Charles, Prince of Soubise

Charles
Prince of Soubise
Born (1715-07-16)16 July 1715
Palace of Versailles, France
Died 1 July 1787(1787-07-01) (aged 71)
Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, France
Spouse Anne Marie Louise de La Tour d'Auvergne
Princess Anne Thérèse of Savoy
Landgravine Victoria of Hesse-Rotenburg
Issue
Detail		 Charlotte, Princess of Condé
Victoire, Princess of Guéménée
Full name
Charles de Rohan
Father Jules, Prince of Soubise
Mother Anne Julie de Melun

Charles de Rohan (16 July 1715 – 1 July 1787), duke of Rohan-Rohan, seigneur of Roberval, and marshal of France from 1758, was a military man, and a minister to the kings Louis XV and Louis XVI. The last male of his branch of the House of Rohan, he was also the great grandfather to the duc d'Enghien, executed by Napoleon in 1804. Styled prince d'Epinoy at birth, he became the Prince of Soubise after 1749.

Biography

The prince was born at Versailles on 16 January 1715, the son of Jules, Prince of Soubise, lieutenant captain of the gendarmes of the Royal Guard, and of Anne Julie Adélaïde de Melun. The eldest of five children, he was styled the Prince of Epinoy till his father's death in 1724.

His parents died in Paris of smallpox in 1724, remaining his siblings, including Marie Louise, making them orphans. His sister lost her husband to smallpox in 1743.

He was entrusted to his grandfather Hercule Mériadec, Duke of Rohan-Rohan, who raised Soubise to the court, where he became the companion of Louis XV, who was the same age as he. One of his great grandmothers was Madame de Ventadour, via his paternal grandmother Anne Geneviève de Lévis; Madame de Ventadour, who died in 1744, was close to her great grandson.

He accompanied Louis XV in the campaign of 1744-1748 and attained high military rank, which owed more to his courtiership than to his generalship.[1]

Soon after the beginning of the Seven Years' War, through the influence of Madame de Pompadour, he was put in command of a corps of 24,000 men, and in November 1757 he sustained the crushing defeat of Rossbach.[1] Along with the failure to hold Hanover following the Invasion of Hanover (1757) this marked a dramatic turnaround for French fortunes as just months before they have seemed on the brink of victory.

He was more fortunate, however, in his later military career, and continued in the service until the general peace of 1763, after which he lived the life of an ordinary courtier and man of fashion in Paris.[1]

"Soubise" also refers to a culinary dish with a sauce made with a rice and onion purée, named to compliment Charles de Rohan, prince of Soubise: see sauce Soubise.

Marriages

Charles married three times:

References

  1. 1 2 3  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Soubise, Benjamin de Rohan, Duc de". Encyclopædia Britannica 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Ancestry

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, March 04, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.