Charles de Rohan, prince de Soubise

Charles de Rohan, prince de Soubise (1715 - 1787), duke of Rohan-Rohan, Marshal of France in 1758, lord of Roberval, is a man of war, Minister for the kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, libertine.

Last male of its branch, it is also the back grandfather of last prince de Condé, the duke of Enghien, carried out by Napoleon in 1804.

The sauce Soubise owes him its name.

First years

Prince de Soubise is born in Versailles on July 16th, 1715. He is the son of Jules François Louis de Rohan, prince de Soubise and Prince de Guéméné, captain-lieutenant of the gendarmes of the guard of the king and AsAdélaïde of Melun. His/her parents die in Paris of the small pox in 1724, Soubise thus became orphan at the nine years age. He is then entrusted to his grandfather Hercules-Mériadec de Rohan (1669-1749) prince de Soubise, which raises it at the court where Soubise becomes the companion of Louis XV who has the same age.

Military career and policy

Soubise starts soon one fulgurating career: gray musketeer at 17 years, captain at 18 years, sergeant with 25, brigadier to 28. Aide-de-camp, close friend of Louis XV and protected from Madam de Pompadour, it takes part in the Bataille of Fontenoy in 1745 and it is named general lieutenant in 1748, one year before inheriting the seigniory of Roberval, Rhuis and Saint-Germain.

Very attached to its seigniory of Roberval, it undertakes many work of embellishment there. In same time, Louis XV appoints it general governor of the Flanders and the Hainaut, governor, chief and large baillif of Lille (1751). He dislocated himself during this year of the Champagne government. In 1755, Louis XV appoints it minister of state, by making it sit with the Council of In-high.

In 1756, Austria starts a war while wanting to take again the Silesia with Frederic II of Prussia. Prince de Soubise is sent by Louis XV to help Austria but it is first of all made beat by Prussia with Rossbach in 1757. Soubise is there unable to coordinate the action of its troops. The advertisement of this disaster is the occasion, in France, to make fun of the incompetent Favori of the marchioness of Pompadour.

Soubise takes its revenge in 1758 with Sondershausen and Lutzelberg and receives for these feats of arms the title of Marshal of France, minister of state, par, captain and general lieutenant of the provinces of Flanders and Hainaut. In 1761, Soubise orders the army of the Rhine which counts 110.000 men. It beats Brunswick in Joannisberg in 1762. The Guerre Seven Year old ends in the Traité of Hubertsbourg, signed between the German France, Austria and princes and gives Silesia to Frederic II. After this war, Soubise becomes very in favor near Madam of Barry. “Protected” by the favorite ones from the king, it profits from all the favors of the court. In 1774, with died of Louis XV, the new king Louis XVI confirms Soubise in his post of minister of State.

Initially very shaken by the bankruptcy of his son-in-law, prince de Guéménée, then splashed at the time of the scandal of the Business of the collar of the queen who touches another relative, his cousin the cardinal of Rohan, prince de Soubise withdraws businesses and must leave the Council of Ministers. He dies in Paris 3 years later, on July 1st, 1787, struck of one apoplexy at the 72 years age. Of its three marriages, it had two girls. Madam de Guéméné and Charlotte marries Louis V Joseph de Bourbon-Cop. The branch of Rohan-Soubise thus dies out with him.

Personality with multiple facets

Prince de Soubise was a man of great courage in his military career, but if it always did not have a great strategic genius, it was brave, untiring, exact on the discipline. It was very human towards its soldiers. He writes for example in 1755: " I fear that the troops of ressentent" ; " it would be great damage to expose them to the maladies" ; " the troops are beautiful and full with good volonté" ; " to take care preferably of all with the conservation of the troupes" … It handled the euphemism elegantly: to describe an escape of its army in front of the enemy, he writes “the infantry fought without eagerness and yielded to his inclination for the retirement… ”. He was not always appreciated by the soldiers: the general Dumouriez wrote in 1791: “prince de Soubise is the richest lord of France. This general is a national plague, nothing does not reject it; he has beautiful being dishonoured and faded by the songs, the gibes and the curses, he has a constant and inalterable ambition. The insults and the jokes were pushed until indecency, one made a large collection, entitled Soubisade of it”!

Soubise carried out an agitated love life. In 1734, it Marie with a 12 year old child (it has some 19), it loses it later five years, remarie in 1741 with a 24 years old princess (it has 26 of them), it loses it later she also four years (she dies in layers) and finally it Marie in 1745 with another princess. Like her husband, the latter has a very free love life. In 1757, it is stopped in Tournai by order of the king, whereas it fled with 900.000 books of diamonds and jewels to go to join her lover! Soubise, exceeded, returns it in his/her parents with 24.000 books of pension.

Soubise was not by a very faithful husband towards his three successive wives, he was a large seducer of women and very young girls: he maintained Miss Guimard “in the most elegant luxury and most incredible” and Miss Zacharie 15 years old became her mistress whereas he had 69 of them.

Libertine, therefore, prince de Soubise was also a large bibliophile. He represented the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment extremely well, as the correspondence of Voltaire attests it which did not fear to make pass to Soubise specimens the irreligious wording which were manufactured with Ferney.

Music lover, it is Soubise which made install the first bandstand of France (invented by Lord Ranelagh in England), in the gardens of the Parisian castle of the Dumb woman, of which he was governor.

As for the sauce Soubise that the cooks know well, it, who knows, was perhaps tested with Roberval. At the time when it was elegant to be a cook, the Soubise gastronome had a glory with sauce with the onions of which it decorated his ducklings… Thus was born the Soubise sauce, which as well accompanies hard-boiled eggs as some roast of veal or vegetables.

Its splendid Parisian hotel shelters the Public records today, street of Francs-Bourgeois.

See too

Internal bonds

Family of Rohan

External bonds

Biography of the prince de Soubise

Sources

photographic and historical Inventory of the inheritance on the commune of Roberval (2003), with the pleasant authorization of Jean-Marc Popineau, president of the Hyphen Robervallois

Random links: