Larchevêque

Jean V de Parthenay-L'Archevêque, or Larchevêque, Sieur de Soubise (c. 1512–1 September 1566),  was a Protestant French nobleman, last lord of Mouchamps, from the Parthenay-l'Archevêque family. His father, Jean IV de Parthenay, died before he was born. His mother was humanist  Michelle de Saubonne, and his daughter and heiress was Catherine de Parthenay, who later married René II, Viscount of Rohan.

During the Italian War of 1551–1559, he served as a fighter and ambassador under  Henry II, with whom he had been friends since childhood. He was a close friend of Henry II's wife Catherine de' Medici.

He converted to Calvinism in 1562 after the  massacre of Wassy and became one of the most ardent supporters of Louis I, Prince of Condé and the Huguenots during the first of the French Wars of Religion.  François Viète, who served as his lawyer and secretary from 1564 to 1566, recorded his life in memoirs. They were published in 1879 by Jules Bonnot and extensively commented on and popularized by Frédéric Ritter and Benjamin Fillon.

Soubise was accused of having ordered the death of the duke of Guise. His government of the city of Lyons (1563) nevertheless spared Catholics the cruelties of the François de Beaumont, Baron des Adrets. His efforts helped to keep the peace between the warring factions until his death in 1566. For a time, he even hoped to convert the queen-mother to the doctrine of the Calvinists. According to the 16th century historian Jacques-Auguste de Thou, “Jean de Parthenay combined an august birth with great moderation and uncommon skill."

Personal life

Early life

Born about 1512, Jean V de Parthenay was the only son of Jean IV, lord of the Château du Parc-Soubise, and Michelle de Saubonne. His father was lord of the Château du Parc-Soubise in Mouchamps and lord of Pauldon, of Vendrennes, of the Goyau fief and of Mouchamps. His mother was the ''femina cordatissima'' of Guillaume Budé and Bernard Palissy's first protector.

Renée of France

Upon the death of Jean's father, his mother became a lady-in-waiting to Renée de France. She was a scholar, and introduced Clément Marot to the court. Jean V de Parthenay was an ''enfant d'honneur,'' a child who was allowed to play with the then Dauphin Henry II, who was seven years younger than him. Jean was well educated in humanities, and was regarded as one of the most cultured young people of his time. His name is the origin of the expression ''causa soubisana''.

In 1527, during a famous trial, humanist Guillaume Budé wrote of the young page: 

In 1528, Renée de France married Duke Ercole II d'Este and moved to Ferrara, Italy, along with Michelle, Jean, and two of his sisters. Clément Marot joined them shortly thereafter. Jean de Parthenay grew fond of Italy. In 1536, his mother and the remainder of the French members of the court were expelled from Ferrara.

Description

According to  La Popelinière, Jean de Parthenay was "a gentleman of fine appearance, endowed with great estates and estates, liberal and honorable in all his actions, grave in speech and manners, affable and gracious nevertheless in conversation, disdainful of his domestic affairs as much as affectionate to the public and especially to the good of the kingdom, diligent and enemy of the birds”.

Marriage and children

On 9 May 1553, he married Antoinette Bouchard, daughter of François II, Baron d'Aubeterre, and Isabelle de Saint-Seine in Paris. Antoinette was then a companion to Queen  Catherine de Medici. Born in 1532, she was twenty years younger than her husband, but she overtook the management of Château du Parc-Soubise, for example by calling Bernard Palissy and Philibert Hamelin, whom she protected, to settle some differences between Jean and his vassals.

On 22 March 1554, his wife Antoinette d'Aubeterre gives birth to their daughter Catherine, who would later become a celebrated woman of letters and action, writer, mathematician, and protector of science. Through her, Jean V de Parthenay is one of the ancestors of the House of Rohan.

Religion

Since 1557, and the Protestant celebrations of Pré-aux-Clercs in Paris from 13 to 19 May 1558 attended by Antoine de Navarre and his brother the Prince of Condé, many gentlemen were being drawn to the Reformed faith.  This is also the case for Jean de Parthenay, who converts to the new religion. Antoinette d'Aubeterre, his wife, preached on his lands. Jean, however, was hesitant to announce his conversion, and waited for some time before making it known.

Death

In 1549, his mother died five days after the death of his sister Anne de Parthenay, wife of the Sieur du Pons.

Returning from Moulins at the beginning of the summer of 1566, Jean de Parthenay fell seriously ill. He refused to go to bed but spent most of his days in his room.

On 8 August 1566, Jean de Parthenay wrote his will and declared that he wants to be buried according to the form and manner observed by the Reformed churches of the kingdom. It is believed that he died of jaundice, the same ailment from which his wife later suffered. Antoinette de Parthenay died in 1580.

Military career

The beginning

Raised by his mother in contact with the classical humanities, frequenting poets from an early age and nurtured by his sister Anne of Latin or Greek texts, Jean de Parthenay hardly seems predestined for the military career in which his life was subsequently worn out.

Jean V de Parthenay took up the profession of arms. A favorite of the Duke of Orléans, of the Dauphin, and of the Dauphin's brother, he was from then on in all of Henry II's wars. Child of honor of the Dauphin Henri II, he seemed destined for the pleasures of the court but his meeting with Calvin in Ferrara will decide otherwise. Because the animosity of the Lorraine party pursued him from then on. By removing him from the king's favors, she condemns him to lead the hard life of the military.

He was appointed ''gentilhomme ordinaire'' of the king's chamber, and later governor and bailiff of Chartres in 1539.

He was captured in Lille, in Flanders, where he remained prisoner for a year. Not wanting to reveal his real name, he identified himself as 'Ambleville' to the jailers, an assumed name he came up with on the spot. His memoirs recount that, having forgotten the name given to his enemies, Jean took over two hours to remember it. The rest of his captivity is eased by the attention paid to him by the wife and daughter of his keeper. Upon his return, he sided against the Guises and allied himself to the Châtillon family, to whom he was like a fourth brother.

In September 1552, Jean de Parthenay was sent to Nancy by Henri II to sound out the Count of Vaudémont. The latter, betting on Emperor Charles V's respect of the neutrality of  Lorraine, declines the offer. From October 1552 to early January 1553, Jean de Parthenay participated in the  siege of Metz.

Parma

On 4 January 1553, Jean de Parthenay received an order from King Henry II to go to the Duke of Parma and bring him to Fontainebleau.

Immediately after his marriage in May 1553, Jean de Parthenay received the order to go to Picardy to fight for  Thérouanne and  Hesdin. They were commanded by  Antoine de Bourbon, whose wife  Jeanne d'Albret, pregnant with the future  Henri IV, remained at the scene of the fight with her husband. The king's armies suffered a terrible defeat. Antoine de Bourbon saved Hesdin from the Imperials but lost Thérouanne between May and June. A few months later, Charles V took over and razed the two strongholds. That same year Jean's wife gave birth to a boy, who lived only five weeks. He was their only son, and after his death the younger branch of the Parthenay-L'Archevêque died out.

Around July 1552, Henry II discovered the rapprochement between the Duke of Parma, Ottavio Farnese and the King of Spain Philip II. The king, his advisers and Cardinal Carafa decided to act. The Guises had Jean de Parthenay sent on a mission to Parma to get him away, with oredrs to must propose to the Duke an alliance with the King of France and ask him to marry his son Oratio to Diane d'Angoulême. He is also given letters from Henry II to give to the Duke of Ferrara in order to rally him and ask him to join the Pope in combating Spanish inquisitions.

In Parma, Jean de Parthenay was appointed lieutenant general for His Majesty, and then moved to Siena on 25 November 1554. On 25 February 1555, he moved to Parma at the rate of 500 pounds per month and helped to keep the duke in a benevolent neutrality with regard to the French, though Farnese ended up getting closer to Philip II two years later. Around the same time, Jean de Parthenay witnessed the capitulation of  Montluc in Siena on 17 April, being unable to help him due to a lack of troops.

In 1555, Jean de Parthenay joined the assault on Denain with the Admiral de Coligny. There, wounded in the head and thrown to the ground, he was almost choked to death by his own helm. He nevertheless continued the assault bareheaded until the end of the battle.

Jean de Parthenay commissioned surveying work from  Bernard Palissy in 1555.

He later fought in the bloody defeat of Saint-Quentin on 10 August 1557, and a few months later in the capture of Calais, on 3 January 1558. There, he became friends with Marshal Strozzi, an enemy of the Guise (the duke commanded their army). The memoirs of his life record their dialogue:

In August 1558 the king granted John V of Parthenay a gratuity of 6,900 pounds as a reward for the wars in Italy and "others". However, because of the boldness of his words and his foresight of military views during councils of war, Jean de Parthenay made himself an enemy of  Marshal de Tavannes.

From Amboise to Wassy, the shift

The Renaudie affair

King Henry II died in 1559 and was succeeded by his son François II, then only 15. Though he was old enough to rule without a regent, he nevertheless delegated his power to the House of Guise. Jean du Barry lord of La Renaudie, a friend of Jean's, then imagined removing the queen-mother and the young king to remove them from the influence of the Guise.

La Renaudie takes the lead in the conspiracy which originated in December 1559, in Geneva, shortly after the execution of Anne du Bourg. Its goal is to impose around the young king a council of regency, where the princes of blood, particularly Condé, must hold the first place. Antoine de Bourbon is opposed to it as well as Calvin; it does not seem that the latter nor Théodore de Bèze were really informed of the real aims of the conspirators. La Renaudie was personally angry with François and Charles de Guise who had his brother-in-law arrested and executed. He gave himself as accomplices a few friends, Raunay, Baron Charles de Castelnau, François II, Baron d'Aubeterre (Jean de Parthenay's brother-in-law), Edme de Ferrière-Maligny (brother of  Jean II de Ferrières), Captain Mazères, but also the father of Agrippa d'Aubigne. If the Guises resist, the conspirators promise to massacre them. La Renaudie, who linked up with Soubise at the siege of Metz, confided to him his intention of seizing the king from the month of September 1559, at a time when the conspiracy was far from having taken shape.

A first assembly of conspirators was held in Nantes in February 1560, and their troops, nearly 500 men, split up with the intention of moving towards Blois, Tours and Orléans. The operation was scheduled for 10 March 1560; it was in fact postponed to 17 March. However, from 12 February, the Guises, warned by the Parisian lawyer with whom La Renaudie is staying, were made aware of the plot. They decide to take refuge in Amboise. Condé d'Andelot, Coligny and  Odet de Chatillon, taken into confidence by La Renaudie, then preferred to negotiate with the Guise an amnesty for Protestants with the exception of the conspirators.

On 15 March, the duke of Nemours seizes the  castle of Noizay, where some of the conspirators have gathered. Condemned for the crime of lèse-majesté, Castelnau, Mazères and Raunay died beheaded or hanged at the windows of the castle of Amboise. For the next few days, La Renaudie was nowhere to be found. Jean de Parthenay, for his part, is retained by the service of the queen mother. He is interrogated by her, who tries to extract from him the name of the place where his friend is hiding.

The Queen Mother assures him that he need fear nothing if La Renaudie has done nothing against the King. Jean de Parthenay replies:

According to his memoirs, "You can't get anything else out of his mouth."

The conspiracy ends in a massacre. Bertrand de Chandieu's troops moving on 17 March, towards Amboise are destroyed; La Renaudie is killed on 19 March. His body is cut into five pieces and exposed at the gates of Amboise. One of his servants underwent several interrogations, without ever pronouncing the name of Jean de Parthenay.

Conversion

After the La Renaudie affair, Condé's situation at court became untenable. The prince is suspected of having participated in the conspiracy. But the Guises, weakened by the general discontent, cannot attempt anything against him without written proof of his guilt. During the summer of 1560, Condé took an active part in setting up a new conspiracy against the Guise. His undertakings having been discovered, he was arrested at Orléans on the personal order of the king. Illness and then death of the latter made him avoid execution, set him free and took power away from the Lorraine princes.

Jean de Parthenay loves the court. François Viète shows in his biography that he also loves its pleasures. On 7 December 1561, he was made a knight of the king's order at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Queen Catherine de Medici wants to attach it to herself, as she wants to attach to herself everything that can counterbalance the power of the Guises. The new king,  Charles IX, was ten years old when he came to the throne. On 17 January 1562, the Edict of Saint-Germain or Edict of January gave many assurances to Protestants but the Parliament of Paris, very Catholic, refused to register this royal act of tolerance.

Shortly after, Jean de Parthenay announced "loyally" to Catherine de Medici his intention to abandon the mass. She tries to stop him and promises him the greatest charges in the kingdom. She offers him tutoring from young King Charles. Finally, she asks him to only say “le presche” on her lands at night. He promises him to tell it two or three times to his peasants and his vassals, but protests that he will not force them if they refuse to do so. Finally, he retired to Château du Parc-Soubise, not without protesting his friendship to the queen and his regret at not having “two souls” to use one to serve her.

The queen, anxious to retain support, sent him the order of Saint-Michel, as if to invite him to return.

The Massacre of Wassy

On 1 March 1562, the Duke François de Guise passing through Wassy in Champagne, sends his armed men to interrupt a Protestant ceremony; 500 Huguenots are forced out of their place of worship hastily. Men, women and children, they are treated as armed rebels, about fifty are killed, more than a hundred wounded.

This massacre, which has nothing fortuitous, goes down in history as the massacre of Wassy and truly sets in motion half a century of religious wars. It is soon followed by those of Cahors, Carcassonne, Tours, Auxerre, Avignon etc. Jean de Parthenay learns of the event at Fontainebleau, where he has gone to thank the king for his previous kindness; he convinces him to join Condé 's party .

Jean de Parthenay, citing the sympathies the queen once declared for Calvin, made great efforts to win Catherine Medici over to the reform party. He spent hours with her and with Chancellor de L'Hospital. The Guises, who want to get their hands on power, go to Fontainebleau. The queen trembles for the kingdom at their approach, but Jean de Parthenay cannot convince her to flee. She begs him to stay and then asks him not to take up arms. It is too late: Jean de Parthenay reveals to her that he will join forces with those of his friends, to deliver her and to deliver the king from the captivity to which the Lorraine party will reduce him.

The protestant captain

Jean V de Parthenay-L'Archevêque became one of the best Protestant captains acting under the orders of Condé at the start of the Wars of Religion.

Lyon headquarters

Having left Fontainebleau, Jean de Parthenay came to meet Admiral de Coligny and Condé in Meaux. Their army passed under the walls of Paris and took the road to Orleans. Condé, Coligny, d'Andelot, La Rochefoucauld and Soubise went to find the queen near Beaugency. Their conference produced no results. Shortly after, Jean de Parthenay nearly died of fever. Barely recovered, he was sent to Lyon by Condé.

He left on horseback with forty gentlemen, including his chaplain, Claude Courtois, Sieur de Lessart. He crosses the Vivarais, Burgundy, where the bailly of Autun follows him for three days with 120 men without daring to attack him. He took command of Lyon on the 15 or 19 July 1562, with the full powers of the Prince of Condé (letters dated 25 May) in order to counterbalance the abuses and cruelties of the Baron des Adrets. He joins forces for this with  Charles Dupuy de Montbrun.

Catherine de Medici wrote to him several times asking him to return the city. Jean V de Parthenay replied that “as long as he was governor of Lyon, he would keep it faithfully in the name of the king and queen."

He must then face the Catholic armies of the duke of Nemours. One of the most valiant leaders of the Protestant party on the eve of Saint Barthélemy, Jean V de Parthenay managed to hold the city until the pacification edict of 19 March 1563. This siege is illustrated two years later by the “speech that occurred in the city of Lion yonwhile Monsieur Soubise commanded there”, a pleading attributed to  François Viète and published (for the first time in the 19th century ) by  Hector de the Ferriere. Although suspected of sympathy with Soubise, the document reveals how Soubise manages to feed Lyon during his siege and in what resolution he finds himself facing the Duke of Nemours. It also gives to read that Jean de Parthenay maintains freedom of worship. He became one of the heroes of the Huguenot cause by thoughtful protection of the city, Haag states that he would be known "by his virtues, even more that by his services".

During this siege, Jean de Parthenay organizes the supply of the city by the Dombes, which attracts him the unfailing hatred of the Duke of Montpensier.

The Assassination of the Duke of Guise

On the eve of entering Orléans, Duke  François de Guise was killed by Poltrot de Méré. When questioned, the latter denounced  Théodore de Bèze, Admiral de Coligny and Jean de Parthenay. The admiral responds to these accusations but Jean de Parthenay, who is locked up in Lyon, cannot add his name to the protest of 12 March 1563, signed by Châtillon, La Rochefoucauld and De Bèze.

The presumptions against Jean de Parthenay are as follows: Méré is related to La Renaudie; he is from the house of Aubeterre; he accomplished with Jean de Parthenay the journey from Orleans to Lyons; during the siege of Lyons he spoke of killing de Guise, and during a truce he boasted to the troops of the Duke of Nemours that he could put him down as easily as game.

Moreover, during the siege, Jean de Parthenay sent Poltrot to Admiral de Coligny and their accusers saw in this evidence of a plot.

Antoinette d'Aubeterre then hired, with the agreement of her husband, one of the most famous young Poitevin lawyers, the future master of requests of Henri III and Henri IV, the cryptographer and mathematician François Viète. Jean de Parthenay approves it on his return from Lyon, after having returned the keys of this city to the lord of Gordes. François Viète whose basic training is legal has already pleaded several victorious trials; he is not known as a Protestant and comes to settle in the Soubise park at the beginning of the year 1564 in order to consult the genealogical archives. Thanks to him, Jean de Parthenay manages to wash away any suspicion of complicity.

For his defense, his lawyer accompanies Jean de Parthenay to Lyon to look for traces of his actions while the documents are still in the hands of Marshal de Vieuville, Lord of Gordes. He then produced a memoir in which he simply gave to read the nobility of Jean de Parthenay's behavior the previous year, during his administration of the city of Lyon (admirable for his qualities in supplying according to Jacques Auguste de Thou). Viète also maintains that his master remained faithful to the king when he commanded Lyon and specifies that Soubise did not submit to Nemours, contrary to the requests made to him by the queen, for fear that the latter (and King Charles IX) were the prisoners of the Guise.

Last fights

In order to write his memoirs, an account of his life and the genealogy of the Parthenays were commissioned from  François Viète. The name of the Parthenays is therefore linked to the fate of the great mathematician. After Viète went with him to Lyon to illustrate his defense in 1564, the lawyer was assigned the role of tutor to Soubise's daughter, the already learned Catherine de Parthenay. Later, by defending their friend Françoise de Rohan, in her trial against the Duke of Nemours, the founder of algebra widened this circle of protectors to the Rohans, who were more powerful and better able to propel him towards the court of King Charles IX from France .

Peace made, Jean de Parthenay acquitted returned to the good graces of the queen and tried again to bring her back to the cause of the Calvinists. He pays court to her in Lyon, during her visit, and stays with her for a long time. He saw her again in Niort, during her trip to Bayonne, and accompanied her to La Rochelle. He no longer benefited from the complicity of the  Duchess of Montpensier, who died in 1561, but again encountered the jealousy of her husband, the  Louis (III) de Bourbon, Duke of Montpensier. Returning home after his visit to La Rochelle, Parthenay declared to  Antoinette d'Aubeterre that there was nothing more to hope for on that side. Catherine de Medici now refuses to admit before him her former sympathies for the reformed religion.

In October 1565, he saw Catherine de Medici again in Meaux and in April 1566, one last time in Moulins where he was almost assassinated with all the Huguenot leaders present in this city.

Sunday, first September 1566, his wife, who watches over him, receives her last breath. A quarter of an hour before dying, he gives his blessing to his daughter. His last words are to place his soul in the hands of God.

François Viète testifies that the day before again, he received a Calvinist Lorraine gentleman and talked to him all morning in the gardens of the Château du Parc-Soubise park about things in the kingdom of which he remains aware more than anyone else. The future founder of algebra declares that he never heard him speak so well as on the eve of his death.

Immediately, the Huguenot party expressed its sadness to his wife and daughter. The Queen of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret, their military leader, Admiral de Coligny, and their spiritual leader, Théodore de Bèze sent their condolences to them.

Jean de Parthenay

A chaotic fate

However, the party of Lorraine princes and, during the following century, some Catholic historians, Brantôme, Antoine Varillas, then Bossuet, the eagle of Meaux, hardly credit him with these good deeds. They also suspect him of having been involved in the conspiracy of La Renaudie, even of being one of the instigators of the assassination of Duke François de Guise. Whatever efforts his secretary may have expended to exculpate him, Jean de Parthenay, Sieur de Soubise, still remains for them one of the culprits of these plots. Bossuet even saw an encouragement in the words that Jean de Parthenay launched to Poltrot du Méré, who had come to confess to him "that he had resolved in his mind to deliver France from so much misery, by killing the Duc de Guisse"; usual words with him, to which Jean de Parthenay would have replied:

He could not find peace and, although he harbors few illusions as to his chances of converting the Queen Mother to the "true religion", his repeated, incessant efforts for him cause the party of Lorraine to abandon their last forces fairly quickly.

The judgement of posterity

Upon the death of Jean de Parthenay, his daughter and heiress Catherine became Dame de Soubise. She first marries  Charles de Quellenec baron du Pont then in second marriage René II, Viscount of Rohan to whom she brings the land of Soubise which then passes to their youngest son  Benjamin, Duke of Soubise. On his death in 1642, the seigneury of Soubise passed to his niece the Duchess of Rohan, who bequeathed it to her daughter Anne de Rohan-Chabot, wife of his cousin François de Rohan. The seigneury of Soubise was erected by letters patent (unregistered) of Louis XIV dated March 1667, in the Principality of Soubise in favor of François de Rohan (1630–1712). The latter's grandson  Charles de Rohan-Soubise, Marshal of France protected by the Marquise de Pompadour, left the memory of an incapable favourite, leaving his men to be massacred at the Battle of Rossbach in 1757. A song , "les reproaches de The Tulip to Madame de Pompadour” recounts this episode. Its lyrics have been attributed to Voltaire.

Brantôme and Bossuet were extremely severe against Jean de Parthenay. For one as for the other, he was the accomplice of the assassin of François de Guise.  Jean-Antoine Roucher says of the first:

The second recognizes by himself:x

The memory of Jean de Parthenay, however, was never completely erased.  Antoine Varillas read his memoirs and took it for granted that Catherine de Medici had some Protestant leanings, or at least that she was Catholic only out of politics. In the 18th century, Dreux du Radier remembers that Jean de Parthenay failed to convert Queen Catherine de Medici to Protestantism and Louis Moréri mentions his figure in his large dictionary, and recognizes him as "a man of great merit and great service". In the 19th century, with the revival of Protestant studies, however, the figure of Jean de Parthenay regained prominence.  Eugène and  Émile Haag,  Auguste-François Lièvre,  Jules Bonnet, Hector de la Ferrière,  Auguste Laugelbring to light all that is chivalrous in his attitude. Finally, the rediscovery of François Viète by  Frédéric Ritter and Benjamin Fillon naturally leads many historians of science to focus on this minor nobility of Poitou, open to new ideas, keen on Greek, Latin and Hebrew, a small protective circle of an astonishing master of requests, who, starting from the bottom, was awakened to mathematics by a 12-year-old girl, served as secretary to her father, and was about to found the new algebra. Protector of Palissy, father of a young scholar, it is also in this capacity that Jean de Parthenay also deserves to be known, as the first protector of a founding mathematician.

Some dating issues

For some authors, who confuse him with his son-in-law, Jean Parthenay would have died during the  Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. For others, he would have survived these massacres, and on 13 May 1573, his wife, Antoinette, taken prisoner under the city of Lyons, wrote to him to "rather let her perish than betray her cause". These two versions are aberrant. Contradicted by the documents and the fact that Antoinette de Parthenay married Catherine at the end of her widowhood to Charles de Quellenec, Baron de Pont (1668) in order to assure her of support of which her father's death deprived her. The courage of Antoinette d'Aubeterre having manifested itself in 1563 and in a less romantic way.

The error is due to Agrippa d'Aubigné, who in his history of the wars of religion confuses the son-in-law with his father-in-law. It is noted in its time by Pierre Bayle.

See also

*Wars of religion
* French kings
* French wars

Notes and references

Bibliography

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Parthenay, John V
1566 deaths
16th-century French nobility
People from Deux-Sèvres
People of the French Wars of Religion