Henri-Charles de Beaumanoir de Lavardin

Biography

Family

Henri-Charles de Beaumanoir was born on 15 March 1644 in Le Mans, into a powerful family of the Maine nobility: the Beaumanoirs of Lavardin. He was the descendant of Jean de Beaumanoir, the first marquis of Lavardin – from 1601 – and made marshal of France by Henri IV. His father, Henri II de Beaumanoir, marshal of the king's camps and armies, was killed in 1644 at the siege of Gravelines; his uncle, Philibert-Emmanuel de Beaumanoir, was bishop of Le Mans; finally, his mother, Marguerite-Renée de Rostaing – daughter of the marquis Charles de Rostaing -, was a close friend of Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise of Sévigné

On 3 February 1667, Henri-Charles de Beaumanoir married Françoise de Luynes, daughter of Louis-Charles d'Albert de Luynes. His wife having died in 1670, he married Louise Anne de Noailles, daughter of Duke Anne de Noailles and sister of Cardinal de Noailles, on June 1, 1680. From his first marriage, he had an only daughter, Anne-Charlotte, who married Louis de La Châtre. From his second marriage he had a son, Henri, who was killed in 1703 at the battle of Speyerbach. This death marked the extinction of the male line of Beaumanoir of Lavardin, whose property and titles passed to René de Froulay de Tessé.

General Lieutenancy of Brittany

In 1670, the Marquis of Lavardin was appointed Lieutenant general of Brittany. Since the 16th century, the governor of the province had been assisted by two lieutenant-generals, one for the county of Nantes and the other for Lower and Upper Brittany. The Marquis of Lavardin was given the latter office and was therefore responsible for eight of the nine bishoprics of Brittany. His task was to replace the governor during his absences – a relatively common event – and to assist him in the administration of the province, particularly in military matters. The Marquis of Lavardin was himself assisted by two king's lieutenants, one for Lower Brittany and one for Upper Brittany. He succeeded the marshal de La Porte, who died in 1664, and his son, who retired to his estates in 1669. In the same year, the post of governor was filled after having been vacant since 1666: Charles d'Albert d'Ailly, Duke of Chaulnes, was the new holder. The third king's officer for the province was the Marquis de Rosmadec of Molac, lieutenant general for the bishopric of Nantes

The Duke of Chaulnes, by virtue of his functions, exercised the powers attached to the Admiralty of Brittany – distinct from the Admiralty of France -, endeavoured to extend them and behaved as a true Admiral of Brittany; when he acted in his absence, the Marquis of Lavardin enjoyed his prerogatives. In September 1669, even before he took up his official duties, the Duke of Chaulnes had regulated the enrolment of Breton sailors, and, at his request, the States of Brittany had created a commission to proceed with a naval armament of the coasts of Saint-Malo. In 1672, he fixed the salaries and vacations of the officers of the maritime jurisdiction and published an ordinance instituting a system of passports that the captains of the navy had to obtain from him. He then assumed responsibility for the maritime police and coastal security. The Marquis of Lavardin also took measures concerning the navy, even if they were less far-reaching; among the most important were: on November 20, 1674, the prohibition of seneschals, judges and officers from issuing pilot's letters – a navigation permit – on their own initiative; on November 8, 1677, the decree of an embargo on barley leaving the ports of Brittany; on July 16 and October 24, 1686, two ordinances regulating the repair of the guards' offices in the seven coastal bishoprics.

Mrs. de Sevigne was at that time a good friend of the Marquis of Lavardin, of whom she wrote in one of her letters to her daughter: "He is the least low and cowardly courtier I have ever seen". Nevertheless, she stressed to her correspondent that she did not condone his humor or his lack of manners.

Revolts of the Papier Timbré

Between March and September 1675, the West of France experienced a series of uprisings linked to an increase in taxes, including that of stamped paper, required for authentic acts. Emotions were particularly high in Brittany, first in the towns, then in the countryside of Lower Brittany.

At the beginning of April 1675, an antifiscal revolt broke out in Rennes; it was triggered by mimicry of similar events that had occurred in March in Bordeaux. On April 3, the first disturbances took place; on April 18, a great riot ransacked the tobacco and stamped paper offices and the repression of the popular emotion was carried out firmly by the son of the Marquis of Coëtlogon, governor of the city. On April 25, the crowd attacked and burned the Huguenot temple, because of the supposed religion of the local tax collectors; among the rioters were many schoolchildren. The irruption of Coëtlogon junior's cavalrymen, too late, did not prevent the attack and only two factious men were seized by the authorities. The crowd also attacked the prison, but Coëtlogon managed to rally the bourgeois militia to prevent access.

The Marquis of Lavardin entered Rennes in the meantime; after having taken the measure of events, he protested against the inaction of justice and gave formal notice to the parliament of Rennes to open proceedings against the two prisoners. Indeed, he considered that the rioters of April 25 were the same as those of April 18, with the notorious exception of the students, and that authority should therefore be shown. However, he refused indiscriminate repression and announced that his role was to "calm the disorder, appease the spirits, restore peace and tranquillity". One of the accused, a schoolboy, was released very quickly – he was only 14 years old – while the other, a baker, was kept in custody. On May 3, the arrival of the Duke of Chaulnes intensified the legal proceedings, as he was the bearer of orders from the king calling for the greatest severity against the rioters of April 18; three men injured during the disturbances were seized at Saint-Yves hospital.

Lavardin's analysis of the events in Rennes – together with other representatives of the nobility of Brittany – is that the Parliament, and more generally the men of law and the Nobility of the Robe, had adopted an approving passivity towards the city riots, because the Parliament viewed the rollback of the royal innovations in taxation with favour. This accusation was to be a major factor in the royal decision to exile the parliament of Brittany from Rennes. Lavardin's position is shared by a whole section of historiography - notably Claude Nières, Yvon Garlan, James B. Collins and John Hurt – but is rejected by Gauthier Aubert, who believes that the restraint of the parliamentarians is related to the lack of means to maintain order, and that the accusation against them is a means of exonerating the governor of the province and his deputies.

Embassy in Rome

Since the accession of Pope Innocent XI in 1676, relations between France and the Holy See have been extremely tense. Indeed, the regal affair prevented concord between Louis XIV and the Pope for a long time. This poisoning of diplomatic relations worsened after the French clergy assembly of 1682, during which the French Catholic hierarchy sided with the Gallican monarch on the issue of the right of regal. From then on, Innocent XI refused to appoint the rebellious clergymen – i.e. signatories of the Four Articles of the assembly – presented by the King of France to the episcopal dignity. In the absence of papal bulls, the number of vacant diocesan sees increased.

In addition to this conflict of usury, the Pope sought to conclude the Franchise Dispute to his advantage. At that time, franchises were rights held in Rome by the ambassadors of certain European powers, which allowed them to exempt the area surrounding their residence from Roman jurisdiction in matters of customs and justice.

In 1679, the Pontiff warned the French court that, as long as François Annibal II d'Estrées was ambassador, France's franchises would be respected, but that the new holder could only take up his duties on condition that he renounced them. On the death of the Duke of Estrées, on 30 January 1687, the Pope ordered his sbirri – the papal police – to take possession of the French neighborhood. Moreover, the Pope formally opposed the nomination of the Cardinal of Estrées to succeed his brother as French ambassador; indeed, he was convinced that César d'Estrées would use the cardinal's purple to refuse the abolition of his exemptions.

Frustrated in his choice, Louis XIV then set his sights on the Marquis of Lavardin and charged him with supporting the franchises of France. On May 16, 1687, Innocent XI issued a bull to definitively prohibit the franchises of ambassadors in Rome, under penalty of the most terrible ecclesiastical censure: major excommunication. Henri-Charles de Beaumanoir read it before his trip. The Pope obtained the submission - often grudgingly - of the other European courts, but Louis XIV retorted to the nuncio "that God had established him to serve as an example and rule to others, and not to imitate them"; nevertheless, Lavardin's departure was suspended and used to assemble a military escort to keep the Papal forces at bay.

On November 14, 1687, the Marquis of Lavardin presented himself before Rome, accompanied by a troop of 100 armed men, hand-picked and mostly naval officers. His agents informed him that he would not be denied access by force. On November 16, the Pope was unable to oppose his entry into the city and had him open the Porte du Peuple. The arrival of the Marquis of Lavardin was marked by great pomp and circumstance, with his soldiers marching in with weapons in hand; the officers of the papal customs were dissuaded by his escort from infringing on the ambassador's rights. In addition to the goods he brought with him, Louis XIV's envoy brought 300 muskets into the city to arm the French residents of Rome, should the need arise. Lavardin and his troop moved into the Farnese Palace and retreated to the French quarter, which took on the appearance of a military camp. He had the palace decorated with the king's coat of arms and the Lavardin coat of arms, unequivocally signifying his status as French ambassador. He immediately requested an audience with the Pope, but the latter stubbornly refused to grant it. In retaliation, Louis XIV stopped meeting the Apostolic Nuncio to France, Cardinal Ranuzzi.

Return to France

On his return to France, he resumed his position as Lieutenant general of Brittany, which he never ceased to hold. On December 31, 1688, he was made a Knight of the Order of the Holy Spirit by King Louis XIV in Versailles. However, in 1689, the government of Brittany underwent two major changes. In February, Pomereu, the king's intendant, was permanently appointed. Brittany was the last French province to be endowed with such an agent of the king; the monarch surely felt that European tensions justified this increase in absolutism in a country of states within reach of the English coast. In August of the same year, Jean II d'Estrées was appointed commander-in-chief of Brittany. The governor was thus flanked by two king's commissioners, the intendant for civil matters (including the bourgeois militia), and the commander-in-chief for matters relating to the professional army; the king's officers had their powers considerably reduced.

This reorganisation coincided with the sending of the Duke of Chaulnes as ambassador to the Holy See. The governor returned to Brittany in 1691, 1692 and 1693 to take military command, but he was explicitly asked to do so by the king. In 1695, Louis XIV obtained his resignation and replaced him with the Count of Toulouse, his legitimate bastard son; the latter renounced direct administration of the province and only went there on royal request. As for the Marquis of Lavardin, his military prerogatives were also limited by the arrival of the king's commissioners, but a certain permanence of his former functions left him with considerable autonomy. Thus, in 1695, during the war of the League of Augsburg, he convened the rearguard and organised the blocs of some of the troops defending Brittany. In 1697, in the absence of Marshal d'Estrées, he also blocked the claims of Admiral of Châtellerault – previously integrated into the land defence of the province – to replace the commander-in-chief at the head of the army of Brittany, and said to him: "Officers on land do not command at sea and those at sea would command at both [...], this has never been seen". On the other hand, he suffered a setback in 1696: having opposed the establishment of a patrol in Rennes on the grounds that he was not going to re-arm a town that he had disarmed during the revolt of 1675, he was proven wrong by the Council of Finance and the Controller General overruled his opinion, which was deemed anachronistic. After him, his successors at the lieutenancy general would only have nominal power.

The replacement of the Duke of Chaulnes by the comte de Toulouse in 1695 was an opportunity for the Marquis of Lavardin to take part in the long-running conflict between the Governor of Brittany and the Admiralty of France over the rights of the Admiralty of Brittany. Among these rights, the most contested was the tenth of the catches of the Race War, which authorised the levying of a tenth of the value of goods seized by privateers. The Admiralty of France – headed by the Count of Toulouse since 1683 – contested the governors' claim to the rights of the Admiralty of Brittany and demanded the collection of the tenth of catches for all the King's ships, including those armed in the port of Saint-Malo, and for Breton ships that had Brest as their home port, as this city was temporarily administered by the Admiralty of France. On the contrary, the Duke of Chaulnes claimed ownership for both the Breton ships based in Brest and the King's ships based in Saint-Malo. The disgrace of the Duke of Chaulnes, threatened with repayment of unduly collected duties, led Lavardin to defend the rights of the governors, with the help of the States of Brittany.