Claude, Duke of Chevreuse

Claude de Lorraine (5 June 1578 – 24 January 1657), also called Claude de Guise, was a French noble and husband of Marie de Rohan. He was the Duke of Chevreuse, a title which is today used by the Duke of Luynes.

Claude de Guise, Prince de Joinville (1610).

Arms of Claude.

Biography

He was the third son of Henry I, Duke of Guise and Catherine de Clèves. First known as the Prince of Joinville, he was made Duke of Chevreuse and peer of France by Louis XIII in 1611, Grand Chamberlain of France in 1621, and Grand Falconer of France in 1622.

Claude visited England in May and June 1607, and was welcomed by the court of James VI and I. The visit is said to have been prompted by his affair with Jacqueline de Bueil, a mistress of Henry IV of France.^[1][2][3]

The French ambassador Antoine Lefèvre de la Boderie described his reception in England. Claude was entertained by Anne of Denmark with a musical evening on the Thames by Greenwich Palace. On another day, there was a tournament. A feast and a play, The Tragedy of Aeneas and Dido, was hosted and produced by the Earl of Arundel. Claude visited Prince Henry and gave him a pair of horses. He also gave the Prince a diamond ring and Anne of Demark a huge pearl for an earring.^[4][5] New linen was bought to dress the cupboards of estate of the Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace.^[6] After his return to France, Claude sent Prince Henry a suit of armour, which survives in the Royal Collection.^[7]

Claude's visit to Theobalds on 22 May 1607 was included in the script of the entertainment by Ben Jonson.^[8][9] James gave him jewels made by Abraham der Kinderen and Philip Jacobson, which were presented to Claude by James Hay, 1st Earl of Carlisle. English records refer to him as the "Prince de Joinville, brother of the Duke of Guise".^[10]

Chevreuse stood as proxy for Charles I of England in his marriage at Notre Dame to Henrietta Maria on 1 May 1625.'^[11] He hosted the Duke of Buckingham, who came to escort Henrietta Maria to England, at the Hôtel de Chevreuse. The Duke and Duchess of Chevreuse accompanied Henrietta Maria to England.^[12] After their return to France, on 13 December 1625, Charles I made him a Knight in the Order of the Garter.^[13]

Marriage and issue

In 1622, he married Princess Marie de Rohan, who was 22 years younger than himself.
They had 3 daughters:

• Anne Marie de Lorraine (1624–1652), abbesse of Pont-aux-Dames.
• Charlotte Marie de Lorraine (1627–1652), Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, lover of Jean François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz.
• Henriette de Lorraine (1631–1693), abbesse of Jouarre.

He lived with his family in the Château de Dampierre, near Chevreuse.

He commissioned the royal architect, Clément Métezeau, to design a Parisian townhouse, the Hôtel de Chevreuse, constructed 1622–1623 on the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre on a site now part of the Cour Napoléon of the Louvre.^[14]

Living an inconspicuous life, Claude succeeded in distancing himself from his wife's plotting (as a favorite of Queen Anne of Austria she was involved in many political intrigues at the court of King Louis XIII of France).

He died without a male heir in 1657.

References

1. John Nichols, Progresses, Processions and Magnificent Festivities of King James, 2 (London, 1828), pp. 126, 128, who identifies the visitor as Claude's older brother "Charles, Duke of Guise".
2. Horatio Brown, Calendar State Papers, Venice: 1617-1619, vol. 11 (London, 1904), p. 2 no. 2.
3. Memoirs of the Duke of Sully, 3 (London: Bohn, 1856), p. 395.
4. Ambassades de Monsieur de La Boderie, 2 (Paris, 1750), pp. 263–65: Aeneas and Dido: Lost Plays Database
5. T. S. Graves, A Tragedy of Dido and Aeneas Acted in 1607, The Modern Language Review, 9:4 (October 1914), pp. 525–526.
6. A. Jefferies Collins, Jewels and Plate of Elizabeth I (London: British Museum, 1955), p. 165.
7. Cuirassier armour of Henry, future Prince of Wales about 1607, RCIN 72832
8. Gabriel Heaton, Writing and Reading Royal Entertainments: From George Gascoigne to Ben Jonson (Oxford, 2010), pp. 178–85.
9. Ambassades de Monsieur de La Boderie, 2 (Paris, 1750), p. 253.
10. Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (London, 1836), p. 66: Ambassades de Monsieur de La Boderie, 2 (Paris, 1750), p. 265.
11. Cecilia Cristellon, 'Mixed Marriages in Early Modern Europe', Silvana Seidel Menchi, Marriage in Europe: 1400-1800 (University of Toronto, 2016), p. 306.
12. Roger Lockyer, Buckingham (London: Longman, 1981), pp. 236, 241.
13. Nicholas Harris Nicolas, History of the Orders of Knighthood of the British Empire (London, 1842), p. lxvi.
14. Alexandre Gady (2008), "Chevreuse (hôtel de), rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre", p. 309, in Les Hôtels particuliers de Paris du Moyen Âge à la Belle Époque. Paris: Parigramme. ISBN 9782840962137.