François Sublet de Noyers
François Sublet de Noyers (1589 – 20 October 1645) was a French statesman and diplomat during the 17th Century. Closely associated with
Sublet de Noyers held the posts of intendant des finances, then of Secretary of war,[3] reorganizing the army in Picardie and Champagne, an example of the developing tradition of professional administrators in the kingdom.[4] He was superintendent of the Bâtiments du Roi, charged with overseeing all constructions undertaken on the part of the Crown, and a patron consequently of public art, but also a private patron.
Career
He came from an aristocratic family with a history of service to the French monarchy and an unshakeable
François Sublet de Noyers was the early protégé of his uncle, Jean Bochart, president of the
Distant relations of the Bochart de Champigny family with Richelieu placed François in the Cardinal's orbit, under the high patronage of Queen
With the sudden death of his wife he entered upon an austere private life that his detractors attributed to his having taken secret vows in the
At the time of his appointment as secretary of state for war to succeed
His extensive modernizing of the
Sublet de Noyers, who had rendered himself indispensable, was made superintendent of the king's architectural projects, the
Sublet de Noyers' recent biographer, Camille Lefauconnier, estimates that at the height of his career he enjoyed an income of approximately 50,000 livres tournois, from his official emoluments, from the rents on his properties in Normandy and in Paris, and the dowry of his late wife.
He divided his time among several residences, near the King at Fontainebleau, near the Cardinal at
In Normandy Sublet de Noyers abandoned by stages the château de Noyers constructed by his father to reside more and more during the 1640s at Dangu. This domaine was acquired in 1641[5] through an exchange forced upon the family of the duc de Montmorency, effected by his leverage as a creature of Richelieu. From a client of the Cardinal, he came to develop his own network of those who owed him favours, those whom he protected, those whose army commissions they owed to him, Above all he gained a reputation as a patron of the arts, gathering round him painters, sculptors and architects, the Intelligents, whose broad concerns were to impose a classical order upon French arts.
He was at the same time the protector of the religious establishment of France, headed by the Jesuits, with whose General at Rome he maintained a correspondence.
His disgrace
At the apogee of his power in 1642, Richelieu died. The King was unable to resist the cabal of Sublet de Noyers detractors, led by Chavigny and Cardinal Mazarin. He requested leave from court and departed precipitously in April 1643. The death of Louis XIII soon afterwards gave him some hopes of returning, with the favour of Anne of Austria, for whose account he continued his place at the Bâtiments, where he was disappointed in his expectations of reimbursement. He retired a second time to Dangu where he died, 20 October 1645, surrounded by friends and relations.
In the new reign, his reputation was eclipsed by the careers of
His branch of the Sublet family came to an abrupt end with the death in 1673 of his only son Guillaume, unmarried. His daughter Madeleine became a
Notes
- ^ O.A. Ranum, Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII: A Study of the Secretaries of State and Superintendents (Clarendon Press) 1963.
- ^ This article depends in large part on the abstract of Camille Lefauconnier, "François Sublet de Noyers (1589-1645) Ad majorem regis et Dei gloriam", thesis at the Ecole des Cartes, 2008
- ^ T. Sarmant and G. Lasconjarias, Les ministres de la guerre, 1570-1792: histoire et dictionnaire biographique 2007.
- ^ For context, and a reassessment of Sublet de Noyer's forceful role in modernizing the machinery of state usually ascribed to Michel Le Tellier, , see Richard Bonney, Political Change in France under Richelieu and Mazarin, 1624-1661 (Oxford) 1971.
- ^ Theodore Reff, "Puget's Gallic Hercules" Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 29 (1966), pp. 250–263, p. 251 supplies the date and the information on the Montmorency's successful suit to repossess it (below).
- ^ Reff 1966, p. 251 (with citation), uses this to eliminate Guillaume as a possible patron of Pierre Puget's Hercules.