Charles Philippe d'Albert de Luynes

Charles Philippe d’Albert de Luynes (July 30, 1695 – November 2, 1758) held the title Duke of Luynes from 1712 to 1758. He wrote an important memoir of life at the court of Louis XV.

Charles Philippe was a grandson of Charles Honoré d'Albert de Luynes the Duke of Chevreuse.

He was a great great grandson of the first Duke of Luynes, Charles d'Albert, and his wife Marie de Rohan, one of the leading members of the Fronde. His grand mother Jeanne Marie Colbert was a daughter of the famous Jean Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's minister of finance.

His aunt was great Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, the mistress of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia. A second cousin was Maria Vittoria Francesca of Savoy who lived in France and was the wife of Victor Amadeus I, Prince of Carignan.

Peer of France and cavalry officer, Charles Philippe d’Albert de Luynes married Marie Brulart in 1732; she was the widow of the marquis de Charost, and became lady-in-waiting to the queen Maria Leszczyńska. He was part of the intimate group that she called her "gentlefolk" (honnêtes gens). He wrote a journal of historic events and facts about the court, a work which has no pretention of literary merit, but is precious as a document for the study of the aristocratic society of his time.

His first marriage, on February 24, 1710, was to Louise Léontine de Bourbon (1696–1721), Princess of Neuchatel (a granddaughter of Louis de Bourbon, Count of Soissons). Their son Marie Charles Louis d'Albert de Luynes and grandson Louis Joseph Charles Amable d'Albert de Luynes had active military and political careers.

He died at the Château de Dampierre and was buried at the Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris.

Ancestry

Works

• Mémoires du duc de Luynes sur la Cour de Louis XV (1735–1758), Louis Dussieux and Eudoxe Soulié, eds., Paris, Firmin-Didot frères, 1860–1865.

Sources

• Gustave Vapereau, Dictionnaire universel des littératures, Paris, Hachette, 1876, p. 1286.