Jean of the Chechmates of Montmartin

Jean of the Chechmates of Montmartin , lord of Terchant and Montmartin, gentleman and French soldier, husband of Marie de Feschal, 1575, died in the Château of Terchant the October 26th 1625 with Fillet-the-Gravelled and buried with Vitré;

Biography

Protestantism

He embraced the reformed Religion at once that it started to be professed in Brittany. But, forced to withdraw itself from the persecutions exerted against those of its sect, it took refuge in Germany, from where it returned only in 1576, with Guy XIX of Laval, count of Laval, following the edict of Loaches.

Governor of Glazed

Named in 1589 governor of Glazed, the only city which held then with Brest and Rennes for Henri IV, it rendered great services to this prince until the whole pacification of Brittany.

Wars of religion

The city of Glazed having been invested in July 1590 by the member of a league S, which had strengthened the houses of the gentlemen of the surroundings, Montmartin, inconvenienced of this vicinity, made leave artillery and, after having taken or shaved these houses, it cut in parts 200 men brought by two captains members of a league to the help of those which had been established there. Little time after, the garrisons of Ferns and Châtillon formed a company on the Château of Glazed, which they tried to surprise during the night; Already 40 of the enemies had penetrated in the castle; but, betrayed by that even which had introduced them, they all were killed or made captive. This bad success did not reject the Duc of Mercœur.

Knowing that Montmartin was near the king, it was brought together with Of Breil, which ordered in the absence of this last. Of Breil the ear lent to the proposals of the duke and agree to deliver the castle to him. This treason would have succeeded without the presence of mind and the courage of an officer named Raton , which killed the traitor and with the assistance of three soldiers made fall through its projects.

In 1591, after having made, in.liaison.with Molac, the seat of Plimeu, which was forced to capitulate, Montmartin, then Brigadier in the army of the prince de Dombes, went to the meeting of the duke of Mercœur, which advanced to take again Guingamp. In a council which the prince held the June 21st, the opinion stated by Montmartin was approved and decided fate of the battle. However the artillery of the members of a league, more and been useful better than that of the royalists, initially made release foot with the latter. Montmartin, realizing some, laid out at once the army of such kind, that, as of the first load, it took again with the point of the sword the ground which the enemies had just gained. Its second load was so terrible that it forced the infantry of the duke of Mercoeur to fold up behind the Spanish S, its allies. Montmartin made sound the retirement only after having made a great carnage of the enemies and to have continued them as much as it could it.

At a few days from there, the prince of Bombes having solved to attack Lamballe, Montmartin endeavoured from of to dissuade it. Its representations were not listened, and the seat started. Montmartin was dangerously wounded there. However it did not give up Lanoue, wounded itself mortally a little later and it did not cease lavishing to him care until its last sigh. Determined by the death of Lanoue to raising the Head office of Lamballe, the prince of Bombes started himself towards Rennes. Arrived at Saint-Méen, distant of six miles this city, it was soon in the presence of the duke of Mercœur. If the prince, less circumspect, had attacked the members of a league, surprised with the improvist, it was done by it them. The duke, benefitting from his inaction, folded up himself, with two miles, on Saint-Jouan. Made bolder by the arrival of a reinforcement of 200 gentilshomme, the prince decided finally with the combat. Montmartin, by its orders, was in charge of the provisions of the battle. It arranged the army in a moor, placed its guns on a small height, and divided its troop into four bodies, whose French formed the two first, the English the third and the Lansquenet S the last. Success that, thanks to these skilful provisions, one obtained as of the first load, would have, this time still, followed victory, if the prince, always irresolute, had not wasted an invaluable time to discuss with his council instead of acting. The retirement was carried out under frivolous pretexts, and Montmartin, sent in front of Châtillon to make the seat of it, invests the place, which capitulated after besieging them seven to eight hundred blows had drawn from gun. While conditions of the capitulation were treated, almost all besieged were massacred, except for some guards of the duke of Mercœur, which were among them and which Montmartin succeeds in returning healthy and safe.

Craon, Glazed

The following year the prince de Dombes and the Prince de Conti reflect the seat in front of the town of Craon; the Duke of Mercoeur, benefitting from the disagreement which reigned between them, attacked them the May 22nd and gained a complete victory.

See also: Battle of Craon

Montmartin was not then in Brittany. It had accompanied Henri IV with the Siège by Rouen, and this prince, badly forecasting company on Craon, had not wanted to grant so that the governor of Glazed moved away from him. But, when he learned the defeat from the princes, he made it leave for Vitré, so that he reassured by his presence this city whose position was so advantageous for him. Montmartin was put at once on the way, crossed the camp of the duke of Mercoeur and was returned in six days with Vitré.

It strengthened the suburbs of them, where it placed the English, the majority wounded or disarmed, threw 1.200 men in the city, and made so that the duke of Mercœur, which counted, to the favor consternation produced by the rout of the princes, on an immediate rendering, considered it careful to move away and go to besiege Malestroit. Called too late by the Duke of Montpensier to help this place, Montmartin moved towards Dinan, where 300 Lorraine lately entered to Brittany were, charged them and removed their districts to them after their having made wipe some losses. The Marshal of Aumont, named the same year ordering in Brittany, had rather arrived in this province only, yielding to the authorities of the town of Angers and touched made cruelties the every day by two gang leaders which afflicted the country, it solved to besiege them in their den. It was the small town of Rochefort, located on the edge of the the Loire, below Angers. Montmartin was in charge of this forwarding. It obtained initially some successes, and besieged, tightened of all shares and reduced to large a Disette, would have been forced to capitulate if it had been exclusively in charge of the operations of the seat.

But approach of the winter, and the defect of agreement between prince de Conti and the marshal of Aumont, who had come to join it, involved the lifting of the seat. In 1593, it attended the states held with Rennes, and took part in the deliberations, of which one of most important had as a result to send deputies to the queen Elisabeth and the general states of Holland, in order to obtain from them helps of men and money. Montmartin, indicated like one of them, went near the king to inform him of this deliberation. Henri IV having given his adhesion to negotiations that the deputies were to continue in England and Holland, they left with February, and, half by firmness, half by address, non-seulement they obtained of Elisabeth revocation of recall of its troops, but they succeeded to make to fail all attempts of this princess and of its ministers so that city from Brest, from which they claimed wrongfully that the governor Soudéac was devoted for them, received a number of English equal to that of the French forming the garrison. All that they granted in exchange of a new help of 5.000 men, it was to add the island of Bréhat to the small town of Paimpol, which already the English occupied. Of London, the deputies went in Holland, then in war with the Spain, which prevented them from obtaining general states of the immediate helps.

Command

The delegation, whose Montmartin was the most active member and most influential, was of return in Brittany to June 1594. Towards the end of this year, the king having sent in Brittany three regiments, three companies Swiss-and three companies of dragons, Montmartin was charged to take the command of these troops and to confine them in Rennes or in the surroundings. At the beginning of the year 1595, it accepted order to lead them to the marshal of Aumont, which had remained with Quimper since the catch of the Fort of Crozon. As soon as Montmartin was with Châtelaudren, it delivered opinion of its walk to the marshal, who him enjoignit to invest Corlay, city with the capacity of the league or rather of the brigand Fontenelle, which, to divert the storm, rocked Montmartin the idea of its tender to the king. This trick, to which he resorted in the hope to be promptly helped by the Spaniards, did not have any success at Montmartin, who rejected his offers, encircled the city and contained it in the castle. A stratagem that Montmartin employed after the arrival of the marshal having determined Fontenelle to capitulate, the Low-Brittany was thus delivered for some time of the armed robberies of this monster.

In 1596, Anne of Alegre, countess of Laval, dedicated Calviniste, thinking that his/her son Guy XX of Laval, which had gone close it king, was going to embrace the Catholic religion and suspecting that Montmartin would do as much of it, benefitted from the absence of this last to make itself main, the intelligence with the inhabitants, of the city of Glazed. But Henri IV restores Montmartin and compensated it for this mishap by a gift of ten thousand ecus, of which the countess was condemned to pay half. The king, who had appreciated fidelity with any test of Montmartin, attached it to his person, while preserving his government to him, which he exerted by his lieutenants.

When in 1597 Henri IV felt the need for putting a term at the misleading promises of the duke of Mercœur, in order to arrive at the whole pacification of Brittany, it was Montmartin which it chooses to lay out the spirits with the war that it contemplated. Appointed police chief of the king close to the states of the province, it there made note the expenditure of the war and supplemented its mission with Saint-Malo, whose inhabitants offered themselves to provide to the king artillery and the money which it would need. After the separation of the states, it followed the Maréchal of Brissac to the Siège of Dinan, contributed with Molac to the catch of this city, of which it regulated the capitulation. He was then the chief negotiator whom the duke of Mercœur employed Henri IV to determine to subject itself; its firm and skilful control obtained the approval of the king.

Memories

II does not appear to have remained in Brittany after it had entirely returned under the obedience of Henri IV. Montmartin left an account of the events to which it took share, under this title: Memories of Jean of the Chechmates, lord of Terchant and Montmartin, governor of Glazed, or Relation of the disorders arrived to Brittany since the year 1589 until in 1598 . '

Many documents prove that the marshal resided in the last part of his life at the Château of Terchant and confirms the opinion stated by the Abbé Angot that it wrote his Mémoires there. These Mémoires is in the Supplément with the Evidence of the history of Brittany of dom Morice and dom Taillandier

One is unaware of if the death of Montmartin preceded or followed the publication of a work which appeared under its name, heading State of those of the religion in France , Paris, 1615, in-8°.

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