Pierre Jeannin

Pierre Jeannin (1540 - 1622), statesman, lawyer and French, known writer under the name of president Jeannin , was born with Autun.

Biography

His/her father was an alderman who exerted, says one, the trade of tanneur ; he did not have that with his merit to arrive successively at the first loads of the magistrature, then in the place of minister of a large king. In the time of its rise, a prince who sought to embarrass it having asked him which he was the son, he answered: “ of deny virtues ”. After having studied the right under Cujas, Jeannin was accepted lawyer in 1569, and was chosen in 1571 to be to advise with the States of Burgundy. A particular rich person, there having heard one of his speeches, was so much charmed solidity of his reasons and his eloquence which he wanted it to have for son-in-law.

As it got information of what its pecuniary resources, Jeannin showing consisted its head and its livres : Here are , says it, all my good and all my fortune . At the time of the Massacre of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, it was called with the council held at the Count de Charny, lieutenant general of the province, which had just received in instructions two written letters of the hand of Charles IX against the Protestants of this province. Opinant the first, like young person and less qualified, it represented, says P. Saumaise, author of a praise of president Jeannin, who it is necessary to obey the sovereign slowly when it orders in anger, and concludes to send to ask to the king letters patent before carrying out orders also cruels : its opinion determined all the votes.

Two days were not past, that a mail brought defense to undertake in any way on the life and the goods of the partisans of the reformed Religion. Jeannin went to the States of Blois like deputy of the Third-State of Dijon and was one of the two speakers who carried the word for the Third-State of the kingdom, mission which it fulfills with honor. Having penetrated the ambitious and violent sights of the House of Own way, it made all its efforts to cross them, but the corrupt practice of the deputy who shared with him the functions of speaker was cause which one adopted in the states the proposal to urge the king to declare the war with the Protestants.

However the extreme zeal of Jeannin for the Catholic religion involved it in the party of the ligueurs : but was with the hope to save the State. Authorized by express order of Henri III to remain near the Duke of Mayenne, and admitted with the most intimate secrecies of this chief of the rebels, he unceasingly sought to contain it and prevent it from throwing itself absolutely in the arms from abroad. Without him and Villeroy, the States of Paris would have precipitated the France in irremediable misfortunes. A hand sacrilege having sliced the days of the last of the Valois, the heir to the crown was seen obliged to reconquer its States on its own subjects. The Maison of Austria believed that the moment had just carried out its dream of universal monarchy.

Charged by a council the seditious one with a mission for Madrid, Jeannin did not have a sorrow to recognize that, on both sides, the religion was only one pretext, and that Philippe II especially saw only one means there to remove the France with its legitimate king. Returned of this mission, he did not neglect anything to awake in all the hearts the love of the fatherland, almost extinct by fanaticism and the rebellion. He was about only members of a league who rejected the money of the king of Spain, fearing to be committed to serve this prince, with the damage of his country.

He also confused, by his courageous firmness, the intrigues of the Duc of Savoy, and the town of Marseilles tore off to him, whose this prince had gone Master by surprise. When it was a question of treating with Mayenne, in 1595, Henri IV made advances with president Jeannin, who after having sought to moderate the chief of the league in his ambitious intentions, remained to him faithful in its last cross-pieces. As Jeannin testified its astonishment to the flattering words addressed by the king to an old member of a league such as him: Mr. President, tells him Henri, I always ran after people of good, and I was well of it. The negotiation went quickly.

Henri III had given to Jeannin various places, and inter alia a responsibility of advising, then one of president to the Parlement of Burgundy. When the Combat of Fountain-Frenchwoman had carried the last blow to the league, Henri IV solved to stick Jeannin completely, knowing well that it would thus have a whole council in only one head. At the same time the king appointed it first president of the sovereign court to which it belonged already, but in the condition of treating its load, and of demolishing themselves some promptly.

Since this time, Jeannin did not leave any more Henri IV, and shared his confidence, its friendship even, with Sully, at the point to inspire with the famous superintendent a jealousy which bores in its memories, and makes it often unjust towards its rival. Remainder, in the letters concerning the service of the king, that Sully addressed to president Jeannin on various occasions, one finds praises of prudence and firmness of spirit of this last. The cardinal Bentivoglio known as of him

that he intended it to speak in the council with as well strength and authority as it seemed to him that all the majesty of the king breathed in his face.

Henri, complaining one day with his ministers that one of them had revealed a secrecy of the State, added, by taking the hand of president Jeannin who kept a noble silence:

I answer for the good homme ; they is with you different to examine you

It was one of those which worked with the clothes industry of the edict of Nantes. All the historians agree to praise his extraordinary skill for the foreign negotiations, skill higher than that of Sully. The superintendent, who was not annoyed to seize a honourable means to move away it from near the king, contributed to make him give very important missions in Holland, in the years 1607 and 1609. The main object which the envoy of Henri had to treat was the peace projected between the United Provinces and the Spain, which had accepted rather than to require the mediation of France. He spoke only about trêve ; but it regulated the conditions of them so as to make them equivalent to the solids advantages of a peace. By this treaty of the United Provinces, concluded in June 1609, and in which the king of England intervened also like guarantor of the execution, Jeannin was to some extent the founder of this republic. The general states thanked Henri IV solemnly for having sent a so wise and so enlightened minister to them.

When the king revives it with Fontainebleau, he embraced it, and presenting it to the queen, “ Voyez- this good man , says him he: if it happens that God has me, please rest on the fidelity of Jeannin, and passion. I know that il' has good of my people. ”

One intended this monarch to reproach “ for having always said good of him without him to make of it” what was not always exactly true: because it was by the positive order of Henri that Jeannin accepted the present which were offered to him by the United Provinces, and more once it had tested the benefits of the king. One day, the ambassador of Spain asking Henri IV which was the character of its ministers, in order to be able to treat more easily with them, the king known as of Jeannin: “ This one hides me nothing of what he thinks, and he thinks always just. ” It had given him the order to write the history of its reign: we have of it only the foreword, which is noble and full with direction. After the death of Henri and the retirement of Sully, Marie de Médicis rested on Jeannin for largest busy of its kingdom, and entrusted to him, with all the saving of the good king, the general administration of finances.

It gave an account of its management in the general meeting of the states of 1614. We have this speech under the title of made Propos , etc the excellent intentions of this minister, his lit sights, were opposed by the Italy NS which this princess had near it. One even saw it granting the distance of Jeannin to the heat of the requests of the Marshal's wife d' Ancre ; but it began again, in 1617, the place of superintendent, and spoke in the name of the king in the assembly about notable, held with Rouen the same year. It continued its services with zeal and fidelity until its death, to Paris the October 21st 1617. Jeannin left only little fortune to its family, which answers all the charges against its integrity.

We have of him its Négociations , published in Paris, 1656, in-fol. by the Abbot of Castille, his grandson, and at the Elzévir S, vol. in-12; in 1695, 4 vol. in-12, and more recently in Paris, 1819, 3 vol. in-8° with portrait. This collection is looked at as the best model which the policies and the negotiators can take: it was used as instruction with the Cardinal of Richelieu, which read the Négociations of Jeannin the every day in its retirement of Avignon, finding, said it, unceasingly to learn there.

In addition to the Praise published by Pierre Saumaise, Dijon, 1623, in-4°, one can consult, in the Antiquités of Autun , that which was done by Thirotix. Finally Guyton de Morveau gave of them one, which was will print Dijon in 1766, in-8°: it makes well know this character, because the author drew from the good sources; but the emphase of this speech can only add to the preventions against the kind of the Panégyrique S ordered by academies.

One still finds the Négociations of the president Jeannin in the collection of the Mémoires relating to the French history published by Misters Michaud and Poujoulat, with a rather complete note on their author by Mr. Severin Foisset. They form, with other works of president Jeannin, volume 4 of the series, Paris, 1837, large in-8°. Mr. of Mongis, public prosecutor at the imperial court of Dijon, pronounced with the re-entry.

Publications

Negotiations of Mr. President Jeannin . Paris at Pierre Small the 1656. These memories are especially important for the end of the 16th century and the reign of Henri IV. One can nevertheless consult them in connection with the General states of 1614, of the Assemblée of notable the of 1617, of the disagreements which have occurred between Marie de Médicis and Louis XIII

Sources

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