Louis de Saint-Gelais, seigneur de Lanssac and baron de La Mothe-Saint-Héray (1512/1513 – 1593) was a French noble, soldier, governor, and diplomat during the latter Italian Wars and the French Wars of Religion. Probably the bastard son of the French king Francis I and Jacquette de Lanssac, Louis (henceforth referred to by his title Lanssac) split his time between Guyenne and the French court. In 1536 he was established as the capitaine de Bourg (captain of Bourg) in Guyenne. He undertook military service against the Holy Roman Emperor in the Italian Wars. By the time of the reign of Francis' son Henry II which began in 1547, Lanssac's particular aptitude for diplomacy saw him transfer to a primarily diplomatic career. He was sent as an extraordinary ambassador for the negotiations that ended the war of the Rough Wooing in 1550. He was then employed for several missions in the Holy Roman Emperor as Henry looked to resume the Italian Wars in 1552, though these were largely unsuccessful. That year he undertook his first diplomatic service to the Papal States for the ratification of a truce between France and the Papacy. On his way back to France he would become a protagonist in the rebellion of Siena against Spanish rule, and the establishment of French protection for the republic. As the ordinary French ambassador in Rome found himself losing favour, Lanssac was selected to replace him in the charge in 1553. He thus played a central role in the crisis of Siena that culminated in 1554 with the disastrous French loss at Marciano, shortly after which he became a prisoner of the duke of Florence. Released before the end of the year he would serve again as an extraordinary ambassador to the Papacy on occasion. At the end of 1556, Lanssac seriously alienated the Pope's nephew the cardinale di Carafa (cardinal of Carafa) and thus was relieved of his responsibilities. He participated in the duc de Montmorency's (duke of Montmorency's) disastrous Picard campaign that culminated in the spectacular French defeat at Saint-Quentin after which he was again made prisoner.
In 1559, after the conclusion of the Italian Wars, Henry II died and was succeeded by his son Francis II. He was tasked with accompanying the king's sister Élisabeth to be united with her new Spanish husband, the king Philip II of Spain. At the outbreak of the first French War of Religion, Lanssac was conducting a diplomatic mission to the Papacy. He would be tasked with leading the French delegation for the church Council of Trento where he championed French precedence fiercely. From 1563 to 1564 he was involved in the negotiations with England that brought about the treaty of Troyes by which England renounced its claim to Calais. That year he was given an extraordinary diplomatic mission to Spain to flag a number of French concerns, to which Philip responded magnanimously. The queen mother Catherine was at this time conducting a tour of the kingdom to enforce the peace that had brought the first French War of Religion to a close. Lanssac played a role in the tour in Guyenne, before going on a diplomatic mission to the Empire. Lanssac was involved in the negotiations that brought the second French War of Religion to a close in March 1568. After the short peace, civil war returned and Lanssac played a military role in the third French War of Religion, trying and failing to besiege La Charité for the crown. In 1573 he received his most significant office when he was established as the queen mother Catherine's chevalier d'honneur (knight of honour), a position he would hold for the rest of his life.
At the advent of the reign of Henry III in 1574, Lanssac was a member of the royal conseil d'État (council of state). In 1578, when Catherine undertook a tour of the southern parts of the kingdom that were troubled by disorder, Lanssac participated in her mission and the negotiations with the Protestants that produced the treaty of Nérac in 1579. That year he was made a chevalier (knight) of the Ordre du Saint-Esprit (Order of Saint-Esprit), the most senior order of French chivalry. He took part in the grand diplomatic mission to England in 1581 to try and secure an agreement (without success) of marriage between the king's brother Alençon and the English queen Elizabeth I. He would be with Catherine for the attempts to reconcile Alençon with the French crown from 1582 to the prince's death in 1584. With his death the Catholic Ligue (League) was re-founded to oppose a Protestant succession to the French throne. Lanssac would be involved in negotiations with the ligueur (leaguer) leader the duc de Guise in 1585 to end the ligue rebellion. Forced, by the terms of his peace with the ligue to fight the Protestants, Henri's mother Catherine and Lanssac would again attempt negotiations in 1587 to resolve the new civil war diplomatically, without result. After Henri assassinated the ligueur leader the duc de Guise in 1588, Lanssac retired from court. He would die at his estates of Précy-sur-Oise in 1593.
Early life and family Parentage and family
Louis de Saint-Gelais (addressed by his title, the seigneur de Lanssac throughout the majority of this article) was born in 1512 (perhaps at Cornefeu near Cognac), likely the illegitimate son of the French king Francis I and Jacquette de Lansac, as was the belief during his lifetime. Jacquette de Lansac was married to Alexandre de Saint-Gelais (–1522), the seigneur de Cornefou, Romefort and Breuil du Loup, who was often absent. Alexandre served as a chambellan and advisor at the court of the king of Navarre before transferring to the service of Louis XII, and Francis I to whom he served a similar role. Jacquette de Lansac for her part possessed the seigneuries of Lanssac, d'Ambès, Clérac and Saint-Savin.
The Saint-Gelais were a Poitevin family that had historically been servants of the kings of Navarre before entering royal service in the fifteenth century. For the historian Le Roux, the success of Lanssac in royal service would reflect the integration of the noblesse seconde (secondary nobility) into the administration of the state in this period. As the son of Francis I Louis was the half-brother of king Henry II.
Marriage First marriage Around 1543 Louis de Saint-Gelais married Jeanne de La Roche-Andry who brought the lands of La Roche-Andry around Angoulême with her to the marriage.
With Jeanne de La Roche-Andry, Louis had the following issue: Guy de Saint-Gelais (3 December 1544–) married Antoinette Raffin in 1571 and had issue (Alexandre de Saint-Gelais and Artus de Saint-Gelais). Claude de Saint-Gelais, married the comte de Luxe in 1564.
Claude's marriage to the comte de Luxe (count of Luxe) was a design of the queen mother Catherine's (the wife of Henry II and thus Louis' half sister-in-law). By this marriage Catherine hoped to secure the loyalty of an important Protestant seigneur who served as the lieutenant-general of La Soule in French Navarre in the absence of the king of Navarre and capitaine (captain) de Mauléon.
With the backing of Catherine and the king Charles in 1570, matrimonial negotiations were undertaken to match his eldest son Guy with the Mlle de Morvillier. Lanssac was unable to bring success to this project for his son. His son would instead marry Antoinette Raffin the following year, a glowing match for Lanssac as she was the daughter of the sénéchal d'Agen (seneschal of Agen) François Raffin.
Second marriage
Lanssac's first wife Jeanne died in 1563. Lanssac wrote to the Pope that the cause of her death was not the illness but rather the difficulty of seeing her husband and sons in constant danger. On 8 October 1565, Lanssac remarried to Gabrielle de Rochechouart. She was a twice widow of the seigneur de Martigné-Briand and then the baron de Ruffec. Charles gave the couple 10,000 livres for the occasion of their marriage. The historian Lhoumeau speculates that she must have been very rich, due to the fact her brother René was described as the 'king of Poitou' due to his wealth. At the time of this marriage, Lanssac ceded to his son Guy his seigneuries in the Angoumois, Poitou and Guyenne for a value of 135,000 livres, but maintained control of the usufruct. In 1567, she would become one of the queen mother Catherine's 35 dames.
With Gabrielle de Rochechouart he had the following issue: Charles de Saint-Gelais, sieur du Précy (–1591). Died without issue. François de Saint-Gelais, sieur de Vernou (1570–). Abbot of Saint-Lô and Saint-Vincent-de-Bourg, chaplain to the queen mother Catherine and after surrendering his abbeys, gentilhomme de la chambre du roi (gentleman of the king's chamber) and capitaine de cinquante hommes d'armes (captain of fifty men at arms). Died without issue.
Gabrielle would survive her husband by a few years. In June 1594 she drew up her will and bequeathed her property and land to her granddaughter-in-law, by Lanssac's daughter Claude de Saint-Gelais, Charlotte-Catherine de Luxe who had recently married .
While pursuing a military career, Lanssac also had an illegitimate son: Urbain de Saint-Gelais (1540–), bishop of Comminges and ambassador to Portugal.
Lands In 1576, Lanssac, through the resources of his second wife, purchased the baronnie de La Mothe-Saint-Héraye in Poitou (valued at 140,000 livres in 1604) from Françoise de Birague, thereby acquiring possession of the château de La Mothe-Saint-Héraye. It had been subject to a siege in 1569 and thus Lanssac oversaw its repairs. From the time of its acquisition until 1580, Lanssac paid for a small garrison in the château to prevent it being surprised. However, Lanssac chafed under this cost, and in 1580 succeeded in getting the French king Henry III to transfer the cost to the royal governor of Poitou the comte du Lude. He would play host at this château to the queen mother Catherine and the king of Navarre. He also had a Parisian hôtel (grand residence) on the rue Saint-Honoré composed of several buildings and gardens. At Catherine's request he hosted foreign ambassadors here. A man of culture, he also welcomed poets, artists, painters and sculptors to this hôtel. It would be his lands around Paris that became the focus of his attentions as opposed to those he held in the south-west of the kingdom. The centre of his new territory was Précy-sur-Oise where he bought up plots of land from 1570 to 1587.
Clients, friends and patronage
He enjoyed friendly relations with the seigneur de Saint-Sulpice, the principal baron of Quercy and ambassador to Spain. In 1576 the eldest son of Saint-Sulpice was assassinated by the vicomte de Tours (viscount of Tours) during the meeting of the Estates General. Lanssac wrote his sympathies to the baron and proffered his support in attaining revenge against the vicomte. He wrote again to Saint-Sulpice to let him know that the vicomte de Tours had been beheaded in absentia (i.e. a model of Tours had been beheaded due to the actual Tours' flight from the court to escape punishment). Another associate of Lanssac's was maréchal de Matignon (marshal of Matignon). Lanssac sent the maréchal letters assuring him of the good favour in which the queen mother Catherine held him. In return for Matignon scouting out vacant abbeys in his governate of Basse-Normandie for Lanssac and his sons, Lanssac intervened with Catherine to ensure that the governor received the proceeds of property seized from Protestants in his province.
The Saint-Gelais family served as the patrons for , a poet, securing for Isaac a position as a sécretaire du roi (secretary of the king). Lanssac's friendship with the writer Montaigne saw the latter dedicate a work to him, he likewise enjoyed warm relations with the political theorist La Boétie. He was also a recipient of epistles and verses written in Italian. The poet du Bellay honoured him with an ode celebrating his eloquence.