Charles-Emmanuel de Savoie, prince de Genevois and duc de Nemours ( – 13 August 1595) was a French prince étranger, governor, military commander and rebel during the latter French Wars of Religion. The eldest son of Jacques de Savoie and Anne d'Este, Nemours was a member of a prominent princely family. He entered French political at the age of 18 as a partisan of the second Catholic ligue, rallying cavalry to the rebel army, and assisting in forcing Henri III to capitulate to their demands. In the following years, the king was compelled by the terms of the peace to make war against Protestantism. The former rebel ligueurs hoped the 'cowed' king would afford them advantage, but Henri was keen to dilute the authority of the former rebels. As a result Nemours' position as colonel-general of the light cavalry was diluted with several appointments of royal favourites. During this period, Nemours coveted the governate of the Lyonnais, which had previously been held by his father before 1571. When François de Mandelot, who held the office, died in November 1588, Henri was compelled to recognise Nemours as the new governor due to his political weakness. Frustrated at his continued capitulations to the ligue, on 23 December 1588, Henri assassinated the leader of the ligue the duke of Guise. In the wake of the assassination, Nemours and other ligueur leaders were arrested by the king. Nemours was however quickly able to bribe his guards and secure freedom.
Arriving in ligueur held Paris, Nemours received a warm welcome from the radical Catholics of the city. He then headed to Lyon which had declared itself for the ligue in February 1589. Nemours, granted an initially warm welcome from the ligueurs in the city, set to work imposing himself on their structures before departing to join the main ligueur army in the north. He fought at the two royalist victories of Arques and Ivry. The Protestant Henri IV, the royalist candidate for king followed up his victories by besieging Paris. Nemours led the defence of the city in conjunction with the chevalier d'Aumale, putting down a royalist rebellion, before the city was saved for the ligueurs by a Spanish army under the duke of Parma. Returning to his governate in 1591, Nemours found himself increasingly in conflict with the archbishop of Lyon, who led the main ligueur faction in the city. In 1592 he campaigned into Dauphiné against the royalist commander Lesdiguières, and capturing Vienne. He participated in the ligueur Estates General of 1593, where he was among the candidates to become king. By his next return to Lyon, his tyrannical treatment of the city had become intolerable, and he was deposed in a coup by the archbishop, and detained in the citadel. In February 1594 the city would be delivered to the royalists, and Pomponne de Bellièvre would arrive to negotiate with Nemours for the capitulation of his brother, but he refused to cooperate. On 25 July he escaped his second captivity, and continued his rebellion. By mid 1595 he was forced into exile by declining military fortunes, and died of a fever on 13 August of that year.
Early life and family Charles-Emmanuel de Savoie was born in 1567 the eldest son of Jacques de Savoie and Anne d'Este. He had a younger brother, Henri de Savoie, marquis of Saint-Sorlin who was born in 1572.
Anne d'Este had great ambitions for her son's marriage. She sought a match with Christine de Lorraine for him. Christine was a granddaughter of Catherine de Medici, mother to the king. Henri was prepared to countenance such an advantageous prospect, but only if the Lorraine family returned from their scheming to royal obedience. Therefore it would not transpire and he would remain unmarried.
Reign of Henri III Second Catholic ligue During July 1584, the brother to the king and his heir Alençon died. The kingdom was thus moved to a succession crisis as by the laws of succession the next in line was the king's distant cousin the Protestant king of Navarre. In opposition to this succession and other grievances concerning access to royal favour, the duke of Guise and the wider Lorraine family formed the nucleus of a new Catholic ligue. In early 1585, the ligue entered a state of war with the crown. Nemours rallied to the cause in support of his kinsmen. As part of the recruitment drive to build up an army in opposition to the royal forces, he was charged to bring to bear 600 Italian horsemen. At this time he was prince de Genevois while his father held the ducal office. By June 1585 the main ligueur army had reached 25,000 men and 2000 horse, excluding their subsidiary armies. Henri was left with little alternative but to capitulate to the ligue, and in the Treaty of Nemours he agreed to exclude Navarre from the succession, commit to a war against heresy and grant various towns and cities to the ligueur leaders.
Chevau-léger After the crisis of the war with the ligue, Henri sort to reinforce the position of his favourites in control over the military. To this end in January 1586 Joyeuse was made commander of 12 companies of light horse, which were reclassified as a component of the royal guard. This aroused the fury of Guise, and also Nemours who by this time had acquired for himself the position of colonel-general of the light cavalry and saw this dilution of his authority for what it was. When Nemours arrived in Paris shortly thereafter on 1 February, Joyeuse and the other chief favourite of the king Épernon were there to greet him. In contravention to the behaviour expected of them upon the arrival of a prince, neither dismounted their horses to greet him.
Nemours' authority over the light cavalry was further attacked in 1587 after the Battle of Coutras when, at Épernon's request, his brother the seigneur de La Valette was installed as maître de camp for the light cavalry.
Lyonnais The governor of the Lyonnais since 1571, François de Mandelot was aware that the duke of Nemours coveted the position, which prior to 1571 had been held by his father. To this end Mandelot sought to walk a careful line in his governorship between appeasing the moderate ligueurs in the city and remaining a loyal servant of the king.
In November 1588, while the Estates General was in progress, Mandelot died. Nemours was appointed by the king to succeed him to the high office on 24 November. The king had promised the position to his secretary of state Villeroy who had married Mandelot's daughter, but the hopes of being able to successfully appease the ligue faction were still alive in November. Having established himself in the position, Nemours would appoint the seneschal of Lyon the sieur de Bothéon as lieutenant-general of the province.
Assassination of the duke of Guise
Despite being politically allied to his half brother the duke of Guise the relationship was not without issues. Guise's particular popularity inspired jealousy in Nemours and other members of the Lorraine family. This jealousy contributed to the king's feelings that he could dispose of his most powerful enemy without encountering overwhelming opposition.
Having committed to the execution of assassinating the duke of Guise it was necessary for Henri to secure control over as many of the dukes political allies as he could to avoid them retaliating against the move. In the arrests that followed Nemours was imprisoned, alongside Guise's cousin the duke of Elbeuf, the ligueur candidate for the throne Cardinal Bourbon, the archbishop of Lyon, a prominent ally of the Lorraine family and the duke's young son the prince of Joinville. Nemours' mother Anne d'Este would also be arrested on a short term basis.
Despite this arrest, when he visited his ill mother Catherine de' Medici to tell her what he had just done, he assured her that having dealt with the threat to his authority embodied by the duke of Guise, he had nothing but affection for Elbeuf, Nemours and the duke of Lorraine.
First escape His imprisonment would not be a long one, quickly escaping the Château d'Amboise where he was held, during January through the expedient of bribing his guards. He arrived in ligueur controlled Paris on 1 February and on 12 February, he was received at the church of Saint-Jean-de-Grève alongside Guise's brother Mayenne and cousin, the duke of Aumale. All three were received rapturously by the fiercely Catholic crowd, who cried 'Long live the Catholic princes!'. Aumale would be elevated by the Parisian ligue becoming governor of Paris on 26 December. On 16 February a general assembly was held at Paris' hôtel de ville. Present were Mayenne; Aumale; the chevalier d'Aumale, brother of Aumale and the comte de Chaligny among many ligueur notables of the city. Mayenne swore his oath to the ligue in front of the assembly, and shortly thereafter a Conseil générale de la Sainte Union was established under his direction. The following day, the nobles who had been with Mayenne were inducted as members of this new sovereign authority. The following month on 13 March, Mayenne was elevated to the position of 'lieutenant-general' of the kingdom by the ligue, giving him overall authority until such time as they had a king. This displeased Nemours, who had ambitions to lead the ligue of his own, and received encouragement in this from his mother Anne d'Este.
Ligueur governor The city of Lyon rose up on 23 February in a violent reaction to news of the assassination of the duke, declaring itself for the ligueur cause. The city was greatly sympathetic towards the ligue due to their hatred of the royal commander in the region the seigneur de La Valette, brother to the royal favourite the duke of Épernon. Nemours arrived in the city on 22 March to cries of 'Long live the Catholic prince' from the ligueur population. Soon thereafter he attended a Te Deum at the cathédrale Saint-Jean and took over the post of lieutenant-general in addition to that of governor of the Lyonnais. Ligue control of the city would be contested between the various poles of ligueur authority, Nemours, the archbishop of Lyon and the urban elite of the city.
To assist in his administration of the Lyonnais in the ligues war with the crown, Nemours established a conseil de guerre for the province. This was largely dominated by his personal clients, but afforded the town council of Lyon the right to elect two members. He would rarely visit Lyon in the coming years, and as such left his brother Saint-Sorlin as his lieutenant in the city to manage relations with the ligueur council of the city while he conducted rural operations. Saint-Sorlin, only 16 years old when placed into the authority, proved weak and ineffective, and thus the archbishop of Lyon provided the cities leadership in practice.
The ligueur council in Lyon was also manipulated by Nemours, with the grandee installing two loyal nobles from each of the three components of his governate on the council (Lyonnais, Forez, Beaujolais). This was not enough however to command a majority, allowing the archbishop to take the lead on the council.
The Italian bankers of the city, much despised by the ligueur partisans were pushed from Lyon. with only around 6 families remaining by 1589. The merchants of the city, who had previously taken out loans from these Italian bankers tried to have relief for their debts granted by the ligue leadership as represented by the lieutenant-general Mayenne and Nemours. To this end they argued at the town council to the great nobles that the loans were a product of the 'tyrannical' Henri III and his 'bloodsucker' administration. The Italians continued to depart, and by 1592 only one family, the Capponi, remained.