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Honore Armand de Villars

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Name
  
Honore de

Honore Armand de Villars
Born
  
October 4, 1702
Paris, France

Died
  
May 1770 Aix-en-Provence, France

Residence
  
Hotel d'Esmivy de Moissac

Occupation
  
Aristocrat, soldier, politician

Spouse(s)
  
Amable-Gabrielle de Noailles

Children
  
Aimable-Angelique de Villars

Parent(s)
  
Claude Louis Hector de Villars Jeanne Angelique Rocque de Varengeville

Don Honore Armand de Villars, 2e duc de Villars (4 October 1702, Paris – May 1770, Aix), Duke and Peer of France, Prince of Martigues, Grandee of Spain, Knight of the Golden Fleece, Viscount of Melun, Marquis of la Melle, Count of Rochemiley, was a French nobleman, soldier and politician.

Contents

Early life

He was the son of Claude Louis Hector de Villars and of Jeanne Angelique Rocque de Varengeville, and the grandson of Pierre de Villars. In 1721, he married Amable-Gabrielle de Noailles, daughter of Adrien Maurice de Noailles. They had only one child, Aimable-Angelique de Villars, on 18 March 1723. Maitre de Camp of a cavalry regiment and Brigadier in the Armees du Roi, he served in Italy in 1733 under his father's command. He carried back to Louis XIV the news of the capture of Milan castle. He was a member of the Academie francaise, succeeding his father in seat 18 on 16 August 1734.

He received the nickname "friend of Man" as a famous homosexual. Bachaumont noted, in his Memoires (5 May 1770) that "[the Duke of Villars] was taxed with a vice that he had made fashionable at court, and that had brought him very wide renown, as can be seen in la Pucelle". Voltaire, in the first editions of La Pucelle d'Orleans, mentioned him alongside the marquis de Thibouville, accused of the same vice, in the following verses:

Life in Provence

He succeeded his father as Gouverneur general des pays et comte de Provence and of la Tour du Bouc, holding that post from 1734 until his death. He lived in Provence, where he was protector of the Academie de Marseille, and rarely came to the Academie francaise despite his seat on it. Even so, he was a friend of Voltaire, D'Alembert and Duclos.

In 1750, as governor of Provence, he bought the Hotel d'Esmivy de Moissac, a hotel particulier on what is the Cours Mirabeau. The hotel had been built in 1710 by Lois d'Esmivy de Moissac, councillor to the Cour des Comptes on a prestige parcel of land, meant since 1664 for a "hotel du gouvernement". However the Duke of Vendome, the Governor to whom the parcel was given, finally preferred the isolation of the faubourg des Cordeliers, where he built his Pavillon Vendome. The facade was completed in 1757, for the duke of Villars, by Georges Vallon : its four columns, surrounding a monumental entrance, were (with those of the Hotel de Ville and University) the only ones that encroached on municipal space - the mark and privilege of the governor. Its staircase is adorned with the Villars coats-of-arms (stolen in 1980). From then on it was known as the Hotel de Villars.

However, Honore Armand mostly lived in Marseille and rarely came to Aix, where he was little-welcomed by the people and the notables, particularly by the Parliament of Aix-en-Provence. This ostracism was not due to his manners, common in that era, but due to the fact that he represented the king and did not waive any of the civil privileges that came with that role. This regal attitude irked a somewhat rebellious province that had only recently been joined to France, where Mirabeau was elected as representative of the Third Estate. However, by his will of 27 June 1765, Honore Armand left the town of Aix-en-Provence an important sum for the creation of a public library, a public gardens, a cabinet of antiquities and medals and a school of drawing. That school was immediately installed in the Chapelle des Dames, a dependent of the College Bourbon. He also left a statue of his father by the sculptor Nicolas Coustou for the hall of the public library - this sculpture was closed in in the Benedictine convent after the French Revolution and was forgotten until 1812, when it was put at the top of the grand staircase of the Hotel de ville.

His daughter, widowed soon after her marriage, ended her days in a convent and so Honore Armand de Villars had no descendents in the male line.

References

Honore Armand de Villars Wikipedia


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