Pompone de Bellièvre was a French magistrate

Magistrate

A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...

, ambassador

Ambassador

An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....

 and statesman

Statesman

A statesman is usually a politician or other notable public figure who has had a long and respected career in politics or government at the national and international level. As a term of respect, it is usually left to supporters or commentators to use the term...

, ending his career as first president of the Parlement of Paris, from 1653 to 1657.

Life

Bellièvre was the son, nephew, and grandson of eminent men. Both of his grandfathers, Pomponne de Bellièvre

Pomponne de Bellièvre

Pomponne de Bellièvre was a French statesman, chancellor of France .-Life:Bellièvre was born in Lyon in 1529....

 and Nicolas Brulart de Sillery (1544–1624), served as Chancellor of France. His father, Nicolas de Bellièvre (1583–1650), was Procureur général and also Président à mortier

Président à mortier

The office of président à mortier was one of the most important legal posts of the French ancien régime. The présidents were principal magistrates of the highest juridical institutions, the parlements, which were the appeal courts....

of the Parlement

Parlement

Parlements were regional legislative bodies in Ancien Régime France.The political institutions of the Parlement in Ancien Régime France developed out of the previous council of the king, the Conseil du roi or curia regis, and consequently had ancient and customary rights of consultation and...

 and one of the thirty Conseillers d'État

Conseiller d'État

A French Councillor of State is a high-level government official of administrative law in the Council of State of France.-Under the Old Regime:...

of France.

Bellièvre himself became the head of the magistracy of France, ambassador to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and in his last years the first President of the Parlement of Paris. While Bellièvre was in England, Cardinal Mazarin gave him the hopeless task of making peace between King Charles I

Charles I of England

Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

 and the Long Parliament

Long Parliament

The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...

.

Bellièvre married Marie de Bullion, lady of La Grange-au-Bois, daughter of Claude de Bullion, but they had no surviving children. His brother, Pierre de Bellièvre, seigneur of Grignon, abbé

Abbé

Abbé is the French word for abbot. It is the title for lower-ranking Catholic clergymen in France....

 of Saint-Vincent de Metz

Metz

Metz is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place...

, was French ambassador to Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 during his own mission to England.

Bellièvre became one of the greatest benefactors of the Hôpital général (General Hospital) of Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, founded in 1656. This was nearer to being a gigantic almshouse

Almshouse

Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...

 than to the modern concept of a hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

 and set out to house the astonishing number of forty thousand Parisians, about a tenth of the city's population, the men at Bicêtre, and the women at La Salpêtrière. All of the poor were to be gathered together on clean premises, to be cared for, educated and given an occupation. The new institution benefited from huge donations from Fouquet

Nicolas Fouquet

Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV...

, Mazarin and Bellièvre, but sadly it did not turn out as hoped.

The biographer Louis Gabriel Michaud says of Bellièvre:

This illustrious family was extinguished in the person of Pompone de Bellièvre, son of Nicolas and first President of the Parlement of Paris, who died in 1657 without posterity after having deployed great talents on diplomatic missions in Italy, England, and Holland. This worthy magistrate, enriched by his wife, who was the daughter of the Superintendent

Superintendent of Finances

The Superintendent of Finances was the name of the minister in charge of finances in France from 1561 to 1661. The position was abolished in 1661 with the downfall of Nicolas Fouquet, and a new position was created, the Controller-General of Finances....

 Bullion, lived in great magnificence, which did not prevent him from founding the General Hospital of Paris. Before this, the poor had lived and died deprived of all help, spiritual or temporal. They found both in this new refuge.

Character

According to the panegyric spoken at Bellièvre's funeral, and later printed, he possessed "pure glory and innocent riches" and was incorruptible, not to be bought at any price. He showed "...charity for the wretched, a vehemence just and inflexible to the dishonest and wicked, with a sweetness noble and beneficent for all". He also had a pleasant and gracious address, with intellectual and charming conversation and an agreeable and intelligent silence.

Likeness

A life-like portrait of a 34-year-old Bellièvre by Anthony van Dyck

Anthony van Dyck

Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next...

, is in the collection of the Seattle Art Museum

Seattle Art Museum

The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on...

. Throughout much of its history, this work was believed to be by Bartholomeus van der Helst

Bartholomeus van der Helst

Bartholomeus van der Helst was a Dutch portrait painter.-Biography:Born in Haarlem, the son of a Haarlem innkeeper, Van der Helst moved to Amsterdam some time before 1636, for he was married there in that year...

 and the sitter remained unidentified, until scholars discovered otherwise. Bellièvre's attire was de rigueur in 17th century

17th century

The 17th century was the century which lasted from 1601 to 1700 in the Gregorian calendar.The 17th century falls into the Early Modern period of Europe and in that continent was characterized by the Dutch Golden Age, the Baroque cultural movement, the French Grand Siècle dominated by Louis XIV, the...

 France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.
Bellièvre's portrait (pictured above), painted by Charles Le Brun

Charles Le Brun

Charles Le Brun , a French painter and art theorist, became the all-powerful, peerless master of 17th-century French art.-Biography:-Early life and training:...

, was engraved by Robert Nanteuil in 1657 and is surrounded by the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 inscription "POMPONIVS DE BELLIEVRE, SENATVS GALLIARVM PRINCEPS", with a plate size of 327 x 251 mm. Of Nanteuil's work, this has been called "foremost among his masterpieces, and a chief masterpiece of art, being, in the judgment of more than one connoisseur, the most beautiful engraved portrait that exists." Louis Thies wrote of it in March, 1858:

When I call Nanteuil's Pompone the handsomest engraved portrait, I express a conviction to which I came when I studied all the remarkable engraved portraits at the royal cabinet of engravings at Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, and at the large and exquisite collection there of the late King of Saxony

Frederick Augustus II of Saxony

Frederick Augustus II |Tyrol]], 9 August 1854) was King of Saxony and a member of the House of Wettin.He was the eldest son of Maximilian, Prince of Saxony --younger son of the Elector Frederick Christian of Saxony—by his...

, and in which I was confirmed or perhaps, to which I was led, by the director of the two establishments, the late Professor Frenzel... There is an air of refinement, vornehmheit, round the mouth and nose as in no other engraving. Color and life shine through the skin, and the lips appear red.

In his The Best Portraits in Engraving, Charles Sumner says of Nanteuil's POMPONIVS DE BELLIEVRE:

No doubt there have been as handsome men, whose portraits were engraved, but not so well. I know not if Pompone was what would be called a handsome man, although his air is noble and his countenance bright. But among portraits more boldly, delicately, or elaborately engraved, there are very few to contest the palm of beauty.