Pierre I. de Rohan

Pierre de Rohan's coat of arms

Pierre I. de Rohan , called Maréchal de Gié (* 1451 presumably in Mortier-Crolles Castle in Saint-Quentin-les-Anges ; † April 22, 1513 in Le Verger Castle in Seiches-sur-le-Loir ), was Seigneur de Gyé and Ham, Comte de Marle , Marshal of France , diplomat and adviser to the Kings Louis XI. , Charles VIII and Louis XII. With him, the Rohan family began to rise to become one of the first families in France.

origin

Pierre de Rohan comes from the Rohan family and their Rohan-Guéméné branch (see also Rohan-Guéméné tribe list ). He was the second son of Louis I. de Rohan and Marie de Montauban, and thus through his mother a grandson of Jean de Montauban, Admiral of France . Since his family had fallen out of favor when Duke Peter II of Bretagne took over in 1450 - the Rohan were implicated in the murder of Gilles de Bretagne, the youngest brother of the new Duke - Pierre was born outside of Brittany.

biography

childhood

In 1457 his mother poisoned his father, who left a will in which he denied her guardianship over their children. Marie de Montauban temporarily escaped from justice, married Georges de La Trémoille (1427–1481), Lord of Craon , but was later imprisoned, where she died in 1476. Pierre's guardian was Tanneguy du Chastel († 1477; buried in Notre-Dame de Cléry ), who brought him to the royal court.

At the court of Louis XI.

In 1472 the king gave him the rule of Gié in Champagne ( Gyé-sur-Seine in what is now the Aube department ), whereupon he changed his name to Pierre de Rohan de Gié. In 1473 he took part in a military conflict for the first time with the siege of Perpignan . In 1474 he was already the royal plenipotentiary for the ratification of the peace treaty with Duke Francis II of Brittany . In 1476 - at the age of 25 - he was appointed Marshal of France . In the same year he married Françoise de Penhoet, daughter of Guillaume, Comte de Penhoet, Vicomte de Fronsac, and Françoise de Maillé, from whom he had three sons: Charles , who later became Count of Guise , François, who became Archbishop of Lyon in 1501 , and Pierre, the progenitor of the Dukes of Rohan .

Military career

Pierre de Rohan de Gié managed to defeat the notoriously suspicious King Louis XI. to convince of his loyalty and his abilities. In 1479 the Maréchal de Gié in Flanders recaptured all the places that Maximilian had previously taken from Austria . In 1480 he is one of the four lords who rule France during the king's illness in Chinon . In 1482 he captured Aire . In 1483 Louis XI died.

Under the new King Charles VIII , he continued to defend the border in Picardy against the Habsburgs . In 1484 he took part in the coronation of Charles VIII, who in 1485 appointed him Prince (probably Prince de Rohan ). In 1487 he fought with great success against the Duke of Geldern and the Count of Nassau . In 1491 he had the castle La Motte-Glain (in La Chapelle-Glain ) rebuilt on the border with Brittany .

In 1494/95 he accompanied Charles VIII on his campaign to conquer the Kingdom of Naples . As commander of the vanguard in the battle of Fornovo on July 6, 1495, he concluded the armistice, after which the French had to withdraw from Italy. He was later accused of having kept his troops too much in reserve during the battle. But it was also he who hurried to the aid of Duke Ludwig von Orléans , who was besieged in Novara . After the failed campaign, Pierre de Rohan de Gié became the chairman of the royal council.

Louis XII.

The liberation of the Duke of Orléans was very important in favor of Rohan when in 1498 Charles VIII as Louis XII. succeeded the throne. In 1499 he was appointed governor of Amboise . He took part in the new Italian campaign, which began in the same year, and was at the side of the king at his solemn entry into Genoa on April 26, 1502. The Maréchal de Gié was now - after the king - together with Cardinal Georges d ' Amboise the most powerful noblewoman in France: In the same year he had Michelangelo cast a bronze David

In 1497 Pierre de Rohan had become a widower. In 1500 he had the Mortier-Crolles Castle rebuilt and established the Franciscan Convent of Notre-Dame des Anges on the domain . In 1503 he married Marguerite d'Armagnac, the daughter of Jacques d'Armagnac , who in the same year became Duchesse de Nemours and Countess of Guise as heir to her brother Louis, and also died; After her death, he succeeded the following year in marrying his son Charles to Charlotte d'Armagnac, the sister and heiress of Marguerites, who also died after a short time.

In disgrace

A dispute with Cardinal Amboise, who wanted the reign in the event of the king's death, and difficulties with the Parlement in Paris led Pierre de Pontbriant to prosecute the Maréchal de Gié before the king in 1504, which led to a trial for libel of majesty . Brantôme writes that the trial - which took place before the Parlement of Toulouse, which was considered the strictest in the kingdom at the time - would have resulted in a death sentence if Queen Anne de Bretagne had wished it: After Rohan had made the mishap of stopping ships, who she had sent with valuables to her home town of Nantes , he was in disgrace with her, she tried to remove him from the court - the marshal withdrew to his castle Le Verger in Anjou , which was currently under construction. Brantôme also adds that the Queen wanted to let Rohan live, as he had already lost his fortune and was now living in pain and grief. In fact, he was not convicted, but was forbidden from exercising his offices by a decree of February 9, 1504, his property was confiscated for five years and he himself was imprisoned in Dreux Castle.

After his sentence had expired, he was released and allowed to return to Paris. As for the crime of lese majesty, he was pardoned. However, he no longer appeared at court and died a few years later, on April 22, 1513. Pierre de Rohan de Gié was buried in the church of Sainte-Croix-du-Verger.

literature

• Detlev Schwennicke: European Family Tables , Volume X (1986), Plate 16

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pierre de Rohan's paternal grandmother was Catherine Du Guesclin, daughter of Bertrand, Seigneur de La Morelière; Sometimes he is therefore referred to as the great-grandson of the Connétable Bertrand du Guesclin († 1380), which is actually not the case: The Connétable died childless. In the family table of the Guesclin (cf. [1] ) there is neither a Catherine du Guesclin nor a Rohan, nor a Seigneurie La Morelière.
2. ↑ the son of that Tanneguy du Chastel (1369–1449), who saved the Crown Prince and later King Charles VII from Paris occupied by Burgundy
3. ↑ Louis XI. wrote to the Count of Dammartin that M de Rohan was one of the great lords of the kingdom and that he most congratulated himself on having brought him into his service
4. ↑ Karl von Egmond is probably meant , then pretender to the title of duke, who fell into French captivity in July 1487 at the battle of Béthune .
5. ↑ Michelangelo pittore a cura di 'Pier Luigi De Vecchi. Milano: Jaca book, 1984, p. 13.
6. ↑ afin que, par sa fortune changée de grande et haute où il s'était vu, en un misérable état bas, il vécut en douleurs et tristesses.