Guy de Saint-Gelais, seigneur de Lanssac (3 December 1544 – August 1622) was a French courtier, soldier, governor and rebel during the French Wars of Religion. The son of Louis de Saint-Gelais and Jeanne de La Roche-Andry, Lanssac inherited a strong position at the French court due to the great favour of his father. In the mid-1560s he undertook several diplomatic missions to the Holy Roman Empire, participated in the early civil wars in France fighting for the royalists, and undertook an expedition to Malta. In 1570 he was established as governor of Blaye, an important fortress town on the Gironde. With various other grandees he helped organise a naval armada in 1572, though it would ultimately be co-opted by the crown. In 1572 he entered the entourage of the king's brother the duc d'Anjou, and the following year he would participate in the successful effort to see Anjou elected as king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
In 1574, king Charles IX died, and Anjou returned to France to succeed him as Henry III. Lanssac was disappointed not to receive the reward he envisioned for helping in Anjou's election. In 1575, Lanssac became vice-amiral de Guyenne . During the sixth French War of Religion in 1577 he participated in the successful siege of the strategically valuable fortress town of Brouage and was rewarded with the governorship of the place. He then involved himself in several abortive naval plans, first one against Spanish colonial possessions, and then another against Cyprus. At the end of 1578 he was pressured to sell the governorship of Brouage. In 1579 he involved himself in a treasonous plot with the Spanish king Philip II to conquer the Moroccan city of Al Araish, though this was quickly uncovered. He was pressured to divest himself of his governorship of Blaye. During the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580 he involved himself in the planned French expedition to the Azores in favour of the prior do Crato. However, he became frustrated with the expeditions leader, Strozzi and would not participate in the expedition. His relations with king Henry reached a breaking point after he tried to launch a coup against Saint-Jean-d'Angély. He turned to the king's brother, Alençon, with an ambitious proposal to conquer Spanish colonial-possessions, however this was rejected. With the death of Alençon, the heir to the throne was the Protestant king of Navarre. Lanssac joined with the Catholic ligue (league) that rejected this succession. He helped facilitate the coordination of the ligue with the Spanish crown, and fought alongside the ligue against the French crown in 1585, though his military efforts were largely foiled. After peace was re-established between Henry and the ligue, Lanssac continued to engage in naval piracy against English shipping, much to the king's frustration.
After the king assassinated the leader of the ligue, the duc de Guise in 1588, Lanssac and the other ligueurs (leaguers) entered war with the crown. Lanssac operated first in Maine in 1589, though he was arrested by a fellow commander. Escaping this he moved to Brittany where he helped the Spanish conquer the port of Le Blavet on the mouth of the river Blavet. He then travelled to Spain where he made elaborate proposals for the conquest of France to the Spanish king. These were rebuffed by Philip, and Lanssac returned to France to work with his half-brother the bishop of Comminges in organising the southern Campanère Ligue on the Spanish border. He and his brother remained loyal to the ligue as the war against the crown slowly turned in the favour of the king of Navarre who, now Henry III had died styled himself Henry IV. In 1594 he and his brother made their capitulation to the crown and begged for mercy. Lanssac's defection came too late for him to enjoy royal favour from Henry. Around 1597 he made an elaborate proposal for Henry to invade Spain that was rebuffed. For much of his career he had been plagued by his debts, and by now his wife had separated from him. He spent the last decades of his life without significant office, and wracked by debt. In 1603 he stormed his wife's château in frustration at her separation from him. Throughout his final years he maintained his contacts with the Spanish crown, and continued to ask for money from the Spanish ambassador. He died in obscurity in 1622.
Early life and family
Guy de Saint-Gelais was born on 3 December 1544, the eldest son of Louis de Saint-Gelais and his wife Jeanne de La Roche-Andry. His father Louis devoted his life to royal service, in particular that of the queen mother Catherine to whom he served as her chevalier d'honneur (knight of honour) from 1573. Louis served as an ambassador of the French crown to the Papacy, the Council of Trento and Spain. He would die at the age of 76. Guy's mother, Jeanne would die in 1563. Guy would prove unable to maintain the circumstances his father had been able to occupy.
The Saint-Gelais family that had traditionally served the kings of Navarre before entering the service of the French crown in the sixteenth century. The seigneurie (lordship) de Lanssac itself was located near the stronghold of Bourg-sur-Gironde, which boasted a strategic position at the confluence of the Garonne and Dordogne, and was upstream of Blaye. Bourg was a place the family were used to the exercise of the government of.
Lands and residences In October 1565, Guy's father remarried to Gabrielle de Rochechouart. At this time he provided to Guy his seigneuries in the Angoumois, Poitou and Guyenne. In particular La Roche-Andry in the Angoumois, the seigneuries of Ambérac, Venoux, Ardilleux and Basses-Vergnes in Poitou, and those of Lanssac (now spelled Lansac) and Saint-Savin in Guyenne. The value of all these lands was 135,000 livres (pounds), however Louis would maintain the usufruct of the lands. Thus, from 1565, on paper at least, Guy was the seigneur de Lanssac and it will be by this name that he is referred to throughout the rest of this article. Despite possessing all these seigneuries, Lanssac did not enjoy use of either the land or the incomes.
When staying in Paris around 1570, he would not take advantage of his father's residence on the rue Saint-Honoré (as Louis had bequeathed it to his younger brother Charles) but rather rented from a bourgeois of the city on the rue Saint-André-des-Arts.
Marriage
With the blessing of the queen mother Catherine and the king Charles IX, Guy's father Louis attempted to arrange a marriage for him with mlle de Morvillier in 1570, the niece of the garde des sceaux (de facto chancellor) Jean de Morvillier the bishop of Orléans. This marital plan did not bear fruit. Nevertheless, on 4 August 1571 Guy secured an advantageous marriage when he was wedded to the very wealthy Antoinette Raffin, the daughter of François Raffin the sénéchal d'Agen (seneschal of Agen) and Nicole Le Roy a descendant of the great Tourangeau house of Le Roy de Chavigny. For the occasion of the marriage, Lanssac's father gave him an annuity of 3,000 livres and provided him the château de Lanssac and half the seigneurie de La Roche-Andry. From his wife, Lanssac acquired the seigneurie de Puycalvary in the Agenais, and Azay-le-Rideau in Touraine, and he would spend much time in the former. Through Antoinette's mother, Nicole, Lanssac would be able to ally himself with the house of Cossé. This was due to Nicole's remarriage to the maréchal de Cossé.
Nevertheless, the marriage presented an expensive bill to Lanssac. He owed 6,400 livres to a cloth merchant and had to borrow a further 5,800 livres from a Parisian bourgeois for gold work to demonstrate his status.
Antoinette would serve as a dame d'honneur (lady-in-waiting) to the queen of Navarre (from 1589 queen of France) Marguerite. Along with Marguerite she made ecclesiastical donations.
The marriage did not proceed smoothly. She established herself in the family château d'Azay-le-Rideau while her husband was living in the south west of the kingdom. In 1585 she opened proceedings for the separation of their goods in 1585 in the hopes of preserving her lands from the crushing debts that consumed Lanssac. From this point forward the couple were separated. In 1596 she succeeded in securing the separation of her patrimony from her husband, though she was obliged to pay 2,400 livres in alimony to him. Lanssac immediately devoted the sum to his creditors. When her mother Nicole died in 1601 she inherited the estates. Humiliated by his wife's request for separation from him, on 15 October 1603 Lanssac stormed his wife's château d'Azay-le-Rideau and pillaged the jewels, wine, rye, flour and nuts from the residence. He occupied her château until 25 January 1604. He was obliged by the courts to return the jewels he had stolen.
Despite seeking and gaining separation, the fortune of Antoinette was destroyed by her husbands bankruptcy. Both Queen Marie and her son King Louis XIII would involve themselves in the families affairs to protect the patrimony of Guy and Antoinette. Indeed, in 1618 with royal blessing, Artus de Saint-Gelais was able to buy back control of the family lands of Ambès and Saint-Savin (alongside the family governorship of Bourg.
Children With Antoinette Raffin, Guy had the following issue: Artus de Saint-Gelais, married in 1614 Françoise de Souvré with issue. Alexandre de Saint-Gelais, died before 1615. Jeanne de Saint-Gelais.
It is likely the maréchal de Cossé served as a godfather to Lanssac's eldest son. This would explain the name 'Artus' which they both share. The very advantageous marriage secured for Artus was a testament to the good favour Guy's wife enjoyed at court.
Cultural pursuits Lanssac had a talent for producing verse, singing and playing the lute. (poet) praised his talents in a collection of poetry he dedicated to Lanssac. He also received a sonnet dedicated to him from the famed Pierre Ronsard. On shrove Tuesday in February 1580 Lanssac acted as a stage director for a masquerade held at the queen mother's residence. The masquerade featured two troupes of dancers, one Portuguese the other Spanish. Young blindfolded boys represented cupid. A complex series of interactions between the Iberian dancers concluded in a group dance between the two. He received praise from the king for the production. The political implications of the production were obvious at a time when Portugal was threatened with conquest by Spain: the two nations should be united by love as opposed to force of arms. By this means he was supporting the queen mothers plans as regarded the Portuguese succession.
In addition to his skills in the arts, Lanssac was fluent in Castilian.
First years During his early years, Lanssac matriculated at the collège de Guyenne (college of Guyenne) in Bordeaux.
Reign of Charles IX Young diplomat In the first chapter of his career, Lanssac would be a man of the queen mother Catherine, like his father. He was blessed with having inherited his father's silver tongue. He conducted his first extraordinary diplomatic mission at the age of eighteen.
In 1563, at the age of nineteen, he presented himself at the French court. No sooner had he arrived than he was established as a gentilhomme de la chambre du roi (gentleman of the king's chamber) which brought with it an income of 520 livres. He acquired a pension of 600 livres which would then be doubled to 1,200 livres by the queen mother Catherine in 1567.
Lanssac accompanied the French court on their grand tour of the kingdom which began in 1564. By the means of this great tour, Catherine hoped to re-establish the bonds between the king and his subjects. It was also hoped that it would aid in the application of justice thereby strengthening the authority of the state, particularly as regarded Catholicism and Protestantism and the enforcement of the internal peace.