Rochechouart

The House of Rochechouart, named after its castle in the Limousin, is counted among the oldest noble families in France. It traces itself to Foucher, a follower of Charles the Bald who was made viscount of Limoges in 876; in 980 Aimery de Limoges received the lands of Rochechouart as the dowry of Eve, daughter of the count of Angoulême, and became the first viscount of Rochechouart. Late in the thirteenth century Aimery XI granted the town a charter of enfranchisement, with four elected consuls and no taille, which remained in force until 1789.

The viscounts stayed loyal to the French crown through the Hundred Years' War: Viscount Jean fought at Crécy in 1346, saw his town sacked by the English, and was killed at Poitiers in 1356 while shielding King John II; his son Louis escaped English captivity to fight beside Bertrand du Guesclin. A later Rochechouart, Geoffroy, campaigned with Joan of Arc, and Foucaud took part in the victory of Castillon in 1453. The Mortemart branch rose at court under Louis XIII, and in 1663 Gabriel de Rochechouart became Duke of Mortemart and a peer of France; his daughter Françoise-Athénaïs, Madame de Montespan, was the mistress of Louis XIV from 1667 to 1680. The Revolution cost several members their heads on the scaffold in 1794, but the family returned under the Restoration, and in 1830 Charles X called Casimir de Rochechouart to be his chief minister only days before the July Revolution ended the monarchy.