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Françoise de Cezelly (1558 – 16 October 1615) was a French war heroine during the French Wars of Religion. She distinguished herself when the village of Leucate was besieged by Spanish forces allied with the Catholic League in 1590, after her husband, the governor, was captured and executed by the enemy.


Life

She was born in 1558 in
Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...
. She was the daughter of the director of the Bureau of Accounts of Montpellier and niece of the governor of Leucate. On 6 April 1577 she married Jean de Boursiez, seigneur de Pantnaut de Barri, with whom she had five children: Hercule, Anne-Françoise, Antoine, Paul and Frances. After the battle of 1590, King Henry IV made Françoise the governor of Leucate until her son Hercule came of age. She died in Montpellier in 1614, aged 56, and was buried next to her husband in the chapel of St. Anne Church of St. Paul of
Narbonne Narbonne ( , , ; ; ; Late Latin:) is a commune in Southern France in the Occitanie region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. It is located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and was ...
. In 1899 a bronze statue of her by the sculptor Paul Ducuing was erected in the Place de la République in Leucate, holding up the keys to the village. In May 1942 the Vichy government ordered the statue to be taken down, and the bronze sent to
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
. When the statue was lifted onto a truck, the hand holding the keys broke off. It is still kept in the Town Hall. A new statue was set up on 17 August 1975. Her son Hercule successfully defended the Fortress of Leucate during the Siege of Leucate in 1637.


References

* Mme. Dufrénoy, Biographie des jeunes demoiselles, S.346f (franz.) * Jean Baptiste Beau, Otia regia Ludovici XIV sive Polyaenus Gallicus de veterum et recentium Gallorum strategematibus, S.745 (lat.) * A Companion to Women's Military History, S.68-69, Teilansicht (engl.) 1558 births 1615 deaths French female military personnel French people of the French Wars of Religion People from Montpellier Women in 16th-century warfare Women in war in France {{France-mil-bio-stub