La Trémoille Family

La Trémoille Family, noble family that contributed numerous generals to France. The family’s name was taken from a village in Poitou (modern La Trimouille). A Pierre de La Trémoille is recorded as early as the 11th century, but the family’s ascendance dates from the 15th century. Early family members fought in several crusades. Gui (d. 1397) went with John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, on the crusade to Hungary, was taken prisoner by the Turks at the battle of Nicopolis, and died in Rhodes on his way back to France. His son Georges (c. 1382–1446) first brought the family to prominence, serving as an adviser to Charles VII. He obstructed Joan of Arc’s efforts to defeat the English and their Burgundian allies in the campaigns of 1429–30.

Georges de La Trémoille’s son Louis I (c. 1431–83) brought the so-called principality of Talmont and the viscounty of Thouars into the family by marriage. His son Louis II (1460–1525) won a reputation for outstanding chivalry. Nicknamed le chevalier sans reproche (“the blameless knight”), he defeated rebellious French princes during Charles VIII’s minority at Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier (1488) and served gloriously in the Italian campaigns until his death in the Battle of Pavia.

Because Louis’s son had been killed in the Italian campaign at Marignan in 1515, his grandson François (1502–41) succeeded to the family estates. Through his marriage to Anne de Laval, granddaughter of Frederick of Aragon, deposed king of Naples, the family derived its pretension to the kingdom of Naples and the claim to recognition at the French court as foreign princes. François’s children were the founders of three branches of the house. Louis III (1522–77), founder of the house of Thouars, was made Duke de Thouars in 1563; his descendants were Dukes de Thouars and de La Trémoille as well as Princes de Talmont and de Tarentes. Another son, Georges, established the house of the Marquis de Rohan and the Counts d’Olonne, while Claude (d. 1566) founded the branch of Noirmoutier.

Louis III’s son Claude (1566–1604) at first fought in the campaigns against the Huguenots under Henry III but then changed sides, joining the Protestant king of Navarre, Henry III, in 1586. After Henry de Navarre became King Henry IV, of France, Claude was made a peer (1595).

Descendants of this line continued to distinguish themselves at war. Claude’s grandson Henri-Charles (1620–72) fought against the crown in the Fronde (1648–53), a revolt that began in the Parlement of Paris against royal absolutism. Charles-Bretagne-Marie-Joseph (1764–1839) and his brother Antoine-Philippe (1765–94) were staunch royalists during the French Revolution. Both fought in the counter-revolutionary insurrection in the Vendée (1793–96).