Marie de Lorraine (15 August 1615 – 3 March 1688) was the daughter of Charles de Lorraine, Duke of Guise and

Henriette Catherine de Joyeuse Henriette Catherine de Joyeuse (8 January 1585 – 25 February 1656) was the daughter of Henri de Joyeuse and Catherine de Nogaret Nogaret de La Valette. She married her first husband, Henri de Bourbon, Duke of Montpensier, on 15 May 1597 an ...

and the last member of the

House of Guise The House of Guise (pronunciation: �ɥiz Dutch: ''Wieze, German: Wiese'') was a prominent French noble family, that was involved heavily in the French Wars of Religion. The House of Guise was the founding house of the Principality of Joinvil ...

, a branch of the House of Lorraine.

Biography

Marie de Lorraine de Guise was a "foreign princess naturalized in France" (that is, the daughter of a

foreign prince Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United S ...

of a junior branch of the

House of Lorraine The House of Lorraine (german: link=no, Haus Lothringen) originated as a cadet branch of the House of Metz. It inherited the Duchy of Lorraine in 1473 after the death without a male heir of Nicholas I, Duke of Lorraine. By the marriage of Fran ...

). After the death of the last male of the House of Guise in 1675, Marie became duchess of Guise, duchess of Joyeuse, and princess of Joinville and enjoyed the vast revenues from these duchies and principalities. People addressed her formally as "Your Highness"; she signed legal documents as "Marie de Lorraine"; and after 1675, as "Marie de Lorraine de Guise", but she ended personal letters with "Guise". Exiled to Florence with her family, 1634–43, Marie (whom the French knew as "Mademoiselle de Guise") became close to the

Medicis The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mu ...

and came to love Italy and especially Italian music. For over forty years scarcely a week passed that she did not write to her Medici friends in Florence, or receive word from them through the Tuscan resident in Paris. Circa 1650 she morganatically married Claude de Bourdeille, comte de Montrésor by whom she had several children whose existence was never acknowledged publicly but whom she occasionally threatened to acknowledge if she did not get her way. As guardian for her nephew,

Louis Joseph, Duke of Guise Louis Joseph de Lorraine ''Duke of Guise'' and Duke of Angoulême, (7 August 1650 – 30 July 1671) was the only son of Louis, Duke of Joyeuse and Marie Françoise de Valois, the only daughter of Louis-Emmanuel d'Angoulême, Count of Alès, Gov ...

, she was preoccupied with returning the House of Guise to its former glory. This meant giving the young man a fine residence and a prestigious bride. In 1666 Marie therefore commissioned Jacques Gabriel (the father of royal architect

Jacques Gabriel 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 ...

) to carry out extensive renovations for the family's urban residence, known as the ''Hôtel de Guise''. She also ordered a total reworking of the garden by the famous garden designer,

André Le Nôtre André Le Nôtre (; 12 March 1613 – 15 September 1700), originally rendered as André Le Nostre, was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France. He was the landscape architect who designed the gar ...

. The old stable wing that stretched along the garden was also renovated and subdivided into comfortable apartments to be occupied by what might be likened to today's artists and intellectuals in residence:

Philippe Goibaut Philippe Goibaut des Bois La Grugère (; 22? March 1629 – 1 July 1694), known to his contemporaries as Monsieur Du Bois (), was a translator of St. Augustine, member of the Académie Française and director of Mademoiselle de Guise's musical ens ...

Roger de Gaignières Roger is a given name, usually masculine, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", "honour") and ', ' ( ...

, and, a bit later,

Marc-Antoine Charpentier Marc-Antoine Charpentier (; 1643 – 24 February 1704) was a French Baroque composer during the reign of Louis XIV. One of his most famous works is the main theme from the prelude of his ''Te Deum'', ''Marche en rondeau''. This theme is still us ...

. For a bride, Marie de Lorraine aimed high and was victorious: Elisabeth d'Orléans, Louis XIV's first cousin, whose high rank outweighed the unsightliness of her crooked back. The marriage was celebrated on 5 May 1667. The newly-weds settled down into their splendid apartment on the "noble" floor of the ''Hôtel de Guise'' and Marie de Lorraine lodged in her ground-floor apartment just below them. Starting in 1670,

began composing for the three Guises, sometimes singing

haute-contre The haute-contre (plural hautes-contre) was the primary French operatic tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera, from the middle of the seventeenth century until the latter part of the eighteenth century. History This voice ...

lines. Mlle de Guise protected him and advanced his career by soliciting commissions from people or establishments who were seeking ''her'' continued patronage. Indeed, for eighteen years her patronage fostered a number of major works, most of them devotional and strongly influenced by Italian music. For example, she was probably one of the "enraged virgins" and "heroines" who swooped down on

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...

in late 1672 and forced him to give Charpentier the chance to write the music for Molière's the forthcoming theatrical spectacle, the ''Malade Imaginaire''. In 1671 her nephew

died. She and the young widow fought over who would be guardian of the late Duke's little son, François Joseph, the last male of the House of Guise. Marie de Lorraine won the battle, but her guardianship was short-lived. The little boy died in 1675. Henceforth, as the last member of the House of Guise, she used her vast wealth not only to live splendidly but for projects dear to her heart. In a cartouche beneath her portrait by Mignard, above, a solitary tree stands in a forest of stumps, to indicate her position as last survivor. A Latin motto makes the parallel explicit: ''Succisas dat conjectare superstes'', "The survivor bears witness to the fallen." After these two closely spaced deaths, Marie turned to devotion. With the help of Father Nicolas Barré, Minim, she founded a teachers' training institute and created schools for girls and hospitals for the poor in her Parisian parish and in her provincial lands. In her vast Parisian residence known as the "Hôtel de Guise," she presided "magnificently" over a select little "court" composed chiefly of members of the

, clergy, learned protégés, and Italians passing through Paris. Music (often Italian and Italian-style music) was the principal entertainment at these events. Although her relations were often frosty with Louis Joseph's widow, known to her contemporaries as "Madame de Guise", the two women continued to see one another, both in Paris and at the abbey of

Saint Pierre de Montmartre Saint-Pierre de Montmartre () is one of the oldest surviving churches in Paris, second to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, but the lesser known of the two main churches in Montmartre, the other being the more famous 19th-century Sacré-Cœur ...

, where Marie's sister Renée was abbess and where Élisabeth's sister,

Marguerite Louise d'Orléans Marguerite Louise d'Orléans (28 July 1645 – 17 September 1721) was a Princess of France who became Grand Duchess of Tuscany, as the wife of Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici. Libertine and unruly in conduct from an early age, her relations wit ...

, the erstwhile Grand Duchess of Tuscany, resided after 1675. Both Guise women had private apartments at Montmartre. In the early 1670s, Marie had begun to assemble a small ensemble of household musicians to perform pieces by a variety of French and Italian composers, among them Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Then, in the early 1680s she enlarged the group, until it rivaled both in size and quality the ensembles maintained by "several sovereigns." Over the years she made her composer and her musicians available to her nephew's widow, Mme de Guise, for performances in churches and at the royal court. In a will intended to disinherit her niece, ''la Grande Mademoiselle'' (that is,

Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, (, – ) known as ''La Grande Mademoiselle'', was the only daughter of Gaston d'Orléans with his first wife, Marie de Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier. One of the greatest heiresses in ...

) Marie de Lorraine gave the Hôtel de Guise to Charles François de Stainville, count of Couvonges, in 1688. Pressure exerted by her heirs caused the will to be broken by the

Parlement of Paris The Parliament of Paris (french: Parlement de Paris) was the oldest ''parlement'' in the Kingdom of France, formed in the 14th century. It was fixed in Paris by Philip IV of France in 1302. The Parliament of Paris would hold sessions inside the ...

in 1689. In 1700, the ''Hôtel de Guise'' was sold to

François, Prince of Soubise François de Rohan (1630 – 24 August 1712) was a member of the House of Rohan and founder of the House of Soubise. His wife Anne Julie de Rohan was the one-time mistress of Louis XIV and mother of François's own eleven children. Prince of ...

and his wife Anne de Rohan-Chabot and became the ''

Hôtel de Soubise The Hôtel de Soubise () is a city mansion '' entre cour et jardin'' (), located at 60 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris. History The Hôtel de Soubise was built for the Prince and Princess de Soubise on the sit ...

''. Only a few fragments of the ''Hôtel de Guise'' survive within the vast buildings and gardens of the ''Hôtel de Soubise'', which currently houses the Archives nationales.

Biography

Notes

Further reading