| Jules | |
|---|---|
| Prince of Guéméné | |
| Spouse | Victoire de Rohan |
| Issue | |
| Charles Alain, Prince of Guéméné Marie Louise Joséphine, Princess of Rochefort Louis Victor, Duke of Bouillon |
|
| Full name | |
| Henri Louis Marie de Rohan | |
| Father | Jules, Prince of Guéméné |
| Mother | Marie Louise de La Tour d'Auvergne |
| Born | 30 August 1745 Paris, France |
| Died | 24 April 1809 (aged 63) Sychrov Castle, Czech Republic |
Henri Louis de Rohan, Prince of Guéméné (Henri Louis Marie; 30 August 1745 – 24 April 1809), was a French courtier and the penultimate Grand Chamberlain of France.
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Henri Louis was born in Paris, a member of the House of Rohan, which claimed ancestry relating to the Dukes of Brittany. He was the only son of the family's main branch chief, Jules Hercule Mériadec de Rohan, Prince of Guéméné, whereas his mother Marie Louise Henriette Jeanne de La Tour d'Auvergne (daughter of Charles Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne) had an illegitimate child with her lover, Charles Edward Stuart.
Jules Hercule gave his surname to his wife's son, however Charles Godefroy de Rohan (1748–1820) was handed over to his paternal family, the Stuarts.[1]
On 15 January 1761, he married his second cousin, Victoire Armande Josèphe de Rohan, daughter of Charles de Rohan, Prince de Soubise and Princess Anna Teresa of Savoy. The couple had five children, four of whom survived into adult age. The family owned the Hôtel de Rohan-Guémené on the Place des Vosges.
In 1775 Henri Louis was appointed Grand Chamberlain of France by Louis XVI, inasmuch as his uncle Godefroy Charles Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, duke of Bouillon gave up that charge. The Princess of Guéméné also inherited a charge; she was appointed Governess of Royal Children.
From 1780's on Henri Louis and his family was involved in personal and political scandals. In 1782, Henri Louis's mistress, Countess Thérèse Lucy de Dillon, the first wife of Arthur Dillon and a friend of his wife, succumbed to tuberculosis at 30 years; in the same year the Prince declared bankruptcy, with a debt of 33 million livres. He and Victoire abdicated their charges at the court and left Versailles. Their proprieties were sold, including the Hôtel de Rohan-Guéméné and their Mansion at Montreuil.
At the death of his father in law, he was the legal heir to the title Prince of Soubise.
During the French Revolution, Henri Louis and his father, wife and children fled to Sychrov Castle in Bohemia, in the modern Liberec Region of the Czech Republic, where he died in 1809, at the age 63 years. However, his mother was guillotined in 1793.