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9 - Marie de Rohan, Duchess of Chevreuse : Schemer, Spy, and Wartime Fugitive at the European Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2024

Anne J. Cruz
Affiliation:
University of Miami
Alejandra Franganillo Álvarez
Affiliation:
Universidad Complutense, Madrid
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Summary

Abstract

Lady-in-waiting and confidant to France's queen, Anne of Austria, Marie de Rohan, duchess of Chevreuse (1600–1679), traveled between two enemy kingdoms: Spain and France. After a failed conspiracy against Louis XIII, the duchess abandoned France and moved to Spain in 1637 and years later to Brussels, the court of the Spanish Netherlands. She organized political opponents against Cardinal Richelieu and finally moved to London in 1638, where the leader of Richelieu's opponents, Marie de Medici, Henrietta María's mother, later came to live. On one occasion, for example, after meeting with Philip IV, Isabel of Borbón, and the count-duke of Olivares, she was sent to London to propose an alliance between Spain and England against France. This chapter investigates the purpose of the duchess's constant travels across several European kingdoms on her secret diplomatic missions.

Keywords: Marie de Rohan, duchess of Chevreuse, Anne of Austria, French–Spanish relations, Cardinal Richelieu

In the preface to his Madame de Chevreuse: Nouvelles études sur les femmes illustres et la société du XVIIe siècle, the nineteenth-century French philosopher Victor Cousin (1868) noted that two women stood out among Cardinal Mazarin's many enemies at the French court: Madame de Chevreuse and Madame de Hautefort. In contrast to the bad press they had received, Cousin's meticulous research led him to discover “two heroines who opposed Richelieu and Mazarin, the two most interesting actresses of the great drama of 1643.” Cousin's good intentions aside, he then went on to spend some ten pages listing all the pejoratives that contemporaries, historians, and novelists in later years had used to describe Marie de Rohan, “the schemer.” Most people are familiar with her image as a seductress thanks to Alexandre Dumas, whose The Three Musketeers features the duchess of Chevreuse as Richelieu's enemy, Anne of Austria's friend, and the lover of one of the musketeers, Aramis.

Marie de Rohan, duchess of Chevreuse (1600–1679) spent a significant portion of her seventy-nine years in cities in numerous European kingdoms that were sometimes at war with each other. Her travels from one European city to another shed light on early modern noblewomen's interest in journeying within and across borders for political reasons.

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Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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