Gaspar de Coligny

Gaspard de Coligny or Gaspard de Chatillon (Châtillon-Coligny, February 16, 1519-Paris, August 24, 1572) French nobleman, politician and military man who He led the Protestant Huguenot party during the French Wars of Religion. He was of the Calvinist religion.

Biography

Titles and origins

Count of Coligny, baron of Beaupont and Beauvoir, Montjuif, Roissiat, Chevignat and others, was better known as Gaspard de Coligny. His father was Gaspar de Coligny, a marshal of France who distinguished himself during the Italian Wars, and his mother was the sister of the constable Anne de Montmorency.

In 1547 he married in the chapel of Montmuran Castle, in Ille-et-Vilaine, with Charlotte de Laval, daughter of Count Guy XVI of Laval.

In 1552 he was appointed admiral of France and later, governor of Picardy.

Period under Francis I

In 1557, after the breaking of the Vaucelles truce agreed with Charles V and the French invasion of Naples, Coligny took command of the troops of Henry II of France during the battle of Saint Quentin. After the defeat, he was captured and imprisoned in the Ecluse, remaining two years in prison, during which he adopted the ideas of the Huguenots at the urging of his family.

Protestant leader

After becoming Protestant, he became leader of the Huguenot party together with the Prince of Condé.

In 1563 the assassination of Francis I of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, by Poltrot de Méré took place, and Gaspard de Coligny was accused of having commissioned it. Later, in 1567, he participated in another plot together with Louis I of Condé, Francis of Coligny and Guyonne XVIII of Laval: the persecution of Meaux against King Charles IX of France and the Queen Mother Catherine de' Medici. As a result, the king sentenced him to death and confiscated his property, but he left the court in the company of the Prince of Condé to go into exile in Burgundy, and later in La Rochelle.

Called by Charles IX of France, during the third religious war he took sole command of the Protestant party after the battle of Jarnac (March 13, 1569) where Condé was murdered. At Moncontour (October 3, 1569), Coligny was defeated by the Duke of Anjou, the future Henry III of France, but managed to flee to Languedoc with his troops, where he reorganized and formed the army of the "viscounts" 3. 4;. Coligny regained the military initiative and threatened Paris in 1570 from Charité-sur-Loire, then forcing the Peace of Saint-Germain (August 8, 1570), in which he managed to stipulate his readmission to the court and that of the Protestants in the administration.

This peace agreement was contested among others by the most intransigent wing of the Catholic party, which was concerned about its influence on Charles IX, to whom Coligny proposed to intervene three times in Flanders against Spain.

Attack and murder

On August 22, 1572, as part of the events prior to the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, Coligny suffered an attack that left him seriously injured when passing in front of a mansion that belonged to the Guises. There are several historiographical versions about those responsible for this act: Catherine de' Medici in person, the House of Guise or even by order of the Duke of Alba, representative of Philip II of Spain.

King Charles IX came to visit Coligny and promised him protection, but the insistence of his supporters in demanding justice made him doubt that it was not a new plot by the Huguenot party. It was then that the events of the night of August 23, 1572, known as the Saint Bartholomew Massacre, took place, during which Coligny, still convalescing, was murdered in his bed and defenestrated, beginning the fourth of the religious wars..

Recovery of your memory

In his honor, the Louvre Oratory was erected in 1802, currently located at the intersection of Oratorio Street and Rivoli, not far from the Louvre palace.

Today many of his descendants belong to various sovereign houses. His daughter Louise (1555-1620) married William of Orange-Nassau, Stadtholder of Holland.

Known images

We have received various portraits of Gaspar de Coligny, one by Jan Antonisz van Ravesteyn kept in the Rijksmuseum and an anonymous drawing in the National Library of France. Later in time, Gustave Crauck sculpted his image on the monument erected on Rivoli Street in Paris. We know of some engravings taken from the paintings and made after his death and only a few from his time portray Gaspar de Coligny on the occasion of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew.

In addition, we know of some medals such as the one made in 1821 by Raymond Gayrard, with very few being made during the character's time.