Jeanne Baptist of Albert de Luynes

Jeanne Baptist of Albert de Luynes, countess of Wart , was born the January 18th 1670 and died the November 18th 1736.

Biography

Girl of Louis-Charles of Albert, Duke of Luynes, and his second wife, Anne de Rohan - Montbazon, it had as a godfather, with her baptism in the church Saint-Eustace, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, which one gave him the first names. August 25th 1683, after an education with Port-Royal, one made him marry at the age of thirteen years and half Auguste Manfroy Joseph Hiérosme Ignace Scaglia, count de Verua (francized in Wart), colonel of dragons and Piedmontese diplomat who took it along with him to the court of Savoy to Turin and of which it had four children. Then the duke of Savoy Victor Amédée II of Sardinia fell madly in love with it towards 1688. It pushed back a long time its advances before yielding, betrayed by its family and “encouraged” by Louis XIV, and becoming its quasi-official mistress. They had two children who were both legitimated in 1701:

Victor François (1694 - 1762), marquis de Suze.
Victoire Francoise Marie Anne (1690 - 1766), Miss de Suze, married in 1714 with his/her first cousin Victor-Amédée of Savoy (1690 - 1741), prince de Carignan.

Whereas she enjoyed an enviable position and of a real political influence - she was undoubtedly the instigator, with the ambassador Rene de Froulay de Tessé of the choice of the wife of the duke of Burgundy at the time of the treaty of Turin of the August 20th 1696 - she organized with her two brothers a rocambolesque escape from Italy on October 4th 1700 to find refuge with the whole beginning 1701 in the convent of her aunt, Rue of Seek-Midday. It became widowed when her husband was killed with the battle of Hochstädt on August 13rd 1704.

It is told that, cured itself of an attempt at poisoning on behalf of enemies in Italy, it gave from there the remedy for M {{me}} of Ventadour, which contributed to save, in 1712, the future Louis XV of the Rougeole which carried his/her older brother, the duke of Brittany. This episode was worth the recognition and the friendship of Louis XV to him. Madam de Verrue became familiar of the court then. She was in particular the intimate friend of the duke of Bourbon and her mother, the princess dowager of Cop.

After having lived recluse during more than three years at the request of her husband, “the eccentric countess of Wart reappeared in the world and éprit then of a baron of fresh date, Jean-Baptiste Glucq known as of Saint Port strongly enriched with the Goblins” known as Saint-Simon, which advances that she married it secretly, which proven forever. Every year, when the court was with Fontainebleau, it remained with the Château of Holy-Base, that Glucq had with Seine-Port. She also remained with the Château of Cop to Cop-in-Brie at another of her close friends, the marquis Jean-François Leriget of Faye.

Friend of the letters, sciences and arts, it joined again bonds with a selected company French writers and philosophers, in particular Voltaire, which it admired.

In Paris, it installed the many received gifts when it was morfondait in Italy, in the hotel of Hauterive - destroyed since by the boring of the Boulevard Raspail - increased to acueillir an increasingly packed collection, and bought with the Carmes close to the houses which it progressively rented with relations. She held a living room to with it where were pressed the faithful ones like the abbot Terrasson, Rothelin, the Minister of Justice Chauvelin, Jean-François Melon, Jean-Baptiste de Montullé, the marquis de Lassay and his son Leon de Madaillan de Lesparre, count de Lassay and well of others which set meadows from her.

Its fortune having been still increased by the System of Law, it projected the plans of two twin hotels to make build by the architect Victor Dailly, whose 1 nowadays Rue of the Glance remains only the n°. That opening street of Seek-Midday, where the Conseil was held of war which judged the captain Dreyfus in December 1894, was demolished and its gate gone up with the park of Jeurre in the the Essonne. The hotel Wart that the countess never lived, was then to be located at the n° 8 of the street of Assas and its construction began only in 1740; just as the ceiling of its hotel of Aubeterre (as it had increased of a gallery to expose its objects), painted by Claude Audran, is today with the Musée of Decorative Arts.

She died in 1736. She did not forget anybody in her will, not even the exotic birds of her astonishing birdcage… One composed for her this epitaph:

Ci-to lie, in a major peace,

This Lady of Pleasure,

Which, for more safety,

the FIT its paradise in this world.

Collections of the countess of Wart

The countess of Wart had a splendid collection of masterpieces, objets d'art and pieces of furniture of price. She spent without hoping to buy engravings, jewels, invaluable stones (more than 8.000), coins, tapestries, snuffboxes out of gold, clothing… so much and so that she had to find place in an acquired house with Meudon. She ordered tables with many artists whose Nicolas Lancret, Alexis Grimou and had works of David Teniers, Antoine Watteau, and the famous Portrait of Charles I {{er}} of England of Van Dyck.

But the countess of Wart is especially known the like one of largest bibliophiles of her time. She preserved her books in a large fascinating cabinet day by two windows open on the garden of her hotel, in cupboards in marquetry of Boulle to the doors furnished with curtains of green taffeta She was to have approximately 18.000 volumes (in Paris and Meudon). This left library censured was dispersed in 1737. The catalog, drawn up by the bookseller Gabriel Martin, includes/understands 3.000 references, but of which only one very small number of volumes arrived to us.

Posterity

Alexandre Dumas made of the countess of Wart the heroin of its novel: the Lady of Pleasure; Memories of Jeanne d' Albert de Luynes, Countess of Wart (1863).
the connection between the countess of Wart and the duke of Savoy inspired film: the Whore of the king , film of Axel Corti, with Valeria Golino (the countess of Wart) and Timothy Dalton (the duke of Savoy), 1990. This film is inspired by the novel of
Jacques Tournier " Jeanne de Luynes, Countess of Verue" (1984).

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