Pierre de Villars

Pierre de Villars , known as the marquis de Villars , born with Paris in 1623 where he died the March 20th 1698, is a Diplomate and to advise State French.

Pierre de Villars, to whom one gave him, by courtesy, the title of marquis de Villars was the son of Claude de Villars, Mestre of camp and gentleman of the room of the king.

“Nobody of its time, wrote the marshal duke Claude Louis Hector, his son, did not carry the value at a more high point. It accepted with the war of large wounds, and had misfortune, then almost inevitable, to be committed in several particular combat, and finally in the famous combat of the dukes of Nemours and Beaufort. II killed the second of Beaufort (1652), and was obliged to move away. This event and the disorders which the civil wars brought in the kingdom disturbed the beginnings of its fortune. ”

When prince de Conti had the command of the armies, Villars was used in quality of general lieutenant in those of Italy and Catalonia. It was, with the judgment of Saint-Simon, the man of France best done and the best mine. ”

Its “air of hero” had made him give the nickname of Orondate, one of the characters of the novel of Cyrus by Madeleine de Scudéry with which his own wife was extremely dependant, and it is said that the nickname did not displease to him. Gallant and discrete, it succeeds extremely near the ladies and Francoise d' Aubigné itself did not see it with indifference.

In 1651, Villars had married aunt of the marshal of Bellefonds, the épistolière Marie Gigault de Bellefonds with which it had eight children of which Claude Louis Hector, duke of Villars.

This alliance with the family of an enemy man of all the ministers attracted their hatred to him, and especially that of Louvois.

Rejected by the obstacles which this last caused to him, it left the military career, and had recourse to the protection of Lionne to enter the diplomacy: after being employed near the princes of Germany and Italy, it occupied successively the embassies of Spain (1672 and 1679), of Savoy (1676) and of Denmark (1683), and was made everywhere estimate for approvals of its spirit and the probity of its character. Far from growing rich with the service by the State, it made obliged to sell two of its baronnies, and collected other fruits of a career honourably employed only the titles of advising State of sword, knight of the orders of the king (1688), and of knight of honor of the duchess of Chartres (1692).

He had written what he had seen in his two voyages in Spain; its relation, where Marie-Catherine d' Aulnoy had made loans, appeared under the title of Mémoires of the court of Spain since 1679 until in 1681 (Paris, 1733, in-8°) and without name of author.

Source

Ferdinand Hoefer, New general Biography , T. 45, Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1866, p. 166-7

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