
• 1708: Commanderie héréditaire Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel
• 1711: Commanderie héréditaire Santa Eulalia
• 1712: Commanderie héréditaire Saint Michél and the commanderie héréditaire San Antonio de Castille

literature

• Dictionnaires importants sur la Noblesse ( German  manual of the nobility ). First publication (1757–1765), 7th volume with 4 additions. The work is a genealogical, heraldic chronological-historical index of the first houses of France, the independent and princely houses of Europe; it contains the names of provinces, cities and countries and names the princes, dukes, marquis, counts, vice counts and barons as well as the noble families of the (French) kingdom and their coats of arms and genealogies. It was published by " M. DLCDB" ( de La Chenaye des Bois , cf. Google Books reference ), Paris, Duchesne, 1757. Digitized at Google Books. The second edition (1770–1784), published by the widow Duchesne, is very rare. The 3rd edition with a total of 19 volumes was revised by the Schlesinger brothers (1863–1866).
• Marcel Loyau: Correspondance des Ursins. Correspondence from Marie Anne de La Trémoille, Princess des Ursins (1642 to December 5, 1722) p. 289
• Abbé de Choisy: Mémoires pour servir l'histoire de Louis XIV. Paris, Mercure de France, Collection of Rediscovered Documents, 1966.
• François-Régis Bastide: Saint-Simon, Editions du Seuil 1953, coll.écrivains de toujours, p. 57
• H.-L. Delloye: Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy, de 1710 à 1803. Paris, 1842; First edition of the 10 volumes (10 volumes in 5)
• Saint-Simon, Mémoires. Editions Gallimard, 1985, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Volume 6.
• Erich Feigl : The military and hospital order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem. Memento. Vienna: Chancellery of the Grand Priory of Austria des Ordre Militaire et Hospitalier de Saint-Lazare de Jerusalem 1974, pp. 30, 58

Individual evidence

1. ^ Duchesne: Dictionnaires importants sur la Noblesse. MDLCDB, Paris 1757
2. ↑ Généalogie de la maison de Löwenstein: Part 3 - La branch to LOWENSTEIN-WERTHEIM-ROCHEFORT ( German  genealogy of the Löwenstein house: Part 3 - The branch Löwenstein to Wertheim-Rochefort ). Selection from the 14 children who emerged from the marriage of Ferdinand Karl von Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rochefort with Countess Anna-Maria von Fürstenberg (Wertheim 1672); Entry 6: "Sophia Maria Wilhelmina von LOWENSTEIN-WERTHEIM-ROCHEFORT". ( Online in the database of the "Genealogies of Noble Houses", http://www.genroy.fr )
3. ↑ Abbé de Choisy: Mémoires pour servir l'histoire de Louis XIV. Paris, Mercure de France, Coll. Le temps retrouvé, 1966, pp. 284-285.
4. ↑ Max Müller: Atlantis. Berlin 1901, p. 123; Saint-Simon: Mémoires , editions Gallimard, 1985, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Volume 6, p. 86
5. ↑ Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy, de 1710 à 1803. Volume 1, Chapter IV, edition from 1840
6. ↑ Erich Feigl : The military and hospital order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem. Memento. Vienna: Chancellery of the Grand Priory of Austria des Ordre Militaire et Hospitalier de Saint-Lazare de Jerusalem 1974. Page 30

predecessor	Office	successor
François Michel Le Tellier de Louvois	Grand Master of the Order of Lazarus 1693–1720	Louis I. de Bourbon