Guillaume Gouffier de Bonnivet

Guillaume Gouffier, lord of Bonnivet (towards 1488 - February 24th 1525, Pavia) is a diplomat, courtier and military man French.

Biography

Wire of Guillaume Gouffier de Boissy ( Ca 1435-1495) and of Filipino of Montmorency, and brother of Artus Gouffier de Boissy, it “was, known as Brantôme, in good reputation with the armies and the wars, the mounts where it made his training; and for this, king (François Ier) took it in great friendship, being besides of nice and subtle spirit and very skilful, extremely well saying, extremely beautiful and pleasant fort, as I saw by his portrait.”

The diplomat

Favorite of François Ier, it reconciled the favor of this prince by the courage which it deployed with the Siège of Genoa (1507) and with the day of the Spurs (1513). After the Battle of Marignan, François Ier sent it in embassy in England, to corrupt Wolsey, minister of Henry VIII of England, and to decide this monarch to declare itself in favor of France. The following year, Bonnivet traversed all the courses of Germany to make elect François Ier emperor. Perhaps it would have secured all the votes, if it had been able to distribute the money with prudence, instead of lavishing it with an indiscreet glare; it gained some voters, and flattered a long time François Ier of the hope of success; but, to the news of the proclamation of Charles Quint, it left the castle which was used to him as asylum around Frankfurt, and flees with Coblentz. However, it less better was accommodated of it at the court, and was not created Admiral de France; with died of his Boissy brother, large host of France, it replaced it in the favor of the king.

He married the June 8th 1517 Louise de Crèvecœur, of which he had two wire. The elder one died prematurely, and the second, François Gouffier, marquis of Defend (? - 1594), became Marshal of France.

The countryside of Navarre (1521)

Courtier of the duchess of Angouleme, mother of François Ier, it obtained by his credit, in 1521, the command of the army of Guyenne, intended to repair the faults of Lesparre in the war of Spain. Bonnivet seized initially some castles located in the mountains of the Navarre, threatened then Pampelune, then, by a skilful walk, turned all-with-blow towards Fontarabie; it passed the river of Hendaye to the sight of the Spanish army, removed the castle of Bohobie, and was made main of Fontarabie, looked at then like one of the principal keys of Spain. In the middle of these hostilities, talks opened for peace with Charles Quint; but Bonnivet disadvised the restitution of Fontarabie, which it looked like a trophy of its glory, and it promised even to the king to make follow the catch of this city by the conquest of Saint-Sebastien. François Ier thus preserved Fontarabie, and the hostilities started again.

François-Eudes de Mézeray shows only Bonnivet to have made reject peace: “It is thus, says it, which a minister visionary and ambitious threw his king and his fatherland in an infinite succession of calamities.”

The courtier

Bonnivet was allocated to the court, and any more but did not think of enjoying its favor; of all the friends of François Ier, it was only to which one gave the title of favorite. It nourishes and was used the hatred of the duchess as Angouleme against the constable of Bourbon, of which it had attracted itself the contempt. The court going to the Castle of Bonnivet, in Poitou, whose admiral bore the name, and where it spread out greatest ostentation, the king led Bourbon in spite of him to it, and, arrived at Bonnivet, it asked him what it thought of this splendid castle: “I know only one defect there, answered the constable; the cage appears too large to me for the bird. - It is apparently the jealousy, known as the king, who makes you speak thus. - Me, jealous! bourbon answered; can I the being of a man whose ancestors held with honor to be riders of my house?” Indeed, the house of Gouffier was originating in the Bourbonnais.

First failure in the Milanese

Consequently become the most active enemy of the Constable, Bonnivet also contributed to its defection. The duchess of Angouleme did not have a sorrow to persuade with the king that Bonnivet would succeed better than Lautrec in Italy. It had the command of the French Army and penetrated in 1523 in the Milanese. Rather than to attack Milan, he preferred to make the blockade of them, in the hope to starve it; but the imperial army undertook to starve it itself in its Bonnivet camp was withdrawn beyond the Tessin, and by bad provisions, it let beat in Rebec the knight Bayard, which says to him: “Will do You to me reason in time and place, maintaining the service of the king requires other care.” Bonnivet did not answer this challenge, and did not believe to have to irritate Bayard, the oracle of the army. Pressed by the marquis de Pescaire, he entrusted even the retirement to Bayard, who saved the army with Romagnano, and was made kill. The evacuation of the Milanese was whole.

The disaster of Pavia (1525)

The historians see a new proof of the excessive credit of the duchess of Angouleme in the reception which the king made made in Bonnivet with the return of this unhappy countryside. When in 1524, François Ier undertook the conquest of the Milanese in person, it was still by the council of Bonnivet that it solved to make the head office of Pavia. Bonnivet was indignant at the idea of a retirement, suggested by the most tested generals, and, wanting to save to the king the shame of an escape, it made in the council, to determine the battle, a harangue that Brantôme preserved us: it carried the decision of the king. Then seeing the deplorable effects of the council which it had given, and the uselessness of its efforts to tear off its Master with the dangers which surrounded it, it raises the visor of its helmet, and, throwing a sad glance on the battle fields, it exclaims: “Not, I then to survive a similar disaster.” and short to precipitate in the middle of the enemy battalions, on February 24th, 1525. The constable of Bourbon, seeing the bloody remainders of his enemy, would have exclaimed, by diverting the eyes: “Ah! Unhappy! You are cause of the loss of France and myself!”

Anecdotes

Brantôme ensures that the countess of Chateaubriant was inaccurate to the king in favor of Bonnivet, and that the king having it surprised one day at it, he had only time to hide. Bonnivet liked the duchess of Alençon, sister of the king, who, knowing this inclination, did not offend himself any; but this favorite, not being able to touch the heart of the princess, was introduced during the night by a trap door into its room; the duchess defended herself with as well courage, and was helped if relevance by her lady-in-waiting, as Bonnivet was seen constrained to be withdrawn shamefully. She tells itself this adventure in the Heptaméron (4th news: under supposed names).

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