Charles III de Créquy

Charles III de Blanchefort-Créquy, sieur de Blanchefort, prince de Poix, duc de Créquy (1623 – 13 February 1687) was a French diplomat and general.

Biography

Charles III was a member of the Créquy family. He was the eldest son of Charles II (died 1630) who was the second son of Charles I de Blanchefort (1578–1638) a Marshal of France.[1]

Charles III served in the French army during the Thirty Years' War from 1642 to 1645 and in Catalonia in 1649. After the siege of Orbitello (1646), he was made lieutenant-general of the king's armies. To reward him for his loyal service during the king's minority, Anne of Austria and cardinal Mazarin made him comte de Créquy and raised him to a peer of France[1] in 1652. The latter half of his life was spent at court, where he held the office of first gentleman of the royal chamber, which had been bought for him by his grandfather.[1]

Louis XIV of France promoted the comte de Créquy to a duchy-peerage in his favour, by letters patent at Melun in June 1662, registered with the Parliament of Paris on 15 December 1663, in virtue of letters of surannation on 11 December that year, and in the chambre des comptes on 12 April 1677. This peerage became extinct after the death of his only child Madeleine de Créquy, – it included the town of Poix, the viscountcy of Esquennes, the châtellenie of Agnières, and the lands and lordships of Arnehou, Blangy, Cempuis, Croixrault, Eramecourt, Escantu, Essilières, Frettemolle, Hélincourt, la Rue Notre-Dame, Saint-Clair and Vandricourt.

In 1659 the comte de Créquy was sent to Spain with gifts for the infanta Maria Theresa of Spain, and on a similar errand to Bavaria in 1680 before the marriage of the dauphin. He was ambassador to Rome from 1662 to 1665, and to England in 1677; and became governor of Paris in 1675. He died in Paris on 13 February 1687. His only daughter, Madeleine, married Charles Belgique Hollande de La Trémoille (1655–1709).[2]

While the comte de Créquy was ambassador to Rome in 1662 and there was insulted by the pro-Austrian pope Alexander VII in the Corsican Guard Affair. Alexander's Corsican Guard pulled down Charles' house, wounding his wife's servants and valets and killing one of Charles' pages. Louis XIV demanded that the governor of Rome, Alexander's nephew, come to apologise in person for this insult and that a pyramid be built in Rome in memory of the repairs.[3]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Chisholm 1911, p. 410.
  2. ↑ Chisholm 1911, p. 410, 411.
  3. ↑ Dictionnaire Bouillet, p. 475

References

Attribution

Further reading

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