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959J Neuchâtel (Suisse)

Jugemens souverains rendus en l’année 1672 par les trois Estats de la Souveraineté de Neuf-Chatel et de Vallengin en Suisse : au profit de Madame la duchesse de Longueville curatrice de Monsieur le duc de Longueville son fils, contre Madame la duchesse de Nemour.

Neuchâtel (Suisse) No place, No printer 1674?                

                                                                       Price$900

Quarto23 x 17 cm. Signatures: A-D⁴,E².(34p) Disbound. 

A rare political-legal pamphlet documenting a succession dispute within the house of Orléans-Longueville concerning the principality of Neuchâtel. The text prints the sovereign judgments rendered in 1672 by the Three Estates of Neuchâtel and Valangin confirming the authority of Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé, Duchess of Longueville sister of the Great Condé and later patroness of the Jansenists as guardian of her minor son, the Duke of Longueville, against the claims of Marie d’Orléans, Duchess of Nemours. The rulings affirm that the duchess’s legal guardianship, grounded in royal letters patent of Charles IX and Henry III, extended not only within France but also to Longueville possessions situated abroad, notably in the Swiss principality of Neuchâtel. The pamphlet thus illustrates the intersection of dynastic law, cross-border sovereignty, and the political authority exercised by elite women in the later seventeenth century.

Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé, duchess de Longueville (born Aug. 28, 1619, Vincennes, France—died April 15, 1679, Paris) was a French princess remembered for her beauty and amours, her influence during the civil wars of the Fronde, and her final conversion to Jansenism. Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé was the only daughter of Henri II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, and Charlotte de Montmorency. She was born in the prison of Vincennes, into which her father and mother had been thrown for opposition to Marshal d’Ancre, the favourite of Marie de Médicis, who was then regent in the minority of Louis XIII. She was educated with great strictness in the convent of the Carmelites in the Rue Saint-Jacques at Paris. Her early years were clouded by the execution of the Duke de Montmorency, her mother’s only brother, but later her parents made their peace with Cardinal de Richelieu; introduced into society in 1635, she soon became one of the stars of the Hôtel Rambouillet, at that time the centre of all that was learned, witty, and gay in France.  In 1652, the last year of the war, the duchess was accompanied into Guyenne by the Duke de Nemours, and her intimacy with him gave La Rochefoucauld an excuse for abandoning her. Thus abandoned, and in disgrace at court, she betook herself to religion. She lived chiefly in Normandy until 1663, when her husband died and she came to Paris. There she became more and more Jansenist in opinion and became the great protectress of the Jansenists. Her famous letters to the pope are part of the history of Port Royal, and as long as she lived the nuns of Port Royal des Champs were left in safety. Her elder son resigned his title and estates and became a Jesuit under the name of the Abbé d’ Orléans, while the younger, after leading a debauched life, was killed leading the attack in the passage of the Rhine in 1673. As her health failed, the duchess hardly ever left the convent of the Carmelites in which she had been educated.

In 1642 she married the Duke de Longueville, governor of Normandy, a widower twice her age. The marriage was not happy.

After Richelieu’s death her father became chief of the council of regency during the minority of Louis XIV, her brother (the Great Condé) won the great victory of Rocroy in 1643, and the duchess became involved in political affairs. About 1646 she fell in love with the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, the author of the Maximes, who made use of her love to obtain influence over her brother and thus win honours for himself. The duchess was the guiding spirit of the uprising known as the first Fronde. She brought over Armand, Prince de Conti (her second brother), and her husband to the frondeurs, but she failed to attract Condé himself, whose loyalty to the court overthrew the first Fronde. The second Fronde was for the most part her work, and in it she played the most prominent part in attracting to the rebels first Condé and later Turenne.

Marie de Nemours (1625–1707) was a French noblewoman, Sovereign Princess of Neuchâtel, and memoirist known for her role in 17th-century court politics. She married Henri II d’Orléans, Duke of Nemours, in 1657, and later secured her inheritance through legal battles, documenting her life in Mémoires.