Pardaillan, the name of an old French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 family of Armagnac

Armagnac (region)

The hilly countship of Armagnac , in the foothills of the Pyrenées between the Adour and Garonne rivers, is a historic countship of the Duchy of Gascony, established in 601 in Aquitaine...

, of which several members distinguished themselves in the service of the kings of France in the 16th and 17th centuries. Antoine Arnaud de Pardaillan, maréchal de camp, served Henry IV

Henry IV of France

Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....

 in Franche-Comté

Franche-Comté

Franche-Comté the former "Free County" of Burgundy, as distinct from the neighbouring Duchy, is an administrative region and a traditional province of eastern France...

, Picardy

Picardy

This article is about the historical French province. For other uses, see Picardy .Picardy is a historical province of France, in the north of France...

 and Savoy

Savoy

Savoy is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Monaco and the Mediterranean coast in the south....

, and was created marquis de Montespan in 1612 and marquis d'Antin in 1615 under Louis XIII

Louis XIII of France

Louis XIII was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority...

. His grandson Louis Henri Pardaillan, marquis de Montespan, was the husband of Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan

Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan

Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, marquise of Montespan , better known as Madame de Montespan, was the most celebrated maîtresse en titre of King Louis XIV of France, by whom she had seven children....

, the mistress of Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

. Louis Antoine de Pardaillan de Gondrin

Louis Antoine de Pardaillan de Gondrin

Louis Antoine de Pardaillan de Gondrin , marquis of Antin, Gondrin and Montespan , then 1st Duke of Antin was a French nobleman...

 (1665–1736), legitimate son of the famous marquise, became lieutenant-general of the armies of the king in 1702, governor of the Orléanais

Orléanais

Orléanais is a former province of France, around the cities of Orléans, Chartres, and Blois.The name comes from Orléans, its main city and traditional capital. The province was one of those into which France was divided before the French Revolution...

, director-general of buildings in. 1708, lieutenant-general in Alsace

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

, member of the council of regency, and minister of state. He was created duc d'Antin in 1711. The last duc d'Antin, Louis, died in 1757.

The Knight of Pardaillan is also a fictional character in the cloak and dagger novels Les Pardaillan by Michel Zévaco

Michel Zevaco

Michel Zevaco was a French journalist, novelist, publisher, film director, and anti-clerical as well as anarchist activist....

. A series which captured the attention of a young Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...

, who describes his imagination as being suspended in his autobiography The Words between the famous tragedian Corneille

Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...

and the knight-errant Pardaillan.