Charlotte de Beaune Semblançay, Viscountess of Tours, Baroness de Sauve, Marquise de Noirmoutier (26 October 1551 – 30 September 1617) was a French noblewoman and a mistress of King
Henry of Navarre, who later ruled as King
Henry IV of France. She was a member of
queen mother Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici ( it, Caterina de' Medici, ; french: Catherine de Médicis, ; 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was an Florentine noblewoman born into the Medici family. She was Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King ...
's notorious "
Flying Squadron" (''L'escadron volant'' in French), a group of beautiful female spies and informants recruited to seduce important men at Court, and thereby extract information to pass on to the Queen Mother.
[Strage, Mark (1976). ''Women of Power: The Life and Times of Catherine de Medici''. New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p.185. ]
Biography
Charlotte was born in France on 26 October 1551, the daughter and only child of Jacques de Beaune, Baron Semblançay, Viscount of Tours, and Gabrielle de Sade, a descendant of
Provençal
Provençal may refer to:
*Of Provence, a region of France
* Provençal dialect, a dialect of the Occitan language, spoken in the southeast of France
*''Provençal'', meaning the whole Occitan language
*Franco-Provençal language, a distinct Roman ...
nobility. The
family seat was in the former province of
Touraine. Her great-grandfather,
Jacques de Beaune
Ancient and noble French family names, Jacques, Jacq, or James are believed to originate from the Middle Ages in the historic northwest Brittany region in France, and have since spread around the world over the centuries. To date, there are over ...
was a superintendent of finance to King
Francis I Francis I or Francis the First may refer to:
* Francesco I Gonzaga (1366–1407)
* Francis I, Duke of Brittany (1414–1450), reigned 1442–1450
* Francis I of France (1494–1547), King of France, reigned 1515–1547
* Francis I, Duke of Saxe ...
who ordered his execution in 1527 at the instigation of his mother,
Louise of Savoy. Charlotte later succeeded her father to the barony of Semblançay and the viscounty of Tours.
Charlotte was sent to court where she was educated in the household of Catherine de' Medici. Blonde-haired,
[Seward, Desmond (1976). ''The Bourbon kings of France''. London: Constable. p.12] and described as having been "beautiful, intelligent, and immoral", she was married to
Simon de Fizes, Baron de Sauve, secretary of state first to King
Charles IX and afterwards King
Henry III, in 1569 when she was eighteen years old. Her marriage was arranged by the powerful
Guise family.
[Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy (1977). ''The Peasants of Languedoc''. University of Illinois Press. p.178] In the words of historian Jean Heritier, her background meant that "at twenty-one, she knew all there was to be known about politics".
[Heritier, Jean. ''Catherine de' Medici'', translated by Charlotte Haldane, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1963]
OCLC 1678642
p. 306. Charlotte's alleged beauty has been contradicted by author Mark Strage who instead described Charlotte as having had a face that was "more agreeable and animated than sensuous".
She was appointed
maid-of-honour to
Marguerite de Valois. She is recorded as taking part in some of the
extravagant pageants and ballets which Catherine de' Medici produced in abundance.
She helped Catherine mount an outdoor banquet and lavish show depicting the ''Apotheosis of Woman'' on 9 June 1577 at the
château of Chenonceau. During the banquet the male guests were served by Catherine's most beautiful ladies-in-waiting who wore topless gowns and their hair flowing loose as was the custom of brides on their wedding night.
[Heritier, p.362.][Strage, p.209]
On 27 November 1579 her husband died. Charlotte married secondly on 18 October 1584, Francois de
La Tremoille
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
* "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...
, Marquis de Noirmoutier and gave birth to a son, Louis de La Tremoille in 1586. In 1608, Louis would succeed his father as Marquis de Noirmoutier. On 13 March 1610, he married Lucrèce Bouhier, by whom he had a son, Louis de La Tremoille, 1st Duke of Noirmoutier (25 December 1612 – 12 October 1666). A notable descendant of Charlotte was
Marie-Anne de la Trémoille, Princesse des Ursins
Marie Anne or Marie-Anne is the name of:
Aristocrats
*Princess Marie Anne of France (1664-1664?), daughter of King Louis XIV of France
*Infanta Marie Anne of Portugal (1861-1942), Portuguese infanta and Grand Duchess consort of Luxembourg
*Marie A ...
.
Flying Squadron
Shortly after Henry of Navarre's marriage to Catherine's daughter
Marguerite de Valois in 1572, Catherine recruited Charlotte to her elite group of beautiful female spies and informants known as the "Flying Squadron" (''L'escadron volant'') and she quickly became one of its "most accomplished members".
The Queen Mother's purpose in inviting Charlotte to join the group was for the latter to seduce Navarre, become his confidante as well as mistress, and thus extract information which she would duly pass on to Catherine who would subsequently use it as political leverage. The "Flying Squadron" had a male counterpart in "
Les Mignons
Les Mignons (from ''mignon'', French for "the darlings" or "the dainty ones") was a term used by polemicists in the contentious atmosphere of the French Wars of Religion and taken up by the people of Paris, to designate the favourites of Henry III ...
". Charlotte quickly became Navarre's mistress and exerted a strong influence over him. His wife Marguerite recorded in her memoirs: "Mme de Sauve so completely ensnared my husband that we no longer slept together, not even conversed".
She accused de Sauve ("that Circe") of persuading Henry that she was jealous of de Sauve, with the result that Henry, whose affairs Marguerite had allowed, stopped confiding in her.
[ Haldane, Charlotte (1968). ''Queen of Hearts: Marguerite of Valois, 1553–1615''. London: Constable]
OCLC 460242
pp. 80–81; ''Mémoires de Marguerite de Valois'', edited by Yves Cazaux, Paris: Mercure de France, 1986, , p. 79.
Charlotte de Sauve has been credited as a source of the information that led to the execution of Marguerite de Valois's lover
Joseph Boniface de La Môle Joseph Boniface de La Môle (c. 1526 – 30 April 1574) was a French nobleman. He was the son of Jacques Boniface, seigneur de la Môle et de Colobrières, of Marseille.
Life
La Môle was the Provençal lover of Marguerite de Valois, among others ...
and
Annibal de Coconnas for engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow the gravely ill Charles IX and the Queen Mother in 1574 with the assistance of
Huguenot troops.
[Haldane, pp. 71–72.][Strage, p.186] In 1575, Catherine de' Medici, abetted by her son
Henry III, instructed Charlotte to seduce the king's brother, her youngest son,
François, Duke of Alençon, with the aim of provoking hostility between the two young men, so that they would not conspire together in the future.
[Frieda, Leonie (2005). ''Catherine de Medici''. London: Phoenix. P.379. ] Charlotte subsequently became the duke's mistress, creating a rift between the former close friends, as Navarre and Alençon became rivals over Charlotte.
According to Marguerite's memoirs: "Charlotte de Sauve treated both of them
avarre and Alençonin such a way that they became extremely jealous of each other, to such a point that they forgot their ambitions, their duties and their plans and thought of nothing but chasing after this woman". Henry of Navarre wrote to a friend: "The court is the strangest I have ever known. We are nearly always ready to cut each other's throat ... All the band you know wants my death on account of my love for Monsieur
lençonand they have forbidden for the third time my mistress
harlotte de Sauveto speak to me. They have such a hold on her that she does not dare look at me. I am waiting for a minor battle, for they say they will kill me, and I want to be one jump ahead of them".
[Knecht, R. J. (1998). ''Catherine de' Medici''. London: Longman. p.181. ] On one occasion, Henry III had Alençon's papers searched for evidence of political plotting but turned up only a declaration of love from Madame de Sauve.
[Frieda, p. 395.]
In the autumn of 1578, she was recorded as having been one of the three hundred members of the court which accompanied Catherine and Marguerite on a royal progress to the
Kingdom of Navarre
The Kingdom of Navarre (; , , , ), originally the Kingdom of Pamplona (), was a Basque kingdom that occupied lands on both sides of the western Pyrenees, alongside the Atlantic Ocean between present-day Spain and France.
The medieval state took ...
where the latter was reunited with her husband who had returned to his kingdom two years earlier. However, instead of resuming his love affair with Charlotte, Navarre's interest was caught by Victoria de Ayala, a beautiful Spanish girl and a recent recruit to the "Flying Squadron".
[Strage, p.217]
Charlotte de Sauve later became the mistress of Navarre's greatest adversary,
Henry I, Duke of Guise
Henry I, Prince of Joinville, Duke of Guise, Count of Eu (31 December 1550 – 23 December 1588), sometimes called ('Scarface'), was the eldest son of Francis, Duke of Guise, and Anna d'Este. His maternal grandparents were Ercole II d'Este, Du ...
, with whom she spent the night at
Blois on 22 December 1588, before his assassination by "
the Forty-five", Henry III's bodyguards, the following morning.
[Frieda, p. 439.][Strage, p.277] She had other lovers, including the Duc d'Épernon and the Seigneur d'Avrilly.
Later years and death
She appears again in 1599 when she was called upon as a witness in the annulment proceedings of Henry of Navarre (who had succeeded to the French throne as Henry IV in 1589) and Marguerite, who had proved to be sterile. Henry wished to annul his marriage in order to marry
Marie de' Medici
Marie de' Medici (french: link=no, Marie de Médicis, it, link=no, Maria de' Medici; 26 April 1575 – 3 July 1642) was Queen of France and Navarre as the second wife of King Henry IV of France of the House of Bourbon, and Regent of the Kingdom ...
and sire an heir. Charlotte testified that Marguerite had been forced to marry Henry by Charles IX and the Queen Mother swearing that Catherine had threatened Marguerite that "if she did not consent to this marriage, she would make her the most miserable woman in the kingdom". The annulment was granted on 17 December 1599 leaving King Henry free to wed Marie de' Medici by whom he had six legitimate royal offspring, including his heir
Louis.
[Strage, p.294]
Charlotte died on 30 September 1617 less than a month before her sixty-sixth birthday.
In film
The role of Charlotte de Sauve was played by Italian actress
Asia Argento in the 1994 film ''
La Reine Margot'' starring
Isabelle Adjani in the title role. In the film the character dies while unknowingly trying to poison Henry of Navarre.
Charlotte is also portrayed in season one episode seventeen of The CW's television show ''
Reign'' on by actress Amy Groening.
See also
*
Henry IV of France's wives and mistresses
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sauve, Charlotte De
Mistresses of Henry IV of France
French baronesses
French ladies-in-waiting
1551 births
1617 deaths
16th-century French people
17th-century French people
16th-century French women
17th-century French women
16th-century spies