Armand-Jules de Rohan-Guémené (Paris, 10 February 1695 - Saverne, 28 August 1762) was a French ecclesiastic, Peer of France and the

Archbishop of Reims The Archdiocese of Reims (traditionally spelt "Rheims" in English) ( la, Archidiœcesis Remensis; French: ''Archidiocèse de Reims'') is a Latin Church ecclesiastic territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in France. Erected as a diocese ...

Early life

Prince de Guemene was the fifteenth child of Charles III de Rohan, Prince of Guémene and Duke of Montbazon and his second wife, Charlotte-Elisabeth de Cochefilet (1657-1719), daughter of Charles de Cochefilet of Vauvineux and Françoise-Angélique d'Aubry.

Career

He was admitted early to the Chapter of the Cathedral of Strasbourg. He provided the abbeys of the Gard in the diocese of Amiens (1715), then of Gorge in that of Metz (1730). He became Archbishop of Reims on 2 June 1722, was confirmed on 6 July 1722 and made sacred on 23 August 1722. Gueme anointed

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

at his coronation in Reims on 25 October of the same year. Within his diocese, he exerted a great deal of activity to make the

Unigenitus bull ''Unigenitus'' (named for its Latin opening words ''Unigenitus dei filius'', or "Only-begotten son of God") is an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1713. It opened the final phase of the Janseni ...

accepted but, having taken a seat in the Parliament of Paris as the first ecclesiastical peer, he gradually relied on his Vicars-general to govern the diocese. He nevertheless published a Breviarium in 1759, and died three years later at Saverne.

Iconography

The archbishop is shown dressed in an ample garment reflecting his condition: archbishop's dress, lace flaps, especially ermine, collars and crosses. He sits in a gilt and sculptured armchair that is often found at the artist's. He holds in his left hand the characteristic

burette A burette is a graduated glass tube with a tap at one end, for delivering known volumes of a liquid, especially in Titration, titrations. It is a long, graduated glass tube, with a stopcock at its lower end and a tapered capillary tube at the stop ...

and on the other the dish of a book, standing on his knees. The bottom of the picture shows a column dressed in a heavy animated drape, barely hiding a library in the background. The current location of the original painting is not known, but a print was made in 1739 by Gilles-Edme Petit.Avec la lettre suivante : « Armandus Julius Princeps de Rohan / Archiepiscopus Dux Remensis / Sacro Chrismate onxit Ludovicum XV die XXV Octobris M.D.CC.X.X.II. Sous le trait carré : Pinxit Hyacinthus Rigaud ordinae Equitum Sto Michaelis / Petit sculpsit M.D.CC.XXX.IX. ». Voir Portalis & Béraldi, Les graveurs du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1880-1882, III, p. 300 (n°20); S. Perreau, Hyacinthe Rigaud, le peintre des rois, Montpellier, 2004, p. 218, repr. p. 219, fig. 202.

Heraldry

Coat of Arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

with cartel: in 1 and 4: Gules with golden chains laid in an orle, cross and saltire, loaded in the heart of a natural emerald (which is from Navarre); in 2 and 3: azure with three fleurs de lys d'or (which is from France); on the whole, gone: in 1: Gules with nine twins of gold, placed 3, 3, 3 (which is Rohan); and in 2: of ermine (which is from Brittany).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rohan-Guemene, Armand Jules de 1695 births 1762 deaths French Christians Archbishops of Reims House of Rohan