The La Trémoille Family

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Class 3)Q 3fe Book .L'3

FROM THE CRUSADES TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

THE

Preface

Without exaggeration it may be said that in the history of France few families, if any, have played a more persistently prominent part than the house of La Tremoille.-^ For five centuries, from the Crusades to the Revolution, the La Tremoille stock has never failed to produce men of mark, and women too. Whether for good or for evil La Tremoilles have stamped their personalities on those great movements which have built up modern France : on the Crusades, on the Hundred Years War, on the ItaHan campaigns, on the religious strife which followed the Reformation, on the Fronde, and, during the Revolution, on the death struggle of that ancien regime with which they had been so intimately associated.

Outside France, too, in the affairs of England and of Denmark, and in such great European movements as the struggle for independence of the United Provinces and the establishment of the Bourbons on the throne of Spain, we shaR find La Tremoilles active. We shall also find them figuring in association with such famous persons as Joan of Arc, Prince Rupert, Oliver Cromwell, Madame de Sevigne, Prince Charles Edward, and Marie Antoinette.

To tell adequately the story of this illustrious house it would be necessary, therefore, to write not only the history of France through five centuries, but more than

1 This name, which in Latin was Tremulia, in French is to be found spelt in four different ways : Trimoille, Tremoille, Trimouille and Tremoille. The last is the form here adopted.

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one chapter in the history of other states. Such an undertaking the Hmits of the present volume forbid. My readers must brook abridgment.

The persistent dominance of the La Tremoille Une the modern eugenist will ascribe to the care of its members always to choose their consorts from th.e most vigorous families of the day — Montmorency, Nassau, Arragon, Stanley, Conde, Hesse Cassel, Sobieski — to mention only a few of the influential houses to which they were alhed. But the La Tremoilles have not always been equally powerful. Their wealth and influence attained its zenith towards the end of the sixteenth century, during the lifetime of Claude, the second Duke. Then with their 1,700 vassals, a larger number than were included in any other French fief, the heads of this house were nothing more or less than kinglets of western France. At Laval and at Thouars, their Breton and Poitevin capitals, they kept truly royal state. On the banks of the little river Thouet they raised a princely pile -^ which cast into insignificance such royal residences as Marly and Chenonceaux. Had any La Tremoille a grievance against the Crown, which not infrequently happened, in a very short time he could equip and put into the field an army of several hundred men.

But, towards the middle of the following century, the tide of their success changed and their fortunes began to ebb. In the civil war of the Fronde, that last great struggle of the French nobility against the centralised government of Richeheu and Mazarin, a government intended to thwart the aspirations of the nobles and to degrade kinglets into courtiers. La Tremoille wealth, freely expended on the side of the nobility, dwindled, estates grew encumbered and their owners burdened with debt.

1 still standing to-day and used as a prison. See illustration.

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Henceforth the Dukes of La Tremoille found it impossible to keep up the double state of a hotel in Paris and a court in the west. They were now compelled to choose between the prestige of a great feudal lord in the provinces and the glamour of a grandee at court ; they elected the latter, and they began to reside more and more at Paris. Poitevins and Bretons came to know them no more. Thus, on the La Tremoille estates, as throughout the rest of France, there grew up that disastrous system of absenteeism, which caused the feudal yoke so to chafe the necks of its wearers that ultimately, with one great throb of agony, they cast it off.

As long as the Dukes of La Tremoille lived amongst their vassals, taking a personal interest in their concerns, feudal burdens, though heavy, were bearable. At the bidding of the Duke and Duchess living in their midst the people of Thouars had been content to slave, to give their labour, as well as their money, for the building of that huge castle which still dominates their town. But when their princes left them to return only at rare intervals, and then without ceremony or even incognito, when they ceased to hold in those lordly halls the annual gatherings of their numerous vassals, when the courts of Thouars ceased to resound beneath the armed feet of goodly companies assembling to be led to battle by their chief, when corvees had to be rendered and feudal dues paid to an absent and unknown lord, then the gorges of sturdy Bretons and Poitevins rose against the injustice of the ancien regime ; Thouars became one of the first provincial cities to set up a Jacobite club, and soon the broad lands of the La Tremoilles were seized by the Government of the Revolution.

But it is important to remark that when the state took viii PREFACE

possession of the La Tremoille property, and the Jacobins of Thouars could range at will through the lofty halL of the castle on the Thouet, it was only on the property of the Duke of that day that they wreaked their vengeance. The portraits of his ancestors, with one exception,^ they venerated and even carried off to their own homes in order to save them from desecration by strangers.

While Sans-Culottes were profaning the homes of his ancestors, the Due de La Tremoille, Charles Bretagne, was reduced to wandering over the face of Europe serving in foreign armies against his republican countrymen. His eldest brother, leading the forlorn hope of the ancien regime in La Vendee, was taken, and by a Republican court martial condemned to die beneath the walls of his own castle of Laval. A few months later another brother was guillotined at Paris.

After the Revolution turmoil had subsided, the late Duke, Louis Charles de La Tremoille, devoted many years to making known the history of his illustrious family. And it is chiefly from the La Tremoille archives as pubhshed by Duke Louis that the story told in this book has been derived.

The history of these archives is in itself a romance. When in the seventeenth century Marie de la Tour d' Auvergne and her husband, Duke Henry de La Tremoille, built their great chateau on the Thouet, they constructed in one of its towers a strong room with a heavy iron door, and here they placed the family records which had accumulated through the ages. In the previous generation at Duke Claude's request these documents had been classified and arranged by two eminent archivists of the day, the brothers Scevole and Louis de Sainte-Marthe.

1 That of Marie de la Tour d' Auvergne. See post, 200.

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These historians composed a summary of their researches, which, after their death, was pubHshed by their son and nephew, Pierre Scevole de Sainte-Marthe. This,-^ the earhest known history of the La Tremoilles, appeared in 1668.

For a century and more the La Tremoille archives rested in peace in the muniment room of Thouars. Then the Revolution broke out and the Poitevin town became one of the centres of the war waged in the west by the courageous supporters of monarchy. More than once the chateau had to stand a siege, and more than once it narrowly escaped being burnt to the ground. But through all these dangers, though riddled with bullets, the iron door kept out the besiegers and the archives remained intact.

The time came, however, when the La Tremoilles, having emigrated, their chateau, as we have said, was seized by the Revolution Government. Then the muniment room became public property. Then the battered iron door was left to swing on its hinges, the chests were rifled and their contents exposed to the ravages of autograph hunters, of rats and of damp, while the finest pieces of parchment the good wives of Thouars eagerly appropriated to serve as covers for their jam pots. So, when Revolution wrath had subsided and Duke Charles asked Napoleon's Government to restore his family records, the steward sent down to Thouars to examine them, found the contents of two chests, such as remained of them, strewn like so many scraps of waste paper on the floor of the muniment room. But the papers in the four remaining chests appear to have been untouched, and they contained enough material for the composition of a connected

1 " Histoire Gen6alogique de la Maison de Tr6moille."

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family history. Some twenty years later, when in 1830 Duke Charles took for his third wife the Comtesse de Serrant, these documents, securely packed in eighty cases, were removed to the chateau of Serrant, where most of them remain to this day.

Nevertheless, the true value of these records was not rightly estimated until the middle of the last century, when M. Paul Marchegay, archivist, of Maine-et-Loire, in search of letters from Madame de Sevigne to a La Tremoille princess,-^ obtained permission to examine them. Of the letters he sought not one did M. Marchegay discover,^ but he found others equally interesting, written by Louise de Coligny, sister of the famous Admiral and third wife of William the Silent, to her step-daughter, Charlotte Brabantine, who had married Duke Claude de La Tremoille. These, with other valuable letters of the same period, M. Marchegay published in three volumes.^

Following in M. Marchegay's footsteps and with his assistance Duke Louis de La Tremoille undertook for publication a systematic arrangement of the family archives. In 1877, there appeared for private circulation a fine folio, the " Chartier de Thenars, " a copy of which the Duke presented to the British Museum. Then between 1890 and 1896 he gave to the public five handsome volumes entitled " Les La Tremoille pendant cinq siecles."

From these and other minor publications it will be seen

1 See post, 203 et seq.

2 They were found elsewhere and inserted by M. Monmerque in his edition of Madame de Sevigne's letters.

2 " Lettres de Louise de Coligny . . . a . . . Charlotte Brabantine de Nassau, Duchesse de La Tremoille," 1872 ; " Lettres d'Elisabeth de Nassau, Duchesse de Bouillon, a sa sceur Charlotte Brabantine de Nassau, Duchesse de La Tremoille," 1875 ; " Correspondance de Louise de Coligny recueillie par P. Marchegay," 1887. See also by the same author, " Recherches historiques sur le departement de La Vendee," 1859, and " Cartulaires du Bas-Poitou," 1877.

PREFACE xi

that, despite many serious losses, there remained of the La Tremoille documents an invaluable collection including letters from kings and princes, correspondence between other great historical personages and, by no means the least interesting to English readers, the letters of that famous Charlotte de La Tremoille, Countess of Derby, that Lady of Lathom whom Sir Walter Scott has so admirably depicted in " Peveril of the Peak."

For four centuries at least, from Froissart downwards, French chronicles, memoirs and histories abound in references to the members of this house.

The earliest biography of a La Tremoille was written in the sixteenth century by Jean Bouchet, a Poitiers lawyer, and a retainer of the great Count Louis de La Tremoille.-^ In terms of extravagant adulation Bouchet tells the story of his master's adventurous career and of the Italian wars in which he commanded the armies of three successive French Kings.

The most recent biography of a La Tremoille is a volume by Edouard Barthelemy, telling the tragic story of Charlotte de La Tremoille, Princesse de Conde, who was accused of poisoning her huiband. Of that other and later Charlotte, the Lady of Lathom, there are two excellent biographies, one in English by Guizot's daughter, Madame de Witt, and another more recent, in French, by Leon Marlet.^ No less than four members of the family have written their own memoirs. The letters of several others have been published. For example, the correspondence of his illustrious kinswoman, the Princesse des Ursins, on the question of the Spanish succession, the Due

1 This life is included in Michaud and Poujoulat's collection of French memoirs. Series I., Vol. IV.

2 A third, by Miss Rowsell, contains nothing which is not to be found in Madame de Witt's book save several inaccuracies.

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de La Tremoille has published in no less than six magnificent quarto volumes. All these sources I have conscientiously consulted, and detailed references to them will be found in the following pages.

It now only remains for me to express my thanks to those who by their kindness have facilitated the illustration of this book : to Madame la Duchesse Douairiere de La Tremoille for her gracious permission to reproduce pictures and portraits contained in the publications of the late Due de La Tremoille ; to Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond, herself a descendant of a Princesse de La Tremtoille, for generously placing her portrait album at my disposal ; to Count Bentinck and Mr. Aldenburg Bentinck for their permission to reproduce portraits in their possession ; to Miss Evelyn Glover, for an excellent photograph of the Castle at Vitre; and to Miss Dorothy McDougall for supplying me with an interesting collection of pictures of Poitou.

Table Of Contents

CHAP. FAGB

Preface . v

I. La Tremoilles in the Crusades and the English

Chapter I La Tremoilles In The Crusades And The English Wars. 1040— 1397

There is nothing to especially distinguish the small market town of La Tremoille, in Poitou^ from hundreds of other agricultural centres scattered here and there throughout the length and breadth of France. The little river Benaize, on which La Tremoille stands, is spanned by the usual solid stone bridge. From the bridge end there rambles up aimlessly into the country-side the usual Grand' Rue, with its side paths of irregular paving stones and its rough cast, slate-roofed houses, many with shop fronts, and generally of two stories, broken occasionally by a low gable end or the addition of a third floor.

This is the little town which gave its name to, or received its name from, the La Tremoilles, of whom one, Pierre de La Tremoille, living in 1040, is the earliest known representative. But in days yet more remote, a lordship of La Tremoille formed part of the domain of the Counts of Poitou, and eventually became a separate fief held by younger members of the Count's family.

Of these early Sieurs de La Tremoille, little is known, save that from the days of Pierre onwards, they grew in wealth, dignity, and dominions. Later from simple lords or seigneurs they rose to be counts, then dukes,

c.r. b then princes, always, as we have said, alljdng themselves with great houses, notably in the sixteenth century with that of Arragon, through which they assumed the title of Princes of Taranto, and claimed a right to the crown of Naples, enjoying at the French court for nearly loo years privileges only accorded to foreign princes.

Down through all the ages of the family history the La Tremoille women have ever occupied a position of unusual honour. While the descent of the French Monarchy was subject to the restrictions of the Salic Law, not so the Duchy of La Tremoille, which, in the event of the failure of male heirs,-^ was held capable of descending through the female line. La Tremoille princesses, in the seventeenth century, attained to the highest of court honours, that of " having the tabouret," as it was called, which meant that from the tender age of seven a princess of this house might in her sovereign's presence remain proudly seated on a folding chair without arms or back, called a Tabouret.

Of the earliest La Tremoilles we know the bare fact that they took part in the Crusades ; that Guy I. accompanied Godefroi de Bouillon to the Holy Land in 1096 ; that Guy's son, Guillaume H., went with Louis VH. on the second Crusade, in 1147 ; and that Thibaud or Imbaud, with his three sons, in 1248, followed St. Louis on his disastrous African expedition. But of Thibaud we know also that in the narrow streets of an African town, Mansourah, whither the vanguard of the Crusaders had been led by the rash zeal of the Comte d'Artois, the King's brother, he and his sons, with the flower of French chivalry, assailed by the Saracens with " arrows and pieces of wood," fell fighting gloriously.

1 This event has never yet occurred.

Not, however, before the thirteenth century is it possible to piece together anything Uke a connected history of this house. And the first La Tremoille of whom we possess any detailed knowledge is Guy VL whose parents were Guy V., Grand Panetier^ of France in 1353, and Radegonde Guenaud.^

Born about the middle of the fourteenth century, Guy VL, on his father's death, entered into vast possessions, broad lands in such different parts of the kingdom as Poitou, Berry, Bourbonnais, Burgundy, Limousin, Orleannais, Savoy and I'lle-de-France. This extensive domain was further augmented by his marriage with Marie de Sully, one of the wealthiest heiresses of her day. It was Marie who brought her husband that great castle of Sully on the Loire, not far from Orleans, one of the most princely of La Tremoille residences. Despite the renovations and additions of four centuries, in its great central wing it still perpetuates the memory of the opulent Madame Marie.

When still young, Sieur Guy, was already renowned as un brilliant chevalier. It was in that desultory warfare by which, after Cre9y and Poitiers, the English gradually lost the conquests they had won that Guy de La Tremoille won his spurs. In 1382, in the Cathedral of St. Denis, from the hands of his sovereign, Charles VL, Guy received the glorious oriflamme of Clovis and of Charlemagne, the sacred standard of France, woven of costly silk, called sandal, and edged about with tassels of green, which he bore gallantly before his king into battle with the English. Two years later Guy was appointed

1 Master of the King's pantry.

2 For Guy's other children, see Anselme, " Histoire Gen^alogique at Chronologique," IV., i8i.

B 2 one of the ambassadors to cross the Channel and treat of peace with England. There so deeply did he impress the English as a gallant knight, that two years later still. Sir Peter Courtenay journeyed into France with no object but to break a lance with this expert warrior.

Together Guy and his adversary tilted before the King and his court, while the Duchess of Burgundy, wife of the great Philip the Bold, commanded prayers to be offered for the success of the French champion. But King Charles, hesitating to take sides, and equally dreading the mischance of either combatant, of his good vassal, or of his trustful guest, after a few bouts ordered the lists to be closed before either knight had won any vantage.

At such treatment we are not surprised to find Sir Peter bitterly incensed. Only with rich gifts and fair words was his anger appeased ; but even these did not entirely content him, for on the way home he complained bitterly of the French King's action. The numerous heralds, who had accompanied the knight from England, were perhaps better pleased, for they had received between them from the King's uncle, the Duke of Burgundy, no less a sum than 150 francs, which is more than ten times as much in modern money. Meanwhile, the great Duke Philip testified his appreciation of the valour and prowess of his cher et feal cousin, as he called La Tremoille, by appointing him his executor, and directing that on his death he should be interred at the Duke's feet in the Carthusian monastery of Champnol-les-Dijon. Here we note the earliest evidence of that close connection between the La Tremoilles and the Dukes of Burgundy, which was to endure for more than a century.^

1 Some writers describe the La Tremoilles as of Burgundian origin. It is certain that from very early times they held lands in Burgundy.

Closely associated with his suzerain, Duke Philip, was Guy de La Tremoille in that monster expedition against England, which was one of the greatest wonders and the most disastrous failures of the age. For like Napoleon's expedition, this vast host, having assembled through many months on the coast of Flanders, never even succeeded in crossing the Channel.

" The biggest fleet that had ever been seen since the creation of the world," 1,400 ships, hired or purchased from well nigh every maritime power in Europe, Duke Philip, during the summer of 1386, assembled in Flemish harbours. Meanwhile to the camp at Arras there flocked the flower of French chivalry, hundreds of knights, who lavished on their accoutrement untold sums, for which they looked to recoup themselves by booty captured in England. Covered with silken tents from which floated all the pomp of heraldry — ^lions, dragons, and unicorns, destined to defy the leopards of England — the camp at Arras in its magnificence anticipated the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Accompanying the knights was a vast host, mustering no less than 8,000 men-at-arms and 60,000 foot-soldiers ; while for the feeding of this great multitude there was gathered from every part of France vast store =^of victuals — hay, oats, wine, sacks of flour, barrels of salt and of onions, and casks filled with yolks of eggs.

But the crowning glory of Duke Philip's preparations was a complete wooden town with houses, towers and pahsades, constructed in Breton forests, and intended to be set up on British shores, where it was to form a kind of moveable Calais for the shelter of French troops. No less than seventy-two vessels were sent to convey this marvellous triumph of mediaeval engineering to Flanders.

But now mischance began to overtake Duke Philip's scheme. Between Flanders and Brittany, tempests beat upon the wooden town, and shattered it to pieces. Meanwhile the host at Arras was awaiting the coming of the King who was to command it. But quarrels at court and jealousy of Duke Philip were delaying the King's departure, and the summer months were fleeting by. When at length he arrived at Arras, the most favourable time for crossing had passed, autumn had set in, the ruined knights had begun to return to their mortgaged demesnes, the vast host was dwindling ; then the equinoctial gales began, the sea guarded Great Britain.

" And Ocean 'mid his uproar wild Spoke safety to his island-child." ^

Thus vanished Guy de La Tremoille's first and only opportunity of displaying his warlike prowess on English soil.

Then for a while there was peace between France and England. So now warriors on both sides the Channel might together turn their arms against the Infidel. In 1389, as in St. Louis' day, it was against the African Miscreant that the Crusade was directed. Guy de La Tremoille, with his brother Guillaume, and his brother-in-law Sully, was not loath, we may be sure, to follow the Due de Bourbon, another of the King's uncles, who led the French Crusaders.

In some of his most picturesque passages, Froissart has described the voyage of these " Christen men " to what he calls " the town of Afryke," the modern Almalia, very near the site of ancient Carthage.

" The trumpets blew up at their departing," writes

1 Coleridge, '•' Ode on the Departing Year," quoted by Michelet, " Hist, de France," Bk. VII., Chap. II.

the historian/ "and it was great pleasure to behold how they rowed abroad in the sea, which was peaceable, calm and fair, showing herself desirous that the Christen men should come before the strong town of Afryke. The Christen navy was goodly to regard, and well ordered ; and it was great beauty to see the banners and penons of silk, with the arms and badges of the lordes and other, waving with the wind, and shining against the sun. Coming to the haven of Afryke, the Christen men lodged all night there. The next morning the weather was fair and clear, and the air in good temper, and the sun rose, that it was pleasure to behold. Then the Christen men began to stir and to make ready to take land. Then trumpets and clarions began to sound in the galleys and vessels, and made great noise. And about nine of the clock, when the Christen men had taken a little refreshing with drink, then were they rejoiced and lighted. And, according as they had appointed before, they sent in first their light vessels called brigandyns, well furnished with artillery ; they entered into the haven, and after them came the galleys and the other ships of the fleet in good order.

"And, turning towards the land by the sea side, there was a strong castle with high towers, and especially one Tower which defended the sea side and the land also ; and in this Tower was a bricoll or an engine which was not idle, but still did cast great stones among the Christen men's ships. And likewise in every tower of the town on the sea-side, there were engines to cast stones."

Despite these stones which assailed them, the " Christen men" appear to have received no great hurt in landing. And without further let or hindrance from the Saracens, they pitched their tents upon the shore, Guillaume de La Tremoille's on the right of the Duke's from which floated, his banner covered with flowers de luce, with Our Lady

1 Lord Berner's Trans., ed. 1812, II., 499.

in the midst and the arms of Bourbon at her feet. Next to Guillaume's tent came the Comte de Sully's, and then Sire Guy's.

From the walls of Afryke " the false Saracens " had watched the " Christen men " disembarking, and had marvelled to see them approach the shore in little boats. But, save for the throwing of stones, the Infidel made no attempt to prevent their landing.

Soon, however, tidings of the enemy's descent upon their coasts were bruited abroad in the country round about Afryke ; and a great Saracen army came and encamped over against the " Christen men" on the seashore.

Then there began what was little more than a long drawn out tournament. On the second day in the morning, the Saracens came to skirmish with the " Christen men ; " and the skirmishing endured the space of two hours. The Saracens would not fight hand to hand, but they fought with casting of darts and shooting, and would not foolishly adventure themselves, but wisely and sagely " reculed."

Among the Saracens was one knight who especially distinguished himself. His name was Agadingor Dolyferne (sic), and his father was the Duke of Olyferne. Agadingor was always well mounted on a light and ready horse, " which seemed as if he did flie in the air." Armed he was with three feathered darts, and right v/ell could he handle them. About his head he wore a long white towel. His apparel was black, and his own colour brown. The knights of France would fain have taken him, but they could never entrap or enclose him, so swift was his horse, and so ready to his hand.

The "Christen men " said they thought he did such deeds

TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION g

for the love of some young lady of his country. And true it was that he loved entirely the lady Azala, daughter of the King of Tunis. " I cannot tell," says Froissart as he relates this story, " if they were married together after or not,"

After some weeks of this skirmishing, the Saracens bethought them to send a messenger to the "Christen men " to inquire of them wherefore they had come against the town of Afryke. So they took an interpreter, who spoke Italian, and sent him. On the way to the Christen camp the interpreter met a Genoese, and together they went to the " Christen men " and asked them wherefore they had come to Afryke.

Then the Due de Bourbon held a council of war in his tent, summoning no doubt the two La Tremoilles and their brother-in-law Sully. And, after deliberating as to what answer they should send to their enemies, the knights told the interpreter to say that because the Saracens had crucified Jesus Christ, the Son of God, therefore had the Christen men come against them.

Wlien the interpreter rendered this answer to those who had sent him, the Saracens did nothing but laugh, and say how that answer was nothing reasonable, for it was the Jews who put Christ to death, and not they.

Now this skirmishing and curvetting in the plain had already lasted a month, and no attack had yet been made upon the town. Soon after the answer had been sent to the Saracens, the "Christen men " stormed Afryke and entered within the walls, where many of their number were slain, and whence they were forced to retreat, having failed to capture the town. Then great discontent arose in the army. The Due de Bourbon was arrogant and lazy. Famine and pestilence attacked the " Christen men," and also many died of the great heat. Moreover, the knights began to fear the treachery of the Genoese, whose ships had brought them to Afryke. And so, seeing there was nothing more to be done, the " Christen men " — such of them as were left — returned crestfallen to their own homes.