François-Jules-Gaspard de Contades, Vicomte de Contades (29 December 1760 – 3 September 1811) was a French aristocrat and soldier who was known as the Chevalier de Contades.

Early life

Contades was born on 29 December 1760 in Angers, the prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department.[1] He was the youngest son of Julie Victoire Constantin de La Lorie, Dame du Plantis (1739–1828) and Georges-Gaspard de Contades, Marquis de Contades (1726–1794), a member of the Académie des sciences. Among his siblings were Erasmus-Gaspard de Contades and Louis Gabriel de Contades.[2]

His paternal grandfather was Louis Georges Érasme de Contades, Marquis de Contades, a prominent battlefield commander during the Seven Years' War who was made a Marshal of France.[3]

Career

He served as "Major en second" of the Infantry Régiment de Bourbonnais. In 1791, during the French Revolution, he joined the Armée des Émigrés, a counter-revolutionary armies raised outside France by and out of royalist émigrés, with the aim of overthrowing the French Revolution, reconquering France and restoring the monarchy. He served in the campaigns of the Army of the Prince of Condé.[4]

In November 1794, he was a Major in the regiment of British Uhlan Regiment, of which his brother-in-law, Louis de Bouillé, was Colonel. In 1795, he became Colonel of a Light Infantry regiment known as Talpaches de Rohan, raised by Cardinal Louis-René de Rohan (but owned by his nephew, Charles Alain, Prince of Guéméné) He later fought in the Régiment de Rohan in the service of Austria, reaching the rank of Major-General.[4]

First French Empire

In 1803, he benefited from the amnesty concerning former emigrants, following article 12 of the Sénatus-consulte of 1802. He resided at his family's Château de Montgeoffroy, which had been the property of the Contades family since 1772.[4]

Personal life

Portrait of his granddaughter, Valentine de Contades (wife of Honoré-Louis d'Albert de Luynes, Duke of Chevreuse), by René Théodore Berthon

On 9 March 1791, Contades was married, by contract, to Cécile Emilie Céleste Eléonore "Mérote" de Bouillé (1774–1801), a daughter of Marie Louise Guillemette de Bègue and François Claude Amour, marquis de Bouillé, one of King Louis XVI's generals who was a leading conspirator involved in the royal family's failed flight in 1791 (the failure of which forced Bouillé into exile).[5] Together, they were the parents of:

  • Constance de Contades (1792–1854), who married Jacques-Philippe Bernard de La Barre de Danne.[4]
  • Jules Gaspard Amour de Contades (1794–1861), a cavalry officer who married Gabrielle Adèle Alexandrine Amys du Ponceau.[4]

Contades died on 3 September 1811 in Angers.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Annuaire de la noblesse de France et des maisons souveraines de l'Europe (in French). Champion. 1854. pp. 201–203. Retrieved 30 March 2023.
  2. ↑ États détaillés des liquidations faites par la Commission d'Indemnité, à l'époque du 31 décembre 1827, en exécution de la loi du 27 avril 1825, au profit des anciens propriétaires ou ayant-droit des anciens propriétaires de biens-fonds confisqués ou aliénés révolutionnairement: Contenant, par ordre alphabétique, depuis le Département des Landes jusques et y compris celui des Pyrénées-Orientales (in French). Impr. Royale. 1828. p. 30. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  3. ↑ Capeille, Jean (1914). Dictionnaire de biographies rousillonnaises (in French). J. Comet. p. 421. Retrieved 30 March 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 de Courcelles, Jean Baptiste Pierre Jullien (1824). Histoire généalogique et héraldique des pairs de France, des grands dignitaires de la couronne, des principales familles nobles du Royaume, et des maisons princières de l'Europe. Précédé de la généalogie de la maison de France. Par De Courcelles (in French). p. 11. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  5. ↑ Paris, Société héraldique et généalogique de France (1899). Bulletin de la Société héraldique etʹgenéalogique de France (in French). Société héraldique & genéalogique de France. p. 629. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
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