Philippe de Dangeau
Encyclopedia
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...
officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
and author.
Born in Dangeau
Dangeau
Dangeau is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France.-Population:-References:*...
, he is most remembered for keeping a diary
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
from 1684 till the year of his death. These Memoirs, which, as Saint-Simon
Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon
Louis de Rouvroy commonly known as Saint-Simon was a French soldier, diplomatist and writer of memoirs, was born in Paris...
said "of an insipidity to make you sick", contain many facts about the reign 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...
.
His Life and Work
Brother of Louis de Courcillon de DangeauLouis de Courcillon de Dangeau
Louis de Courcillon, known as the abbé de Dangeau was a French churchman and grammarian, best known for being the first to describe the nasal vowels in the French language.-Works:...
, he was born into a Calvinist family but converted very early in his life to Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
. He first gained repute for his skill at playing cards, to the extent that “jouer à la Dangeau” became an expression in the language of the time and he attracted the attention of Louis XIV. In 1665, he was named colonel of the king’s regiment, and accompanied him as an aide de camp in all of his campaigns. He became, in 1667, governor of Touraine
Touraine
The Touraine is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, the Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, :Loir-et-Cher and Indre.-Geography:...
and undertook several diplomatic missions to Trier
Trier
Trier, historically called in English Treves is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC....
, Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
and Modena
Modena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....
.
A patron of men of letters, he became friends with Boileau
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...
, who dedicated his Satire on the Nobility (Satire sur la noblesse) to him. La Bruyère
Jean de La Bruyère
Jean de La Bruyère was a French essayist and moralist.-Ancestry:He was born in Paris, not, as was once thought, at Dourdan in 1645...
depicted him in his Caractères through the traits of “Pamphile”.
He was elected a member of the Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
in 1668, despite not having published anything, and in 1704 he became an honorary member of the Académie des sciences, of which he became president in 1706.
From 1684 to 1720, he kept a journal on daily life at the court of Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
. Extracts from it were published by Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
in 1770, by Madame de Genlis in 1817 and by Pierre-Édouard Lémontey in 1818. It was whilst writing notes on these memoirs that Saint-Simon
Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon
Louis de Rouvroy commonly known as Saint-Simon was a French soldier, diplomatist and writer of memoirs, was born in Paris...
undertook to write his own Mémoires. The 19 volumes of the complete edition of Journal de la cour de Louis XIV appeared for the first time between 1854 and 1860.
In 1686, Philippe de Courcillon married his second wife Sophia Maria Wilhelmina von Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rochefort (1664, Wertheim – 1736, Paris), at Versailles. She was the daughter of Ferdinand Karl von Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rochefort(1616–1672) and his wife Anna-Maria von Fürstenberg (1634–1705). Together they had at least one son, also called Philippe de Courcillon, who fought at the battle of Malplaquet
Battle of Malplaquet
The Battle of Malplaquet, fought on 11 September 1709, was one of the main battles of the War of the Spanish Succession, which opposed the Bourbons of France and Spain against an alliance whose major members were the Habsburg Monarchy, Great Britain, the United Provinces and the Kingdom of...
(during the War of the Spanish Succession) on 11 September 1709.
Anecdote
Dangeau willingly lent his pen to the king and his entourage. The abbé de Choisy relates a time when Louis XIV asked him to compose his letters to Louise de la VallièreLouise de La Vallière
Louise de La Vallière was a mistress of Louis XIV of France from 1661 to 1667. She later became the Duchess of La Vallière and Duchess of Vaujours in her own right...
, and she asked him to perform the same service to reply to the king. The abbé relates the epilogue : 'He thus created the letters and their responses ; and that lasted for a year, until La Vallière, pouring out her heart, confessed to the king, who it was that was freely lending her so much of her wit, the best part of which she owed to their mutual confidant, whose discretion they admired. The king, on his part confessed that he had had the same idea.'
Family and issue
- First wife:Anne Françoise Morin married 11 May 1670 and had one daughter Marie Anne Jeanne de Courcillon who married Honoré Charles d'Albert de Luynes and were the parents of Charles Louis d'Albert de LuynesCharles Louis d'Albert de LuynesCharles Louis d'Albert de Luynes was a French nobleman and member of the House of Albert...
; present Duke of Luynes are descendants of Philippe; - Second wife: Princess Sophia Maria Wilhelmine zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rochefort married at Versailles on 26 March 1686 and had one son Philippe Egon de Courcillon' who married Françoise de Pompadour and had a daughter Marie Sophie de CourcillonMarie Sophie de CourcillonMarie Sophie de Courcillon was a French noblewoman and Duchess of Rohan-Rohan as well as Princess of Soubise by marriage. She was the grand daughter of Philippe de Courcillon, better known as the marquis de Dangeau. She was praised for being a cultured woman for the age and held a fashionable...
; Marie Sophie was the wife of Charles François d'Albert d'Ailly then Hercule Meriadec de Rohan, Duke of Rohan-Rohan; no issue.