The baron's ambition
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Dear Valued Customer,
Daffodils are in full glory at the Chateau. And last week, we planted 18 trees in the old paddock that surrounds the “Habitacle.” The Habitacle, as the 17th-century former Protestant Temple is locally known, stands on the grounds of Courtomer between the égliseof Vieux Courtomer and our haras and communs.
Long overgrown with rough grass and dandelions, the space now begins to take shape.
The trees we planted are tilleuls, lime or linden. These are the same essence or species that make up the pleached allées in the cour d’entrée.The trees in our allées are probably only about one or two hundred years old, but the allées themselves are described in a 1620 requête as embellishments of the original château féodal.
The trees “portent déjà grande ombre,” wrote the conseiller du Roi in his report describing the amenities of Courtomer. Already old enough to “cast great shade,” the lindens had been planted in the 16th century.
The repetition of tilleuls links past and present, the jardin d’agrément of days of yore with the landscape of today.
Perhaps, on an April morning almost half a millennium ago, the young heiress of Courtomer walked under the lime allées with her suitor as they courted in 1562.
Or perhaps, as was the custom, Léonore Le Beauvoisien only officially met Artus Cymont at their wedding day in June. She was, we hope, at least granted a glimpse at her futur from behind a curtained window as he strolled on the grounds.
No portrait exists of Artus or Léonore of which we are aware. But each was a “beau parti.” The French expression means a handsome marriage prospect. Artus was a comte in the Cotentin Peninsula with extensive lands; Léonore was an heiress.
François Le Beauvoisien, Léonore’s father and the baron of Courtomer, had been an ambitious nobleman, though short-lived. His story captures a moment charnière in the story of France, as it does of our Chateau and the landscape itself.
François was born a little before 1510, in the heady days of the “beau XVIème siècle.” France, with a succession of strong kings and a growing economy, had embarked on a pursuit of beauty, power, and territorial expansion. It was an age of ambition.
In keeping with the times, one of François Le Beauvoisien’s first documented acts was an official demand for the right to precede a rival baron at the Echiquier d’Alençon. He was still a minor.
The Echiqier was the duchy of Alençon’s high court, and the seat of its parlement. Members ruled over the affairs of the duchy, proudly free of interference from Normandy’s “first” Echiquier, which sat in Rouen. No other échiquier in Normandy had this privilege, and it had been confirmed by royal patent on more than one occasion.
At the time François Le Beauvoisien attended the Echiquier, Marguerite de Navarre was duchess of Alençon. Her husband, the duke Charles IV d’Alençon, had been a prince du sang, a prince of the blood. The dukes of Alençon descended in an unbroken male line from Saint Louis himself. Charles died, young, without issue. But Marguerite was the grand-daughter of a king. She kept Charles’ titles as long as she lived.
Detail from a posthumous portrait of Charles IV, duc d'Alençon. After a short, initially glorious career on the battlefield, he died in 1525. Coll. Chateau de Pau
Only noblemen and high churchmen were called to sit on the benches of the Echiquier, and each person’s place was an outward and visible sign of his place in the social hierarchy. The clergy sat to the right of the présidents and the juges. Among the seigneurs, seated to the left, the duke or duchess of Alençon naturally took precedence over all.
Meanwhile, a lowly baron was the first step up from the mere chevalier, or knight. Both must rest their jealous eyes upon the comtes, vicomtes, andmarquis seated before them.
By the end of the baron de Courtomer’s life, he enjoyed the satisfaction of extracting precedence over two more local barons at the Echiquier of Alençon.
François Le Beauvoisien had married well.
Marguerite du Bois, his wife, brought to Courtomer a sizeable dowry. She came with illustrious social prospects as well.
Part of her dot was offered by a relative, Jeanne de Lastre, who was dame d’honneur at court. The dames, chosen for their manners, temperament, and noble lineage, were companions to the French queen. And the queen of France, Eléonore d’Autriche, also called Leonor de Castille, was a particularly exalted personage. Charles Quint, King of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor, fabulously wealthy Emperador of the Americas, and traditional enemy of her husband, François 1er, was Eléonore’s brother. The Spanish Court, in its riches and courtly etiquette, set the standards for European majesty in the 16th century.
Meanwhile, Dame Jeanne’s husband was the queen’s Premier Maître d’hôtel. He was charged with the administration of her domaine, property which generated revenue for the queen from rents and feudal rights.
Two days after signing the marriage contract with the demoiselle du Bois, François Le Beauvoisien entered the glittering royal household himself.
Eléonore d'Autriche in a detail from a portrait by François Clouet, artist at the court of François 1er. Musée Condé
At feasts, it was Courtomer’s baron who sliced meat for the queen’s plate. He’d been awarded the charge of “écuyer tranchant,” the gentleman carver.
Such a post was neither merely ceremonial nor servile. The baron now had access to the royal ear as well as the royal palate. He could expect higher office, a more glorious title, a pension. There would be opportunities to be helpful, to build friendships, to make personal connections with powerful members of court. He would gain influence and a firm financial footing for his family maison, his own dynasty.
The Le Beauvoisien couple named their first child Léonore, a graceful gesture of gratitude to their royal patronne.
François 1er died in 1547. Queen Eléonore retired from court and soon returned to Spain with Charles Quint.
The baron’s services were no longer required. But Le Beauvoisien was still a young man, close in age to the new king Henri II.
“Jamais cour n’a eu tant de belles personnes et d’hommes admirablement bien faits, et il semblait que la nature eût pris plaisir à placer ce qu’elle donne de plus beau dans les plus grandes princesses et dans les plus grands princes,”
says the narrator of “La Princesse de Clèves,” the famous short novel written a century and a half later about love and court life in the halcyon days of the French Renaissance.
“Never had a court so many handsome persons and so many men so admirably well-made, and it seemed as if Nature had delighted in endowing with her most beautiful qualities the greatest princesses and most glorious princes.”
The court of Henri II represented the apogee of le beau XVIème siècle, the confident, cultivated first half of the 16th century, when, as the narrator continues, “the taste of François 1er in poetry and letters still reigned in France.”
François 1er brought to France the refined arts of the Italian Renaissance and the passion of the Italian humanists for the classics, literature, and science. Leonardo da Vinci was installed next to his château in Amboise. Le Primatice, Francesco Primaticcio, decorated the new palace of Fontainebleau. The king collected books, manuscripts, paintings and sculpture.
Sumptuous doorway at the palace of Fontainebleau, designed by Le Primatice for François 1er in 1535.
Not only was Henri II’s court, like his father’s, animated by beautiful women, admirable men, and the finest of the arts, there were games, feasts, dances, and other lively amusements.
And there was war.
Glory in battle, the spoils and favor to be won, the social distinction and dynastic advantages to gain, were opportunities eagerly sought by a young and ambitious nobleman.
The baron offered his services to the new king. He joined him in the Italian Wars. These had begun half a century earlier with Charles VIII, Henri II’s great-grandfather. Henri’s own father had entered the fray with a splendid victory over Milan and the Swiss in 1515, his first year on the throne.
Contemporaneous depiction of the battle of Marignano, great victory of François 1er and the French in 1515. Charles IV d'Alençon, fought with him.
But the wars did not continue in the same magnificent vein.
All Europe as well as England and the Pope was drawn into conflict over the next 44 years. Territories moved back and forth from one Crown to the next; alliances shifted; thousands were killed. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire ate away at the eastern edges of Charles Quint’s Hapsburg Empire, took Cyprus from Venice, and laid siege to Vienna.
The war stifled commerce; tax receipts fell. Yet soldiers must be paid and steadfast comrades in arms – like François Le Beauvoisien and his fellow capitaines -- compensated.
“Le peuple murmuraient” ; the public, ever more heavily taxed and subject to disette, food and other shortages, “murmured” with resentment that came perilously close to disrespect. And with disrespect came the alarming escalation of religious conflict and the prospect of a general questioning of authority. Perhaps the latter had been inadvertently imported with humanist ideas and ideals.
After a decade of fighting, the king and his opponents Elizabeth I of England, the duc de Savoie, and Philip II of Spain began to make peace in 1558. Fortifying the traité were several marriages. Henri’s elder sister Elisabeth was to marry King Philip. François Le Beauvoisien’s relationship with the former queen of France, Philip’s aunt, must have been useful.
But the baron of Courtomer never saw the fruits of the negotiations. He died the same year.
In 1559, the traité of Cateau-Cambrésis was celebrated with three weddings and a three-day jousting tournament. On the third day, although kings traditionally did not joust, the handsome, athletic king could no longer resist. He joined the tournament. Struck in the eye by a sliver from a lance, he died 10 days later. He was just 40 years old.
Before his death, Henri recognized Courtomer’s loyal military and diplomatic service, the “ayde de chevalerie du seigneur à present régnant et pour l’aide de mariage de la royne d’Espaigne.”
In thanks for the baron’s “military aid to the present reigning king and for aid with the marriage of the Spanish queen,” his sister, Henri II granted the baronne of Courtomer and her children tax relief on their inheritance.
François Le Beauvoisien had strengthened his position in court and in the duchy of Alençon. But his premature death left his widow and his estates with a problem. He had no son.
* * *
I closed my computer. The lack of an heir would be the tragic theme of France itself in the next half century. The repercussions would resound in Normandy as well. I’ll write more about what happened in that regard at Chateau de Courtomer.
Meanwhile, beside the stream that runs through the parc, the bleeding hearts that Monsieur Martyn planted two years ago have just bloomed for the first time. It’s a happy sight.
A bientôt au Chateau,
P.S. You might enjoy, as I did, this excellent recording of La Princesse de Clèves, read aloud by Marcel Bozonnet of the Comédie française.
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At Chateau de Courtomer, we are taking bookings for 2025 and 2026. We still have a few opening for the Chateau, Orangerie and Farmhouse for 2024. Soon, we hope to open our "petite maison," the gatekeeper's cottage.
Heather (info@chateaudecourtomer.com and +33 (0) 6 49 12 87 98) will be delighted to help you with your enquiries and dates. And Jane will be happy to preview the property on site. She can also act as your concierge.
English and French spoken.
We look forward to hearing from you.