Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne

Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon (22 October 1605 – 9 August 1652) was ruler of the independent principality of Sedan, and a general in the French royal army.

Life Born in Sedan, Ardennes, he was the son of Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, Prince of Sedan, and Elisabeth of Orange-Nassau. His brother was the renowned Turenne, Marshal of France. Raised as a Protestant, he received a military education in Holland under his uncles, Maurice of Nassau-Orange, and Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange.

He became Duke of Bouillon, and Prince of Sedan, Jametz, and Raucourt (now in Ardennes, France) at the death of his father in 1623. He was appointed governor of Maastricht in the United Provinces in 1629. In 1634 he married Countess Eleonora van Berg's-Heerenberg (French: Éléonore de Bergh), under whose influence he converted to Catholicism.

Tomb monument

Between 1697 and 1707, the duke's son, Émmanuel-Théodose de la Tour d'Auvergne, cardinal de Bouillon, commissioned the sculptor Pierre Le Gros the Younger to create a family monument to be erected in Cluny Abbey, of which the cardinal was abbot. All the sculptures were finished by 1707 and shipped to Cluny, where they arrived in 1709 but were not even being unpacked for nearly a century because Bouillon had grossly disobeyed Louis XIV and was declared an enemy of the state. The sculptures are today displayed in the Hôtel-Dieu in Cluny.

Children Frédéric Maurice and his wife Éléonor van den Bergh had five sons and four daughters: Élisabeth (1635–1680), married Charles III, Duke of Elbeuf, and had issue. Godefroy Maurice, 3rd duc de Bouillon (1636–1721) Louise-Charlotte (1638–1683) "known as Mademoiselle de Bouillon"; Amelie (1640-), who became a nun Frédéric Maurice, comte d'Auvergne (1642–1707) married Princess Henriette Françoise von Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Marquise de Bergen-op-Zoom and had 13 children; grandfather of Maria Henriette de La Tour d'Auvergne, mother of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria. Émmanuel-Théodose, duc d'Albret, later cardinal de Bouillon (1643–1715) Hippolyte (1645–?), who entered the priesthood Constantin Ignace, duc de Château-Thierry (1646–1670) at the age of 16 joined the order of St. John of Jerusalem Henri Ignace, le comte d'Évreux (1650–1675) nicknamed "Chevalier de Bouillon" Mauricienne Fébronie de La Tour d’Auvergne (1652–1706) (aka Princesse d'Evreux), married 1668 Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria-Leuchtenberg (1638–1705), without issue