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- Jacqueline de Montbel d'Entremont (16 February 1541, in a house near the Louvre Palace, Paris - 17 December 1599, whilst imprisoned in the castle at Ivrea) was a French noblewoman. After her first husband's death, she converted to Protestantism and married Gaspard II de Coligny, who was later killed in the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre.
Jacqueline was the only daughter and sole heir of the Montbel d'Entremont family, a family with several fiefdoms in Savoy, Bresse, Bugey and Piedmont. Her mother was lady Béatrix Pacheco d'Ascalana, a young Spanish woman of Portuguese descent. Béatrix's father was Jean, count of Sifuente and duke of Ascalana, who was descended from Juan Pacheco da Silva, a Portuguese page who had gone to serve the prince of the Asturies around 1440, fought with distinction at the battle of Olmedo and was made duke of Ascalana by the king of Castille and Leon.[1] A drawing of Béatrix by Jean Clouet is now at the Musée Condé.[2] She was maid of honour to queen Eleanor of Habsburg (1498-1558), sister of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor - on the death of Eleanor's first husband Manuel I of Portugal in 1521 she remarried in 1530 to Francis I of France and moved her Spanish courtiers and ladies in waiting into the Louvre Palace - one of them was Béatrix. Louise de Montmorency, countess of Coligny and mother of Gaspard de Coligny was also in the Louvre at around the same time, whilst another of Eleanor's ladies in waiting was Diane de Poitiers, wife of the count of Brézé, daughter of Jean de Poitiers and Jeanne de Bastarnay and aunt of Claude de Bastarnay.
After the Duchy of Savoy was occupied by French troops in 1536, the lords of Savoy were all invited to the French court. Charles III, Duke of Savoy fell and was forced into exile in Nice, forcing the lords to abandon Turin and go to meet Francis I. One of them was Sébastien, count of Entremont and Montbel, lord of Montellier, Natage and Saint-Maurice. In Paris he met Béatrix and married her on 17 September 1539 in the presence of the Dauphin (the future Henry II of France), Jean de Menthon, Philibert de Gilly and Louise de Montmorency, wife of Gaspard I de Coligny.[3] Their only daughter and heir Jacqueline was born in Paris on 16 February 1541 and grew up in the Louvre until she was six.
When Francis I died in 1547 his widow Eleanor took refuge in the Spanish Netherlands, home of her sister Mary of Hungary. Béatrix and Jacqueline went with her and Jacqueline remained in the royal court in Brussels until she was sixteen, at which age she was chosen to be maid of honour to princess Marguerite of France (1523-1574), Henry II's sister and future duchess of Savoy via her marriage to Emmanuel-Philibert de Savoie. Jacqueline thus returned to the Louvre in 1557, whilst her mother moved to the château de Saint-André at Briord in Bugey.
The Duke of Savoy beat the French at the battle of Saint-Quentin in 1557 and two years later the treaties of Cateau-Cambrésis agreed to the gradual evacuation of the French occupation forces from Savoy and Piedmont. However, he had to fight hard to defend his territories from incursions by Protestant forces from Geneva and by French forces which still held certain strategic positions. He recalled the Savoyard noblemen who had been in the French court for the last twenty-five years and gave them posts in his new army and government. He also forbade Savoyard noblewomen from marrying foreigners or Protestants, so that estates of Savoy remained in Savoy's hands. His biggest prize was the comte de Montbel (they had a family connection and the duke had been baptised in the arms of the count's paternal great aunt in 1528[4]) and the duke demanded that he come to court for the duke to present him with the collar of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation. However, he placed two conditions on its presentation - "when she reaches marriageable age, Jacqueline must marry a Savoyard lord of identical rank and of Catholic religion. The safety of the States of Savoy is at stake."
First marriage[edit]
The French court became a battleground between Protestant and Catholic factions until 30 June 1559, when Henry II of France died of wounds incurred at a joust he had organised in honour of his sister Marguerite's marriage to Emmanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy. Henry's son Francis II of France succeeded him and his wife Mary became queen consort. Francis entrusted ruling the kingdom to princes of the House of Guise, accelerating the French Wars of Religion. He died himself in 1560 and his younger brother Charles succeeded him aged only ten years old. Real power lay with the regent, his mother Catherine de Medici and on 24 August 1572 the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre broke out.
Aged twenty, plans arose to marry Jacqueline to a French lord, despite her father's assurances that she would marry a Savoyard. Her mother favoured Claude de Bastarnay, the nephew of Diane de Poitiers, who she had served alongside as a lady in waiting to Eleanor. De Bastarnay, count of Bouchage and baron of Anthon, was the son of René de Bastarnay and Isabelle de Savoie (daughter of René de Savoie, known as "the Great Bastard of Savoy". In his Histoire de la Bresse et du Bugey, Samuel Guichenon states that the marriage "had great difficulty in succeeding, since -as the countess Jacqueline was extraordinarily rich and powerful in estates - the Duke of Savoy, her natural prince, wished her to marry one of his lords. However, king Charles IX having written in favour of the comte du Bouchage, their marriage took place on 16 February 1561.".
Basternay was kept away from his young wife fighting as a Catholic in the Wars of Religion and so the marriage remained childless. He was killed at the Battle of Saint-Denis, where the Protestant forces were led by Jacqueline's future second husband Gaspard II de Coligny. The 74-year-old constable Anne de Montmorency (1493-1567) was shot in the back by a Protestant whilst being captured - he was the uncle of both Basternay (his sister-in-law Isabella of Savoy's son) and Coligny (his sister Louise's son).
Second marriage[edit]
Jacqueline took refuge with her mother at Briord where she met her old friend the Savoy poet Marc-Claude de Buttet and Théodore de Bèze, previously part of the 'brigade of poets' who were the forerunners of La Pléiade of Ronsard, who she had previously known at the Louvre.[5] De Buttet had taken refuge in his village at Tresserve beside Lac du Bourget - he had been a protégé of Odet de Coligny and Margaret of France. He chose Béatrix Pacheco Da Silva as his muse and his platonic love, giving her the alter-ego of Amalthea. Twelve years later, Jacqueline d'Entremont arrived at Henry II's court and took over from her mother as de Buttet's muse on her return from Brussels. She may also have taken over the pseudonym of Amalthea, though historians are still divided on which woman exactly is behind that name.[6]
Théodore de Bèze was then a Protestant minister in Geneva, famous for his conviction and eloquence - he converted the countess of Entremont to Protestantism and she went on to abjure Catholicism officially at the Duke of Savoy's high court. Bèze was also a close friend of admiral Gaspard II de Coligny, leader of the French Protestants. They both took part in the Colloquy of Poissy between 9 and 26 September 1561, disputing with Catholic theologians - from then on all Coligny's actions were influenced by Bèze.
Despite the Colloquy's setbacks, Bèze and Coligny went on to get the twelve-year-old Francis II to sign the Edict of January 1562, also known as the Edict of Tolerance, which gave French Protestants official legal recognition and the right to gather for worship in certain villages. However, this settlement was broken by the Massacre of Wassy by Francis, Duke of Guise's troops on 1 March 1562 and the religious wars broke out again. Francis was stabbed by an assassin on 18 February 1563 and died of his wounds six days later - in his Histoire Eccleésiatique, Bèze wrote that "Solemn thanks were rendered with great rejoicings" for Francis' death.
On 3 March 1568 Coligny's wife Charlotte de Laval died - they had had eight children and he grieved deeply for her. Bèze advised Jacqueline to marry Coligny - she had met him many times at the Louvre since her return from Brussels in 1557 and knew him well, whilst both their mothers had both been ladies in waiting to Eleanor (Coligny's mother had been summoned to court for that purpose in 1530 and Coligny and his brothers Odet and François came with her and studied alongside the king's children).
However, Coligny was unenthusiastic about the match, feeling preoccupied by his campaigning, thinking that the twenty-three-year age-gap between them was too large and self-conscious about the major wound which he had received on 3 October 1569 at the battle of Moncontour against a royal force under the future Henry III (he had been shot in the face by the Rhingrave, though he had managed to fire back at point blank range and defeat him). Even so, Bèze insisted in a letter to Renée of Ferrara: "Mme d'Entremont is a lady endowed with virtues and God's rarest gifts, and is one of the richest jewels of the land in which she lives". He insisted on Coligny to "work towards this union as it pleases God" and managed to convince him.
In deep secrecy Jacqueline rode across France with a small escort, meeting no obstacles, and she and Coligny signed their marriage contract in the house of François III, count of La Rochefoucauld on 24 March 1571 in the presence of Jeanne d'Albret, Henry of Navarre, François de Bourbon-Conti and Louis of Nassau.[7] The nuptial blessing took place the following day, 25 March, at La Rochelle, then a Protestant fiefdom.
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1541 - 1599 (58 years)