Joyeuse

Joyeuse, a small town in the department of Ardèche, France, situated on the Baume, a tributary of the Ardèche, is historically important as having been the seat of a noble French family which derived its name from it. The lordship of Joyeuse came, in the 13th century, into the possession of the house of Châteauneuf-Randon, and was made into a viscountship in 1432. Guillaume, viscount of Joyeuse, was bishop of Alet, but afterwards left the church, and became a marshal of France; he died in 1592. His eldest son Anne de Joyeuse (1561-1587), was one of the favourites of Henry III. of France, who created him duke and peer (1581), admiral of France (1582), and governor of Normandy (1586), and married him to Marguerite de Lorraine-Vaudémont, younger sister of the queen. He gained several successes against the Huguenots, but was recalled by court intrigues at an inopportune moment, and when he marched a second time against Henry of Navarre he was defeated and killed at Coutras. Guillaume had three other sons: François de Joyeuse (d. 1615), cardinal and archbishop of Narbonne, Toulouse and Rouen, who brought about the reconciliation of Henry IV. with the pope; Henri, count of Bouchage, and later duke of Joyeuse, who first entered the army, then became a Capuchin under the name of Père Ange, left the church and became a marshal of France, and finally re-entered the church, dying in 1608; Antoine Scipion, grand prior of Toulouse in the order of the knights of Malta, who was one of the leaders in the League, and died in the retreat of Villemur (1592). Henriette Catherine de Joyeuse, daughter of Henri, married in 1611 Charles of Lorraine, duke of Guise, to whom she brought the duchy of Joyeuse. On the death of her great-grandson, François Joseph de Lorraine, duke of Guise, in 1675, without issue, the duchy of Joyeuse was declared extinct, but it was revived in 1714, in favour of Louis de Melun, prince of Épinoy.

(M. P.*)