Jean Fernand de Blois de Penthievre

## Monsieur le Prince

Jean Frederic

Louis Gabriel

Marie Isabelle

Jean Alphonse

**Jean Fernand de Blois de Penthievre** (24th June 1702 - 20th November 1757) was a Grandelumieran nobleman and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at the court of Marie IV. By marriage to Marie Seraphine de Blois de Penthievre, he was styled *Monsieur le Prince.*

An exemplar of gluttony, he was known to be a more random character of the Grandelumierian nobility; never too politic nor whimsical, or overtly pious, Monsieur le Prince was considered to be most defined by his points of high status and amiability, and a notoriously massive constitution.

## Early Life

Jean Fernand was born on June 24th, 1702, to the Comtesse du Diois, Marie Elisabeth de Le Tellier, and her husband, Chevalier Charles Philippe de Bauffremont, at the Hôtel du Diois in Paris. The circumstances surrounding his birth could not have been more favorable nor dreadful as the fragile Comtesse struggled to conceive a child with her husband. In a twist of unfortunate luck, the Comte du Diois, by all accounts, a vivid character, was gravely wounded in a scene of dramatic bravery, from which he would never fully recover, during the War of Grandelumierian Succession, in which he had served as Colonel du Régiment de Lorraine.

It is only by some great miracle, or great scandal, that Jean Fernand was conceived. Once past the point of great turbulence in the early pregnancy, there was confidence in the frail Comtesse that she would not suffer a miscarriage. This faith quickly disappeared when she reached the birthing bed. For over a day the Comtesse labored intensively, rattling the household with wails that proclaimed a stillbirth, and so it was believed by the midwives until they finally birthed Jean Fernand on the thirtieth hour of labor. Immediately at birth, he was proclaimed *Chevalier du Diois*, and heir to the Comtesse, being her first and only child, as she would never conceive again in her frailty.

Throughout his early childhood, which he spent at the *Château du Diois*, Jean Fernand had little interest in being tutored, and would often trick his governess in order to escape, or simply disappear to go riding or play with local children. Because of Jean Fernand’s lack of siblings, he was notably very close with his friends, many of them children of the local gentry. He was remarked as to have a near brotherly bond with his closest companions. He was also notably close to his father, who by health restrictions, was kept from maintaining a presence at court, unlike his mother, who was Lady-in-waiting to Madame la Princesse. The abundance of time spent in the company of his own father at their provincial abode was spent drilling in the techniques of fencing, riding, and hunting. More peculiarly, the Comte de Diois was very pursuant in teaching his son in the ways of more medieval matters; Jean Fernand was often seen with his father examining plowed fields, animal husbandry, horse breeding and many other aspects of provincial life. The only tolerance Jean Fernand had for anything academic was the diligent studies of the campaigns of great military leaders like Alexander, Hannibal, and Julius Caesar, which his father shared a passion of, and insisted Jean Fernand’s diligence. He failed at other academic subjects such as Latin, Theology, Mathematics and numerous other sciences, and was thus received by many to be ignorant and slow-witted.

In 1711, Jean Fernand’s mother died very suddenly of an illness, believed to be appendicitis. The young Jean Fernand, nine years old at the time, was greatly upset by this, though he was known to have mourned in private and wrote of his sadness around this time instead of showing outward sadness, greatly confused by the fact that his childhood home had filled with women, none of whom were his own mother. Upon the death of the Comtesse, the Duc de Bragance allowed for the title of Comte de Diois to pass to the young Jean Fernand.

By the age of 17, Jean was becoming the great gentleman that his father envisioned him to become, he was notably charming and cheerful with a strong and profound physique along with a handsome bravado about him. Widely acclaimed by those he acquainted with; he was constantly entertaining company. With a great sense of humor and an even greater appetite, for both food and drink, but also women, Jean's charisma led him away from home to the royal court at Argenteuil. His father, now bedridden at Jean Fernand’s provincial home, insisted on him pursuing a career in the military by commission, but Jean remained at court instead, preferring his newfound lavish lifestyle, where he would meet his future wife, Marie Eloise Seraphine.

## Adulthood

While at court in 1719, Jean began to court the heir to Monsieur le Prince, Marie Eloise Séraphine de Blois de Penthievre, also distant cousin to the Queen-Empress. Despite a distance in status, Jean wooed her assiduously, keeping himself in a near constant companionship with the Demoiselle. On a few occasions, he went as far as to challenge other suitors to duel for her favor. After months of courtship, Jean Fernand convinced her father to agree to a match, and shortly after her 16th birthday, he married Séraphine at Argenteuil. Upon her father’s death not long after their wedding, Seraphine inherited his titles and thus, Jean Fernand became Monsieur le Prince.

The marriage between the two is considered to one of rare love and compassion, and in 1720, after their first child, Louis Chrétien was born, their bond became even more immediate. Four more children would come of the match and their family is considered to be irregularly close-knit, with all of the children being educated at their family home. Although, tragedy struck the family in 1727, when the couple’s youngest daughter, Marie Isabelle, fell ill and died shortly after. For a long stretch of time, Jean Fernand’s naturally jubilant and profound character was suddenly dower and grief-stricken.

Eventually, Jean recovered from his period of mourning and his wife insisted on a more protective and watchful style of parenting, which Jean disliked, taking a stance which was far more of a like with his father's style, as Jean too had high expectations for his children. The family eventually moved to court and there Jean once again flourished. His easy-going and humorous attitude made him only friends, and he was received as harmless by the more malicious courtiers.

During his extended tenure at court, he received the position of Grand Chamberlain of the Court, a position that he took to heart and performed his duties diligently, although he was received by many to be far too humorous and lacking a serious attitude. In the winter of 1737 his wife, Madame la Princesse became pregnant again, for the first time in thirteen years. And after a difficult pregnancy, Madame la Princesse gave birth to twins, an excessively happy event, until it was seen that the first child was stillborn, and the second being severely deformed, he was not expected to survive long. But despite all doubt, the young child survived his infancy, in no small help to the close care of Madame la Princesse, who did not trust a wet nurse to feed the child, nor send him away until excessive examination was performed by a physician. The young boy, who was named Jean Alphonse, was diagnosed to be a hunchback, with severe curvature in his upper spine, and a clubbed arm, which tucked at his side. He was immediately seen as a gross pariah by the entire court, despite all seemingly harmless condescendence he received.

The entire Penthievre family, with the exception of their two sons, Gabriel and Frederic, who served in the Marine Royale de Grandelumiere, remained at court, carving out significant influence through the achievement of high civil offices, Fernand himself gaining the office of Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs. By this time, he had lost nearly all of his juvenile fairness; his once profound physique melted away to show only a very fat man, the largest in the entire court by many accounts, his love of food and drink was notorious, making him a wondrous spectacle to behold at table.

In late 1737, Fernand and his wife arranged a marriage to the ambitious Rochechouarts de Mortemarts, betrothing the young *Prince de Carignan,* heir to the Penthievre fortune, to one Marie-Augustine Laurene, one of the famed *Mortemarettes.* Despite the match, the two families remained in heated friction for quite some time, with both of them competing viciously for favor at court. The issue was only settled with royal intervention, and even then, relations between the patriarch of the Mortemarts, *l'Eminence Rouge* and the Penthievres remained poor.

Perhaps what is considered the pinnacle of Fernand's political career is his assistance in the dissolution of the *Parlements.* In February of 1741, Jean Fernand embarked on an elaborate political pacification of the *Parlement,* in which he fabricated a conspiracy in which dozens of bourgeois parliamentarians were embezzling funds through their positions and laundering it in Parisian bankhouses. In a swift stroke, he arranged the arrest of all the accused members and convictions were dealt in equal speed. With a sudden soil of public opinion towards the Parlement, it was quite easy for Marie IV to effectively dissolve the institution entirely, absorbing its legislative powers into the Crown, her council, and the three estates.

At the height of the Ten Years War in 1742, two of Fernand's sons, the *Duc de Berry* and *Comte d'Eau*, the former of whom had the rank of Admiral and commanded a fleet of twenty-one ships of the line and six frigates, and the latter, the young Louis Gabriel, served as his first mate on the flagship, *Formidable,* were killed in the Battle of Skagerrak, in which the Anglo-Grandelumierian fleet was decisively defeated by an outnumbered Swedish flotilla. *Formidable* lost her main-mast in a ferocious duel with HMS *Carlskrona*, and after crippling her Swedish adversary, *Formidable* was surrounded and sunk after her crew refused to surrender.

After the loss of two more of their children, Fernand and his wife, Seraphine, retired to Bizy for half a year in deep sorrow. They only returned after Madame la Princesse was demanded she resume her position on the Council, and in addition, Fernand was offered the position of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, along with a salary of sixty thousand livres.

Monsieur le Princes' final politcal feat was his participation in the final peace of the Ten Years War, The Treaty of Strasbourg. After remaining with the court and Empress at the front, without being a combatant himself, Fernand distinguished himself in negotiations alongside fellow European diplomats.

## Issue

* **Louis Chretien** Prince de Carignano (1720 - Present)
* **Emilie Christine** Mademoiselle de Penthievre (1721 - Present)
* **Jean Frederic** Duc de Berry (1722 - 1742)
* **Louis Gabriel** Comte d‘Eu (1723 - 1742)

* **Marie Isabelle** Mademoiselle d'Amboise (1724 - 1727)
* Stillborn son (16th June 1737)
* **Jean Alphonse** Comte de Guingamp (1737 - Present)

## Styles, Titles, and Honours

* **24th June 1702 - 16th May 1711** Chevalier de Diois
* **16th April 1711 - 15th December 1719** Comte de Diois
* **15th December 1719 - 27th May 1722** Duc de Penthievre
* **27th May 1722 - Present** Monsieur le Prince