A wedding at Lunéville

 

Claude Jacquart, Marriage cortège of the prince de Lixheim in the courtyard of the palace of Lunéville, on 19th August 1721.

Oil on canvas; 72cm x 121cm.   Lunéville, Musée du château. 

The marvellous painting, by Claude Jacquart, was acquired for the collections of the Château de Lunéville in 2015.  It is  a unique visual memory of a grand ceremonial occasion at the Court of Duke Leopold, in this case the wedding on 19th August 1721 of  Henri-Jacques de Lorraine, Prince de Lixheim, a distant cousin of the Duke's, and Anne-Marguerite-Gabrielle,  second daughter of the Prince de Craon , Leopold's "favori en titre".   

The artist: 

Claude Jacquart (1686-1736) was the most prominent painter in Nancy in the first third of the 18th century.  One of the first generation of artists to be trained at Duke Leopold's new Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture, he was pupil of Claude Charles. Having studied in Rome, he was recalled to Lunéville to assist Jean-Baptiste Martin with his series of paintings of the victories of Charles V.  He was Professor at the Academy, then director, and in 1714 received the title of "peintre ordinaire de son altesse royale".  Among other works, he produced battle scenes, religious and mythological subjects, and participated in the decor of the primatiale of Nancy.  He was also a portrait painter and, as here, chronicler of the grand events of the Lorraine aristocracy.

Provenance: 

The painting was commissioned by the father of the bride, François-Vincent-Marc de Beauvau, first  Prince of Craon (1676 -1754), for whom the marriage represented the crucial step of allying his family directly to the ruling dynasty of Lorraine.  It was inventoried at his death in 1754 as hanging in the grand apartment of the hôtel de Craon in Lunéville, a property which he had passed to his daughter.  The painting remained in the family collections until  2015, when it was pre-emptied at the sale by Drouet,  on 15th June 2015, of furniture and objects from  the château de Craon at Haroué.  (This sale caused some controversy at the time, especially since Haroué itself is open to the public - happily the Jacquart at least has found a new appropriate museum context.) 

According to one source, individual portraits of the Prince and Princess of Lixheim, painted in 1732 by Jacquart, were also once to be found at Haroué; but I am not sure whether these still exist.

Revue nouvelle d'Alsace-Lorraine, June 1887, p.370 note
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k96599380/f436.item

 The setting:

Following the celebration of the marriage in the chapel, the wedding procession leaves the Château on its way to the nuptial blessing in the nearby church of Saint-Jacques.  Jacquart exploits the theatrical potential of the courtyard to showcase the cortege; action centres on the carriage of the Duke and his family, who are surrounded by their gardes du corps and gardes suisses. A heterogenous crowd of fashionably dressed onlookers complete the scene.  The palace had just risen from its ashes, after the fire of 3rd January 1719. Boffrand's magnificent central portico is shown to effect.  The shallow roofs depicted in the picture, hidden behind a balustrade, were were to be replaced in 1730 by slate mansards more suited to the climate of Lorraine. The chapel still has a temporary roof and scaffolding.

Enlarged reproduction of the picture, on show in the courtyard in 2016.
Photo published in L'Est Républicain, 27.04.2016.

The occasion:

Duke Leopold held M de Beauvau-Craon in such singular affection that, after showering him with favours, he made him Prince of the Empire and Grand of Spain, and bestowed upon him the post of Grand Écuyer of Lorraine. He desired also that he should be allied to the House of Lorraine through the marriage of M. le Chevalier de Lorraine of the House of Armagnac, son of Monseigneur the Comte de Marsan, to Mademoiselle de Beauvau-Craon, his daughter, who was aged 14 years and three months.  The Contract of marriage was accepted on 18th October 1721 and signed by all the Princes of the House of Lorraine.   His Royal Highness gave the young husband the Principality of Lixin and made him Grand-Master of his Household;  the Prince de Craon gave his daughter the Marquisate of Craon, estimated to be worth seven hundred thousand  livres, with its superbly furnished Château, a hundred thousand livres in money, and his Hotel in Nancy, newly built on the place de la Carrière at the entry to the Old Town. On the following day, the 19th, the members of the Court, in extraordinary magnificence, attended the church of the Abbey of Saint Remy, where M. de Coislin, the Bishop of Metz, a relative of the groom, performed the blessing of the marriage; all of which was followed by fitting festivities and rejoicing.

Dom Augustin Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, Vol. VII, col.259-60.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tKpSAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA2-PA259#v=onepage&q&f=false

The wedding ceremony was followed by several days of sumptuous festivities, mixing ballets, pastoral dances, symphony music, comedies, illuminations and fireworks.  Among the various attractions a new pastoral piece was staged at the theatre in Lunéville, with music by sieur Desmaretz.  To give a sense of the magnificence and nobility of the occasion, it is sufficient to note that the royal princes François and Charles and the two princesses appeared and danced in the prologue dressed as shepherds; as did the royal pages and Madame Royale's maids of honour, plus several other young  seigneurs and demoiselles of high birth.

M. J. A. Schmit, ‘Petite gazette de Lorraine du règne de Léopold, extraite des journaux du temps’ (Nancy 1873) , MS quoted in Le Ménestrel, 16th September 1883)

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vOnlax9hunsC&pg=PA329#v=onepage&q&f=false

Only the libretto for Desmaretz's work now survives - the piece was in fact was a "reprise" of an earlier piece performed for the Duke's fête  in 1717. (Divertissement pour le mariage de S. A. R. Monseigneur le prince de Lixin...avec Mlle de Craon, mise en musique par M. Desmaretz...représenté sur le  théâtre du Palais de Lunéville le 21 août 1921.  Nancy, J.-B. Cusson, 1721).

The married couple:  

The Groom: 

Jacques Henri de Lorraine (1698-1734) known as the chevalier de Lorraine, was the second son of Charles de Lorraine, comte de Marsan, and a distant cousin of Duke Leopold. He was a career soldier (in the French army). The Duke showered him with all sorts of gifts, in revenues and lands, culminating in 1728 with the grant of the sovereign principality of Lixheim (Lixhin) a tiny enclave between Lorraine and Alsace in the foothills of the Vosges, with a high Protestant population. The marriage allowed the groom to accede to the title of Grand maître de la maison in the ducal Household.  In 1729 Francis named both the Prince de Beauvau-Craon and his son-in-law the Prince de Lixheim as members of  his Regency council. 

Anonymous portrait of the Prince de Lixheim from the
Abbaye de Royaumont.  Sold by Christies in 2006,
now in the musée Lorraine (Wikimedia).

Rather sadly, Lixheim is now best remembered for his death, which took place in a duel at the hands of the duc de Richelieu.  To the disapproval of the family, Richelieu had recently married one of the Prince's relatives, Elisabeth-Sophie de Lorraine, princesse de Guise. The two men were now with the French army laying seige to Philippsburg.  

Hubert Cole narrates the story:

Richelieu was invited to take supper with the prince de Conti.  Either because the prince had forgotten or because he thought that differences would be overlooked on active service, he had been rash enough to invite at the same time two of the new duchesse de Richelieu's relations who had refused to attend the wedding: the prince de Pons, colonel of one of the regiments in Richelieu's sector, and his brother, the prince de Lixin.  Both were arrogant and still seething with sage at the upstart Richelieu's impertinence in marrying into their family. 

Richelieu was delayed in the trenches, and dusk was falling by the time that he reached Conti’s tent.  His two reluctant relations had already arrived, and they greeted him coldly.  As they sat down to eat, the prince de Lixin noticed flecks of dust on Richelieu’s coat and sweat on his forehead and, sneering, remarked that he had had to get himself cleaned up to marry Mademoiselle de Guise, and it was a pity that he had relapsed into his natural filth. The insult was unforgivable as well as peculiarly inappropriate, for in an age of general uncleanliness, Richelieu was noteworthy for his finicky addiction to washing and his lavish use of scent.  All the court had giggled over the story of how a very sweet-smelling bishop who called on Maria Leczynska was twitted by her on his remarkable fragrance when in fact all that he had done was to sit for a few minutes in a chair that Richelieu had occupied some hours earlier.

There was a horrified silence after Lixin had spoken, and, with the eyes of the rest of Conti’s guests upon him, Richelieu rose from the table and asked for immediate satisfaction. The two men left the tent, called for their servants to bring lanterns, and then walked out of the camp and into the approach trenches . It was dark, but the unusual activity and movement of lights attracted the attention of the sentinels on the walls of Philippsburg; they opened fire as Richelieu and Lixin drew their swords and began to fight in the thin light of the lanterns.  The crackle of musketry provided a background to the clatter and screech of the sword blades and the occasional grunts as one or other of the men lost his footing in the loose soil at the bottom of the trench. After a few moments, Lixin lunged forward and Richelieu was seen to have been badly wounded, but he refused to break off the engagement. White with loss of blood as well as with rage, his eyes gleaming with fury, he launched a wild, irresistible assault on Lixin and suddenly all movement stopped. Richelieu’s sword was fast into Lixin’s body; he was dead before the stretcher-bearers had got him back to his tent.
Hubert Cole, First Gentleman of the Bedchamber: the life of Louis-Francois-Armand, maréchal duc de Richelieu (1965), p.77-78.

The Prince de Lixheim was killed on 2nd June 1734. He was 37 years of age.

The bride:

Pierre Gobert, Anne-Marguerite-Gabrielle,
Princesse de Lixheim in about 1730
(Wikimedia)

Born on 28th April 1707,  Anne-Marguerite-Gabrielle was  married at only fourteen and found herself a widow at the age of 27 in 1734.  

However, she was not to let down the tradition of strong Craon women and was later to become a prominent figure at the French Court as the Maréchale de Mirepoix.

About Madame de Mirepoix much is written.  In 1739 she was married for the second time,  to Pierre-Louis de Lévis de Lomagne, duc de Mirepoix and later maréchal de France.   It was by all accounts a happy marriage.  She followed her husband when he served as  ambassador to Vienna and London and, despite being a lady-in-waiting to the French queen, befriended Madame de Pompadour in order to further his interests.  Montesquieu wrote an admiring poem in her praise and Louis XV himself expressed both affection and friendship    According to the  description of  the duc de Lévis, "She had warmth without enthusiasm, and was calm and kind without being insipid,"  (Souvenirs et portraits, 1780-1789, p.61-65)   Horace Walpole noted more tellingly,  "Madame de Mirepoix is the agreeable woman of the world, when she pleases — but there must not be a card in the room" (Letter of November 12th 1774) 

 

Detail from "Le Thé à l’anglaise" by Michel Barthélemy Ollivier (1766) - the Maréchale de Mirepoix is the left of the two women seated together.
See Le Thé à l’anglaise - Histoire analysée en images et œuvres d’art | https://histoire-image.org/

References

Thierry Franz, "Claude Jacquart, Marche du mariage de Monseigneur le prince de Lixin". Notice on the Musée Lorrain website (with bibliography):
https://musee-lorrain.nancy.fr/les-collections/catalogues-numeriques/la-lorraine-pour-horizon/une-independance-retrouvee-1697-1737/marche-du-mariage-de-monseigneur-le-prince-de-lixin

Catherine Ambrosi, Lunéville : Le tableau de Jacquart acquis par le musée recèle une mine d’informations sur le château, L'Est Républicain 29.07.2015.

https://c.estrepublicain.fr/edition-de-luneville/2015/07/29/luneville-le-tableau-de-jacquart-acquis-par-le-musee-recele-une-mine-d-informations-sur-le-chateau