Pierre of Forest (1490-1536)

Pierre of Forest , knight, lord of the Bar, Somont and Rumilly, baron of the Valley of Isere, Master of hotel, adviser and ambassador of the duke Charles III, governor of the castle of Chambéry, born towards 1490. He married Huguette de Somont, young lady of honor of the duchess of Savoy, marriage celebrated in Piedmont, the April 30th 1515, by monseigneur of Forest, large chaplain of the duke, in the vault of the Château of Carignan, in the presence of the duchess who gave thousand ducats of gold to the bride, and chaired the feast of the weddings, the tournaments and the festivals.

It was the junior by the two girls of Antoine de Somont, lord of Bardassano and Franca Villa, adviser, chamberlain and ambassador of the duke Charles I, governor of prince de Piémont, captain of the guards, and his first wife, Huguette de Varey, lady-in-waiting of the duchess of Savoy. Of his second wife, Marguerite de Bonivard, widow of Christophe de Luyrieu, wine waiter of the duke Amédée IX, Antoine de Somont had not had children, and had died, in 1509, without male, and last descendant of her name, which it bequeathed to his son-in-law, with the seigniory of Somont, all its goods of Savoy, its pieces of furniture, its tapestries and its crockery of money. In 1525, his/her German cousin, Louise de Duyn, widow without descent of the count de Valpergue, bequeathed to Pierre of Forest the baronnie of the Val of Isere, which extended on the Maurienne, the Tarentaise and the Vanoise, and included/understood all the high valley of Isere until the Piedmont and the Vallée of Aoste.

It included/understood eight parishes, Seez, Feysson, Holy-Foy, Grignon, Nepvaux, Tignes, Villaroger and Val of Isere, and thirty hamlets. The seat of the baronnie and the jurisdiction seigneuriale were in Seez, where the castle rose. Between 1526 and 1536, Charles III sent Pierre of Forest in embassy near several courses foreign. In 1531, it delegated it to Paris near the king François Ier. The king still held with the alliance of Savoy, it made warm welcome with the representative of its uncle, and named it ordinary gentleman of “his mayson and hostel”.

Guichenon writes that “Philippe of Savoy, duke of Nemours and Genevois, brother of the duke Charles II, died in Marseilles in 1532, and fust buried in the chorus of the collegial esglise of Annecy, on March 19th, 1533. Its undertaking fust very beautiful and after all the marks of size carried by differens lords suyvoit the body of the prince in a lead coffin covered with a curly gold drapt whose four ends were carried by the barons de Sallenove, of Hermance, the Valley of Isere and Rochefort”.

In June 1534, with a critical turning of the history of Savoy, the duke appointed Pierre of Forest his procurator special and plenipotentiary and sent it to the court of France with the title of ambassador extraordinary, to try to entreat the danger that the weapons menaçantes of François Ier made weigh on his states. The duke leant towards the alliance of Charles Quint, which was his/her brother-in-law. François Ier on the contrary was the enemy of the emperor and, in spite of his efforts, the envoy of Charles III could not bend the royal will and divert the storm close bursting. He died on his return of Paris, at the beginning of 1536, a few weeks before the invasion of Savoy.

(See the article on the House of Forest Divonne).

Random links: