Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis of Cinq-Mars
Encyclopedia
Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis de Cinq-Mars (1620 – September 12, 1642) was a favourite
Favourite
A favourite , or favorite , was the intimate companion of a ruler or other important person. In medieval and Early Modern Europe, among other times and places, the term is used of individuals delegated significant political power by a ruler...

 of King Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority...

 who led the last and most nearly successful of the many conspiracies
Conspiracy (political)
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....

 against the king's powerful first minister, the Cardinal Richelieu.

Cinq-Mars was the son of Marshal Antoine Coiffier-Ruzé, marquis d'Effiat, a close friend of Richelieu, who took the boy under his protection on his father's death in 1632.

Career

In 1639 Louis XIII had no favourite. Richelieu had introduced the young Cinq-Mars to Louis, hoping the king would take Cinq-Mars as a lover, apparently with success: Tallemant des Réaux in his Historiettes (chapter on Louis XIII) cites Fontrailles, who relates a scene where the king and his minion Cinq-Mars went to bed together. The cardinal believed he could easily control Cinq-Mars. Instead, Cinq-Mars pressed the king for important favours and tried to convince the king to have Richelieu executed. Cinq-Mars brought some French nobility into revolt, but the effort failed. He also tried to get support for the rebellion from Philip IV
Philip IV of Spain
Philip IV was King of Spain between 1621 and 1665, sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands, and King of Portugal until 1640...

, the king of Spain; Richelieu's spy service caught him doing so. Richelieu then had Cinq-Mars imprisoned and beheaded
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...

 in the Place des Terreaux
Place des Terreaux
The Place des Terreaux is a square located in the centre of Lyon, France on the Presqu'île between the Rhône and the Saône, at the foot of the hill of La Croix-Rousse in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon...

 in Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

. Tallemant relates that the king showed no emotions concerning the execution: he said "Je voudrais bien voir la grimace qu'il fait à cette heure sur cet échafaud" (I would like to see the grimace he is now making on that scaffold).

Miscellaneous

Alfred de Vigny
Alfred de Vigny
Alfred Victor de Vigny was a French poet, playwright, and novelist.-Life:Alfred de Vigny was born in Loches into an aristocratic family...

 wrote a novel Cinq-Mars, inspired by the story of the marquis, and published in 1826
1826 in literature
The year 1826 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The Juvenile Miscellany, an American magazine for children, begins publishing in Boston...

. Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

 wrote an opera of the same name
Cinq-Mars (Gounod)
Cinq-Mars, subtitled , is an opera in four acts by Charles Gounod to a libretto by Paul Poirson & Louis Gallet loosely adapted from Alfred de Vigny's historical novel.-Performance history:...

 which premiered on April 5, 1877.

For historical accounts, consult Basserie, La conjuration de Cinq-Mars (Paris, 1896) and Bazin, Histoire de France sous Louis XIII (Paris, 1846).

External links

  • Historiettes (in 17th century French
    French language
    French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

    )
  • Detailed history: Conspiration et mort de Cinq-Mars (in French
    French language
    French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

    )
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