Gaspard de Rochechouart de Mortemart

Gaspard de Rochechouart, Marquis de Mortemart (5th April, 1575 - Present) is a nobleman from the Empire of Grandelumière who hails from the House of Rochechouart belonging to the province of Limousin in Central France. Gaspard and his predecessors have, for 11 generations, belonged to the cadet branch of the house of Rochechouart, the house of Rochechouart de Mortemart. The death of René de Rochechouart de Mortemart in 1587 saw the succession of the young Gaspard, aged 12, succeed his father as the twelfth Seigneur de Mortemart: a title held since Guillaume de Rochechouart, who died in 1272. Historical records of the House of Rochechouart de Mortemart demonstrate how ancient the house truly is: records tell the origins of the house of Rochechouart had its origins in a Sieur Foucher de Limoges who died in 883 AD. The rule of the Rochechouart family in the region of Limousin predates, by approximately 100 years, Capet rule over the Kingdom of Francia. 
For 300 years the Mortemart cadet branch had been regional rulers in their respective domain and, through the large properties controlled by the house, they gained substantial wealth. The Mortemart dominion over the region, although still congruent with the notion of their regional power, finds themselves in the court, for the first time, of the Monarch of the modern Francia in the form of the union of France and Scotland known formally as Grandelumière. The end of the simply regional House of Rochechouart de Mortemart ended with Sieur Gaspard de Rochechouart when they arrived at the court of Emperor Charles IX & I in 1602 upon invitation of the Emperor. On account of courtly favor, by letters patent, Gaspard would be created the Marquis de Mortemart and the Prince de Tonnay-Charente in 1601 and 1604 respectively. This saw the position of the Mortemart branch increased both regionally in their home province but also throughout the empire as they taunted off their ancient founding by their ancestor of several hundred years ago. The number of court positions the house held grew exponentially as the crown found legitimate use of the skills typically instilled in the mind of each young Mortemart. The respect that the house demanded, on account of their ancient heritage, was clearly met by the favor show unto them by imperials and courtiers alike. 
Gaspard himself was raised to strict standards primarily becoming a skilled administrator. He suitably navigated his house through the instability of the Empire during the various Wars of Religion and, by siding with the clear victors of the war, the House of Guise, the Mortemart found themselves being awarded with various governmental posts and court positions. His support, however, for the Catholic League of the Wars of Religion would be expected for him. His enthusiasm for eradicating the threat of "the Calvanite heresy; the resurfaced and modern Albigensian  heresy" ("The Diary of Gaspard de Rochechouart," entry from 18th August, 1607) 
The personal piety of Gaspard de Rochechouart cannot be doubted in any regard by modern historians when it comes to the judgement of his piety in his later life. Diary entries around the time of his marriage agree that, sometime after 1608, the Marquis experienced a conversion of the heart following an injury which permanently injured his leg. He had an extramarital affair that began shortly after the marriage of him and his wife and from that affair, from that the marquis produced two bastard children. The Marquis relates how the two children procreated are firm reminders of the life of sin that he once let; a life that is no more in practice. 
The financial position that Gaspard found the house to be in when he ascended to legal ownership of the properties of the house was rather well off compared to other houses. Thanks to the profitable financial investments of Gaspard and his predecessors the House of Rochechouart de Mortemart were in a position of charity; wealth was diverged from his person income to fund the establishment of orphanages, schools, churches, and impoverished nobles. Belonging to the Order of Secular Franciscans, a lay religious association of Catholics closely following the way of life of Saint Francis of Assisi (historical members have included St. Louis IX, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and various other saints and royals) Gaspard lived closely, according to diary accounts of himself and other courtiers, to the Holy Gospels. Evidence of harsh penances can be found from similar sources, despite living a noble lifestyle at the court of the Emperor of Grandelumière. Mortemart's own accounts from diary entries describe accounts of harsh fasting and self-flagellations. Gaspard writes in his diary, the feeling of urgency he felt to "shun my human nature; for we have lost our original state of happiness whence the first sin occurred. O Felix Culpa! Oh how I seek your face, my Lord!" (Diary entry from 14th January, 1609)
Beyond his piety he had a deep appreciation for his family, modeling their own upbringing off of his. Gaspard, himself the patriarch of the Mortemart, considered the best upbringing for a boy would be to raise him with a stern attitude, knowing the ways of chivalry (in a way, modeling oneself off of the Rochechouart Crusaders of the 13th century), a strong moral character, and above all piety and a desire of holiness. 
== Biography ==
=== Birth ===
At the time of the Mortemart babe, born 5 April 1575, the Mortemart branch found themselves in a considerable heightened position in regional politics in the region of Limousin in central Francia. This was particularly through the merits of the young babe's father, Réne de Rochechouart. Réne, who came to prominence through various sieges in the mid-16th century in the midst of the final two phases of the Italian wars alongside Réne's father, François. The father-son pair had earned the recognition of both King François I and Henri II. The efforts of François and Réne at the sieges of Metz, Perpignan, and Épernay had earned the the then-Seigneur of Mortemart new lands which poised them in a better position among competing Limousin nobles both politically and financially. Newly granted lands included lordship over Tonnay-Charente and Mauzé. 
After the Italian Wars settled and Réne, returning vicious, more wealthy, and more powerful, came back to their 13th century home, the Château-Larcher, only inherited in 1504 by Lord Aimery III. For over two decades after Réne's return to home, Jeanne de Saulx de Tavannes, aged twenty-eight and wife of Réne, aged fourty-seven, had given birth on 5 April, 1575. Very little records of the birth of Gaspard can be found beyond what can be assumed. It can be assumed that, based off of invoices from a local physician, that the labor was difficult and the young Jeanne risked death in giving birth to her first child. Yet despite these difficulties, Jeanne recovered fully and passed away decades later in 1626, aged 78. She would give birth to six more children. 
=== Infancy and Early Childhood ===
The newly born babe was granted honourary lordship over Montpipeau and was thus known as the Seingeur de Montpipeau. Also lacking a first name until baptism, as was customary in the Roman Catholic traditions of the aristocracy of France, the newly born child was merely known as Monsieur de Montpipeau, Bébé Mortemart, or Bébé Montpipeau. His upbringing was, by modern standards, considerably rough. Réne, who's pride of a warrior stems from the Mortemart history of chivalry during the 13th century, raised his child to be a war. Nutrition was focused on what Réne considered befitting for a solider and if it wasn't for the intervention of Bébé Montpipeau's mother, the young babe could have been starved to death or at least severely malnourished. 
An outbreak of gout in Limousin caused for panic in 1576 and the panic made its way into the Mortemart household. As if the infant was on the brink of death (no records show that Gaspard had been affected by the outbreak of gout) he was quickly baptized by a local priest and given the name Gaspard. As Réne's health began to fail in 1578, control over the child's upbringing was granted to the thirty year old Jeanne who had the child handed over to a local minor noblewoman, a madame Thérèse. 
Letters uncovered indicate that the madame Thérèse did not care much for the child. Not because of negligence or stupidity but rather an inseparable force between child and mother -- or rather a motherly obsession with child. An exert of the governess's letters indicate such. The madame writes to a sister about her life at the Château-Larcher: "Sœeur, his mother takes great care of him," writes Thérèse. But she goes on to complain that the young Seigneur has no establishment of his own not even a piece of furniture; that he sleeps in his mother's room and that his governess can never see him in the morning and evening to correct, "sundry little faults which time will increase if they be not checked early." The Madame Thérèse would nurse the child until the age of four when the child had his breaching ceremony in 1579, in which the child no longer wore dresses but rather ordinary breaches for men. This attempt to thrust herself in between mother and child caused the Dame Jeanne to dislike Thérèse and from first to last they were sworn foes for ever disputing as to the method of their charge's upbringing. "It is pitiable to see how this little lord is being treated," wrote his governess. 
By 1587, the Seigneur de Mortemart's illness protracted and his condition worsened. By April of that same year the Seigneur became comatose in his bed with regency over house administration being shifted to the fourth-one year old Dame Jeanne. On 17 April the Seigneur commended his spirit as his body lay lifeless in the bed in which he spent his final months in. The seigneur was buried in the nearby church of Notre-Dame de Larcher, leaving the young thirteen year old Gaspard at the helm of his house.  
=== Adolescence as Seigneur ===
His mother still was in perpetual control over the house until the young Seigneur's marriage in 1597, ten years following. Gaspard's education was unfinished at the time of his father's death and continued on into the hands of various male governors. For the young Gaspard's eventful career we are fortunate in possessing an excellent authority in the shape of his own Memoirs, told in his own words for the benefit of his children. The boy's education was confided to a Jesuit priest who taught him, in addition to mathematics and drawing, to speak Latin with as great facility as his mother tongue. Later Gaspard was sent to the Academy of a Sieur Benjamin. Instrumental in the boy's adolescent development into a man, the Sieur Benjamin, himself a veteran of the Italian wars taught the young Seigneur chivalry and justice.
Sieur Benjamin's method was probably the best; at any rate the following anecdote related by Tallemant des Réaux makes the tutor's régime appear to have been bottomed in sound sense. Riding along the road one day on their way to the hunt, the Sieur and his pupil passed a peasant who, in humble loyalty, prostrated himself at his lord's feet. But the young Mortemart went on his way paying no heed to the man's salutations not even by so much as a nod. "Monsieur," remonstrated his Governor, "there may be no one lower than that man as there is no one higher than you, but if he and his equals did not cultivate the land you and your equals would be in danger of dying from starvation." Indeed, again, was there a similar cold-heartedness felt by the Dame Jeanne who did not approve of Sieur Benjamin's instruction. Yet, the Dame Jeanne, perhaps knew her place not to meddle in her child's adolescent education.
=== The War of Religion ===
When his schooldays ended when Gaspard turned age sixteen, he returned home to the Château-Larcher. Perhaps spurred by wanderlust or, in a similar way, there he found that time hung heavily on his hands. The humdrum life of a country gentleman was clearly not to taste of this aspiring youth. The blood of his warrior ancestors boiled in his veins, and he longed to go forth and win his spurs in the field of war. The example of his great forbear, Sieur Aimery I, a hero of the Hundreds Years War, fired his ambition. Thus, we are not surprised to see Gaspard running away from home. Successfully escaping from the clutches of his mother, the Mortemart lord joined with the forces of the Catholic league under the command of the Duc de Guise. In the summer of 1591, the Duke of Guise appointed him captain of a cavalry regiment; and in this capacity Mortemart, so he tells us, distinguished himself for vigour and valour, remaining four consecutive nights on horseback to avoid a surprise by the enemy. But this excess of youthful ardour resulted in an illness which before the close of the campaign compelled the young captain to withdraw from action. By the next year he was well enough to take the field again. And now "the vivacity of his youth," as he calls it, involved him in combat between a Huguenot captain which proved serious. Encamped before Thouars in Poitou, his antagonist wounded him so severely in the right arm, four inches above the wrist, that the limb was nearly severed. 
"Straightway," writes Mortemart, "my sword flew out of my hand. I fell, and my own subordinates raised me and quickly brought me back to camp and tied up my arm in order to stop the flow of blood, for I was bleeding profusely. A messenger hastened to Thouars for a surgeon; and came back with one called Le Sage, who saved my life by his diligence. In order to stanch the blood he was obliged to bind several veins (sic) and arteries, which operation gave me intense pain. I was carried to Thouars under the cover of night and there Le Sage, having permitted me to rest for an hour, effected other ligatures, which caused me even worse pain than the first. Yet, notwithstanding all that I had suffered, the following night I slept soundly, and three weeks later a party of 2 000 horse having approached our quarters I mounted, and charged them."
=== Return Home ===
The injury could not be cured in three weeks and a year later the wound was still troubling him. When the campaign was over in 1593 he returned to Château-Larcher and sought further treatment for his arm injury which, over time, proved successful, after a months treatment at the waters of Barèges in the Pyrénées. At Château-Larcher the subject of his marriage was mooted by his mother. Several possible suitors came up including one Gabrielle de Gondi, daughter of Albert de Gondi, Duke of Retz. Gaspard successfully convinced Dame Jeanne to continue the search elsewhere. This was not spurned by any particular disinterest in Gabrielle de Gondi but rather a general disinterest int he idea of marriage itself. It is possible that, when out fighting for a Catholic cause, Gaspard was also fighting his own temptations of lust. Although the evidence of any passion of love occurred during his time at war rumors did exist among the encampment and among his men that Gaspard would leave camp under the cover of the night in meet with a woman or possibly a few. 
By 1595 Gaspard proved himself a competent administrator of his house as he managed day-to-day functions of the house such as minor finances, issues among peasantry, and minor repairs while Dame Jeanne managed more complicated tasks such as marriages between Gaspard's brothers and sisters, taxation, and correspondence with neighboring lords and ladies. Both their efforts proved to be successful for we see, according to house finances, a large surplus of wealth acquired over those years. 
=== Marriage and issue ===
Gaspard's urging to his mother to push off any idea of marriage proved futile for we see Dame Jeanne's efforts to find a proper bride for her son successful. By 1596 we find a courtship between a previously married woman, Louise de Maure, who was the widow of Odet de Goyon-Matignon. Their marriage, producing no children, lasted only a year. Among one of the most advantageous aspects of the marriage between the de Maure widow was the fact that her father had no surviving male children. By the time Louise de Maure had reached of age she ascended to the helm of control over her own house, becoming the Countess of Maure within her own right. Alongside more land being brought into the Mortemart fold, the wealth attached to the House of Maure came alongside it too.
Although immense wealth came with the marriage, correspondence between the lord and lady demonstrates they were a proper match even beyond the mutual gains made by the marriage. They had a mutual liking of each other and when they first met, three months following their first correspondence, the passion only further brewed. Exerts of their correspondence detail the affection the two had for each other: 
"I greatly desire to see you. Besides the affection for you which my duty enjoins upon me, believe me, my dear lady, all my inclination is to love you passionately. Never doubt it, and believe that I adore you as much as it is possible to adore anyone. Often do I recall my delight in your presence and my joy in your young beauty. My imagination leads me to tell you of my ardour. When we are parted my greatest joy is to think of you. Farewell, my heart, a thousand and a thousand times do I kiss you; and rather would I die than that the affection which I am sure you bear me should diminish."
The couple was wedded in September of 1597. At this point Mortemart's Memoirs are disappointing. Of the wedding there was little to tell, for it was celebrated quietly on September 2nd 1597. There was immense joy for the fruit of their marriage seemed to be successful. Shortly after their marriage, the new Dame de Mortemart was pregnant with their first child. The joy, however was cut short when she had miscarried in late January of 1598. Successful offspring was brought forth in 1601, a male Gabriel. Another boy in 1602, Louis and later a daughter, Jeanne, in 1607. Yet despite the amorous feelings between the newly wedded pair which was surely undoubted, Gaspard continued his sexual escapades with various women from the surrounding area. Among them was Jeanne-Marie de Beynac, a minor noblewoman from the region of Limousin who produced two children with Gaspard in 1603 and another in 1606. 
=== Arrival at Court ===
=== Life at Court ===
== Issue ==
Gaspard wed Louise de Maure, Suo Jure Comtesse de Maure, in September 1597. She was the widow of Odet de Goyon-Matignon, with whom she had no children. They would go on to have three children who survived into adulthood, and two miscarriages. Gaspard, around the same time as the birth of his children, had fathered two additional bastard children through Jeanne-Marie de Beynac.
=== Legitimate Issue ===
* Miscarriage (30th January 1598)
* Gabriel de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquis de Vivonne (7th June 1601 - Present)
* Louis de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Seigneur de Maure (10th December 1602 - Present)
* Miscarriage (7th August 1605)
* Jeanne de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente (9th May 1607 - Present)
=== Illegitimate Issue ===
* Benjamin, Bâtard de Mortemart (2nd March 1603 - Present)
* Esther, Bâtarde de Mortemart, Mademoiselle de Rouveyrol (5th July 1606 - Present)
== Ancestry ==
== Titles, Styles and Honours ==
=== Titles and Styles ===
* 5th April 1575 - 17th April 1587: Sa Seigneurie, Monsieur le Seigneur de Montpipeau
* 17th April 1587 - 2nd May 1601: Sa Seigneurie, Monsieur le Seigneur de Mortemart, Prince de Tonnay-Charente
* 10th September 1597 - Present: Sa Seigneurie, Monsieur le Comte de Maure (jure uxoris)
* 2nd May 1601 - Present: Sa Seigneurie, Monsieur le Marquis de Mortemart, Prince de Tonnay-Charente
=== Honours ===
* 29th May 1614 - Present: Gouverneur de Limousin
Category:House of Rochechouart
Category:House of Rochechouart de Mortemart
Category:Grandelumièrian Marquis
Category:16th Century Births
Category:Grandelumièrian Counts
Category:Grandelumièrian Nobility
Category:Gouverneurs