Honoré Armand de Villars, 2nd Duke of Villars
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Honoré-Armand, duke of Villars (4 October 1702, Paris - May 1770, Aix), duke and peer of France, prince of Martigues, Grandee of Spain, knight of the Golden Fleece, Viscount of Melun, Marquis of la Melle, count of Rochemiley, was a French nobleman, soldier and politician.
Life
Early life
He was the son of Claude Louis Hector de Villars and of Jeanne-Angélique Rocque de Varengeville, and the grandson of Pierre de Villars. In 1721 he married Amable-Gabrielle de Noailles, daughter of Adrien Maurice de Noailles. They had only one child, Aimable-Angélique de Villars, on 18 March 1723. Maître de Camp of a cavalry regiment and Brigadier in the Armées du Roi, he served in Italy in 1733 under his father's command. He carried back to Louis XIV the news of the capture of Milan castle. He was a member of the Académie française, succeeding his father in seat 18 on 16 August 1734.
He received the nickname "friend of Man" as a famous homosexual. Bachaumont noted, in his Mémoires (5 May 1770) that "[the Duke of Villars] was taxed with a vice that he had made fashionable at court, and that had brought him very wide renown, as can be seen in la Pucelle". Voltaire, in the first editions of La Pucelle d'Orléans, mentioned him alongside the marquis de Thibouville, accused of the same vice, in the following verses: {{Cquote|Such has been seen, Thibouville and Villars,
- Imitators of the first of the Caesars,
- All inflamed by the fire they possessed,
- Head lowered, attending on a Nicomedes;
- And seconding, by frequent gaps,
- The valiant blows of their Picard lackeys.
