Jean Paul Timoléon de Cossé Brissac
Jean Paul Timoléon de Cossé-Brissac, 7th Duke of Brissac (12 October 1698, in Paris – 1784, in Sarrelouis), was a French general during the reign of King Louis XV. He is most notable for leading the French vanguard at the Battle of Minden, and he became a Marshal of France. He was also a Grand Panetier of France.
Life[]
Jean Paul was the second son and third of five children of Artus-Timoléon (1668-1709), Count then 5th Duke of Brissac, and of Marie Louise Béchameil de Nointel (daughter of the financier Louis de Béchameil). He began his military career as a knight of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, becoming a garde de la marine in 1713. From 1714, he served on the galleys operating out of Malta, fighting in various actions against the Ottoman Empire. In 1716, he fought at the victory at the siege of Corfu under Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg.
Jean Paul left the navy in 1717 and returned to France. There he became the mestre de camp of a cavalry regiment named after him, and he served until the Seven Years' War. He was rewarded for his good conduct at the French defeat at the Battle of Minden in 1759 by being made a Marshal of France.
His courage and politeness were seen as the model of an old-style loyal and frank French knight. He continued wearing Louis XIV-era costume, and for a long time wore a long scarf and a two-queue hairstyle. Charles, Count of Charolais, one day found him at his mistress's house and brusquely told him "Get out, sir", but Brissac replied "Sir, your ancestors would have said 'We get out'".
In 1732, Jean Paul inherited the ducal title when his elder brother, Charles Timoléon Louis (1693-1732), the 6th Duke of Brissac, died without a male heir. That year, Jean Paul married Marie Josèphe Durey de Sauroy (died 1756), with whom he had three children :
- Louis-Joseph (1733-1759), died without issue
- Louis-Hercule (1734-1792), Duke of Brissac, died without male issue
- Pierre Emmanuel Joseph Timoléon (1741-1756), marquis de Thouarcé, died unmarried
After Louis-Hercule's death in 1792, the ducal title passed to the heirs of René-Hugues de Cossé-Brissac (1702-1754). René-Hugues was the third son of Artus-Timoléon (1668-1709), who had been the 5th Duke of Brissac.
Sources[]
- (in French) "Jean Paul Timoléon de Cossé-Brissac", in Louis-Gabriel Michaud, Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne : histoire par ordre alphabétique de la vie publique et privée de tous les hommes avec la collaboration de plus de 300 savants et littérateurs français ou étrangers, 2nd edition, 1843-1865
External links[]
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- 1698 births
- 1784 deaths
- Marshals of France
- Knights of Malta
- Dukes of Brissac