The Thieuville family, the Pierrepont family, and descendants in the female line of the Pierreponts.

The Thieuville Family.

The census of nobility of d’Aligre (1634) tells us of the new line of lords of the Park, the family of Thieuville, whose coat of arms is: “Silver with two bends of gule alongside seven escallops to the pattern of two, three, and two.” (1):

 

“437. Jacques de Thieuville, horseman, lord of the Park, of the parish of Saint-Lô of Ourville, election of Valognes, son Charles, son Gilles, son Guillaume, son Nicolas de Thieuville, horseman, lord of the Park, arrested by the Court of Aydes on June 17th, 1606 with by  prosecutor general by whom the aforementioned Jacques is maintained in his status of nobleman, and enjoys the benefits thereof”.

 

We know nothing of Nicolas, Guillaume and Gilles de Thieuville except that they were, according to the attestation above, lords of the Park.

 

The archives of Dicq de Portbail, preserved in the charter room of the castle of Sainte-Suzanne-en-Bauptois, reveals with the account of one curious day the personality of Charles de Thieuville (…1576-1599…):

 

“The lords of Dicq (Pierre du Castel) and of Ourville (Charles de Thieuville), “men with a lordly coat of arms, fearful and dreadful both in arms and in the law, connected to the judges of the land and taking advantage of their authority” extorted through menace from Nicolas de Clamorgan, the lord of Saint-Georges-de-la-Rivière, an “old and decrepit man of 80 years old or more, at the edge of the moat, which made him all the more easily intimidated” two contracts by which he pledged to relinquish to them twenty orchards of the best earth, drained from the Saint George marsh  as well as the rights to the wreckage and dunes.

 

What’s more, the “pour inhabitants of this village of Saint-Georges”, who had lost the use of the dunes to pasture their animals, gave up for fear of the lords of Dicq and the Park.

 

August 30th, 1582, Nicolas de Clamorgan sent a petition to parliament.  The king in his private council accorded the Saint-Georges marsh, the rights to wreckage and the dune lands to their rightful owners: Nicolas de Clamorgan and his son Nicolas.

 

Charles de Thieuville had two sons: Jean, probably the oldest, and Jacques who wrote his genealogy during the census of nobility of 1634.

 

In 1602, Jean de Thieuville passed away for Jacques de Thieuville swore allegiance for the fief of the Park to the king as guardian of the daughter of Jean de Thieuville.

 

The 11th of February, 1613, Jacques de Thieuville, horseman, lord of the Park, swore allegiance for the fief of the Park which he held for the king under the lordship and viscountcy of Valognes (2).  He had married Marie Le Lièvre.

 

The state of the nobility of 1640 teaches us in these terms about the lord of the Park:

 

“Jacques de Thieuville, horseman, lord of the Park.  Old man, has one son ready to serve, rich by 3000 Tours  of private income”.

 

This son ready to serve (in the royal army) was Guillaume Alexandre de Thieuville who, in 1646, was lord of Ourville because of his fiefdom of the Park.

 

Guillaume Alexandre de Thieuville probably died without descendants for the marriage, in 1626, of Marie de Thieuville, daughter of Jacques, to François de Pierrepont caused the Park to be passed down in that family.

 

  1. This coat of arms was featured in the Park chapel.  It was sculpted on a limestone rock from Yvetot-Bocage abandoned in the blackberry bushes between the lodgings and the press room.  It disappeared before the arrival of the Giard family at the Park (1999).
  2. See the annex document
 

The Pierrepont Family

Guillaume Alexandre de Thieuville probably passed away without descendants for the marriage, in 1626, of Marie de Thieuville, daughter of Jacques, to François de Pierrepont caused the Park to be passed down in that family which had as their coat of arms:

 

“Azur with three pallets of gold (3) with three chiefs of gule”.  François de Pierrepont, son of Jacques de Pierrepont, lord of Pierrepont, Ecaulleville and la Motte, and of Jeanne Jouhan, is cited in the census of nobility of d’Aligre (1634).

 

Census of the nobility of d’Aligre (1634):

 

“343. François de Pierrepont, lord of the place, of the parish of Saint-Nicolas de Pierrepont, son Jacques, son Guillaume, son Jean, son other Jean, son Robert, son Jean de Pierrepont”.

 

He is also cited in the state of the nobility of 1640:

“François de Pierrepont, brother (4) of the lord of Baudreville (5); a man who can serve, rich by 3000 Tours pounds in private income.”

 

From the marriage of François de Pierrepont and Marie de Thieuville came:

 

  1. Robert de Pierrepont, lord of Baudreville, lieutenant of the guards of the corps and governor of l’Île de Ré, who married Anne d’Hericy who died in Creullet (Creully, Calvados) on the 19th of April, 1675.  He died in 1681 at Baudreville, without descendants.
  2. Jacques Alexandre de Pierrepont, who follows.
  3. François-Jacques de Pierrepont (around 1648-1712), knight, Baccalaureate of the Sorbonne, lord and patron of Beauchamps, of Mesnil Rogues, Pierrepont, la Gaselière and Ecaulleviller.  He habitually resided at Mesnil-Rogues and married Claire d’Astorg of la Perrère.  He died without descendants leaving his properties to his nephew.

Jacques Alexandre de Pierrepont, knight, ruler of Ourville Park and lord of Ourville (7), born around 1640, died in 1697.  In 1679, he was living in Saint-Nicolas de Pierrepont.

 

In December 1687, he obtained “the constitution of the complete, feudal fiefdom of Baudreville by the reunion of the fiefdoms of the Ourville Park, Vesly (in Saint-Lô d’Ourville), of the l’Hommé (at Canville) and of Baudreville”. In our opinion, this collation of fiefdoms (precursor to an elevation of title on the land  which never took place) must coincide with the completion of the castle of Baudreville (of which today nothing remains but the moats and an entrance portal from the end of the XVIIth century; It seems to have been a provisional arrangement anyways because his children would divide amongst themselves the different elements of this fief on the 3rd of October 1699 (8).

 

According to other sources (9), it was in 1695 that the king would grant the “letters of union of the fiefs of Baudreville, of Ourville Park, Vesly and l’Hommé, the land and the mills included therein, in order to constitute from henceforth but one sole and same land under the denomination of the Land of Pierrepont”.

 

Jacques Alexandre de Pierrepont married Catherine du Fay, daughter of Gilles du Fay, lord of Fergetot, Graimbouville, Prétot, la Briére and Boisjourdain (1614-1666) knight of Malte and Marshall of Battle in the army of Malte, master of camp of a regiment of infantry in 1637, and of Madeleine of Fouilleuse (10).

 

The coat of arms of the du Fay family is: “Gule with a silver cross contourned and four mullets pierced of the same”.

 

Jacques Alexandre de Pierrepont died a little before the 24th of Februrary 1697.  The 3rd of October, 1699, his inheritors divide his property amongst themselves. (11). His widow, Catherine du Fay, obtains “ for her needs and use, her dower and common property as is the custom…of the noble fief and lordship of the Park” with the manor, dovecot, the common mill and chapel.

 

Catherine du Fay came to live in the manor of the Park, which she rented to farmers (12) and died between the 11th of October, 1710 and the 3rd of July, 1711 (13).

 

From the marriage of Jacques Alexandre de Pierrpont and Catherine du Fay five children were born, four sons who died without descendants and one daughter:

 

  1. Robert de Pierrepont, “marquis of Pierrepont” the only one of the family to take this title, baron high-justice of Lieurey (Eure) head of his ..  (14), lord and patron of Saint-Nicolas de Pierrepont, Baudreville, Ourville, Beauchamps, Vesly (at Saint-Lô d’Ourville), teacher at the French guards (1697-1699), living at the castle of Baudreville.

He married two times (15):

 

-The 2nd of June, 1729, to Anne-Victoire of Saint-Chamans, daughter of François, marquis of Méry (in Limousin) and of Bonne de Chastelus, deceased on the 15th of May, 1734.

 

-The 20th of March ,1738, to Angélique Marie de Surirey de Saint-Rémy, daughter of Michel, general treasurer of Ponts and Chaussées of France, and Marie-Louise Vacheret.

 

He died after 1751, without descendants.

 

  1. François Jacques, lord of l’Hommé (l’Hommey)

The 8th of July, 1706, the members of the family reunite “in the presence of and at the petition of” Robert, marquis de Pierrepont, Ourville, Baudreville, and of Charles de Pierrepont, “In consequence of the sentence pronounced by administration of the territory of Valognes last March by which it was decreed, in consequence of the weakness which has again overtaken the aforementioned lord of l’Hommey, that his paternal and maternal parents are called to deliberate on the legal guardianship in which he had temporarily been put because of a decree passed by the administration of Valognes, on the 6th of last July” which names Charles de Pierrepont as the principal curator and as shareholder the elder lord marquis de Pierrepont.

 

The lord of L’Hommey was driven “to the house of the fathers of Charity of Pontorson” (16).

 

  1. Jean-Louis, knight, captain of the regiment of Royal-Comtois, died before 1697.
  2. Charles, non-religious knight of the order of Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem (order of Malte), lord of the fief of Pirou situated in the parishes of Neufmesnil, Varanguebec and Bollevile.  In 1706, He resided at Valognes and, in 1711, at the castle of Beauchamps, in the house of his uncle, François-Jacques, lord of Beauchamps and of Mesnil-Rogues.
  3. Catherine Thérèse

See the following page for this last one.

 

  1. 7 Vertical bands of gold and azure.
  2.  Read cousin 
  3. Jean de Pierrepont who in 1619 married Louise de Franquetot, daughter of Antoine, president of the parliament in Rouen.  He is presumed to be the builder of the castles of Baudreville and of Mesnil-Rogues, which have today almost completely disappeared.
  4. A census of nobility, unofficial and hitherto unseen, from the election at Valognes (1679-1685) mentions “François Jacques de Pierrepont, priest, known as “the abbot of Pierrepont, brother of the lord of Ourville.”  An apparently erroneous aside (homonym with n. 3).
  5. Called by the title of “lord of Ourville” in 1666 (this year is legible on the cross beam of the grand lodge of Ourville Park).
  6. Society of Archaeology and History of la Manche: Miscellanies, 13th series, 1984, p. 71.
  7. J.M. Renault, historical and archaeological notes on the communities of the district of Valognes, municipality of Barneville, directory of la Manche, 1868 (note on Ourville, pp . 35-36) and Memoires of the society of Antiquarians of Basse Normandy, t. XVIII, p.

(10)

H de Frondeville, The Presidents of Parliament of Normandy, Society of the History of Normandy, 1953.

 

(11) Departmental archives of La Manche (5 E11952), see in annex

(12) See the annex of the leases from 1703 and 1710

(13) The loss of the ancient civil state of Saint-Lô doesn’t allow us to arrive at a precise date.

(14) Catherine du Fay was the sister of Jean-François du Fay, Marquis de Vergetot and lord of Lieurey, married without descendants to Louise Bernardine Gigault de Bellefonds, daughter of Marshall Bernardin de Bellefonds.

(15) La Chesnaye-Desbois, Dictionary of Nobility, tome 15, column 848.

(16) The hospital of Saint-Antoine de la Charité de Pontorson was founded on the 3rd of February 1115 by the townspeople of that village.  Since 1644, it had been maintained by the brothers of the order of Saint-Jean of God until 1792.  As early as the year 1700, the hospital received “residents”, crazy or senseless but above all those “sentenced” (committed for their “disruptive conduct”)

For more on this establishment, see H. Avisseau-Roussats, “L’Hôpital Saint-Antoine de la Charité de Pontorson (1644-1792), Revue de la Manche, Fasc. 22 and 23, 1964.

The Thère Family

Catherine Thérèse de Pierrepont was raised at Mesnil-Rogues, in the home of her uncle François Jacques de Pierrepont.  She married Jean Antoine de Thère, knight, count of Thère, lord of Esglandes, Saint-Pierre d’Arthay, son of the deceased lord Gédéon de Thère, spirited knight, “lord of the aforementioned lands”, and of the noble lady Renée Clérel de Rampan (17).

 

The contract of marriage took place the 4th of July, 1711 in the presence of Master Jean Birette, royal notary in the viscountcy of Valognes for the seat of Sortosville-en-Beaumont.

 

The dowry of the soon-to-be wife was 45,000 pounds of which 30,000 pounds were given by Robert, marquis of Pierrepont (25,200 pounds) et Charles de Pierrepont (4,800 pounds), her brothers, who, to insure the exact amount of this sum, ceded to the future spouses the fief of Vesly (in Ourville), the land of Gennetot (in Ourville and Gouey), the mills of Ourville and several pieces of land situated in Ourville (inherited from their father and mother).

 

François Jacques de Pierrepont uncle of the bride, “lord and patron and castellan of Beauchamp, Mesnil-Rogue, Eculleville, Folligny La Gaselière and other places…out of the great goodwill he has for the aforementioned lady of Pierrepont and in favor of her marriage to the aforementioned lord d’Esglandes”, gave her 200 pounds income redeemable for 4,000 pounds “to take from the whole of the goods of the above mentioned lord giver, and especially from the land of d’Ecauleville situated in the parish of Saint-Nicolas de Pierrepont”.  This private income was to take effect beginning on the day of the decease of the donor and his wife.

 

The marriage was celebrated on the 8th of July, 1711 in the chapel Ourville Park.  From this marriage was born:

 

  1. Michel Antoine de Thère who died young.
  2. Charles François de Thère, born around 1715, died at Valognes on the 2nd of October, 1764, by his father’s side count of Thère, lord and patron of d’Esglandes, Saint Pierre d’Arthenay and Eroudeville; by his mother’s side lord of Baudreville, The Park, Ourville, Saint-Nicolas de Pierrepont, Ecaulleville, Beauchamp and Mesnil-Rogues ; On the 21st of March, 1732, he married Marie Marguerite Rose de Harcourt, daughter of Marie-Anne-Rose Poerier de Taillepied (18) and Guillaume de Harcourt (1674-1745), captain of the vassals of the king and governor of the castle of Saint-Saveur-le-Vicomte, baron of Olonde, lord and patron of Saint-Maurice in Cotentin and of Valdecie

 

From them came:

  1. Rose Guillemette (also known as Guillemine) Thérèse  de Thère, who are on the following page
  2. Charlotte Rose Françoise de Thère, lady of Thère, Desglandes, and Eroudeville (born in 1736) married in 1758, at Thère, Jacques-Adrien-Henry Dambray, horseman, lord of Montigny (born in 1723, died before 1774), lieutenant of the vassals of the king.
  3.  
  1. Marie-Rose-Jacqueline, born in 1739.

 

(17) Jean Antoine de Thère was widowed by the death of his wife Barbe d’Anneville de Chiffrevast.  He died sometime between 1726 and 1728 at the castle of Thère.

(18) Madmoiselle d’Harcourt was, in 1730, a resident in the community of Visitandines of Caen.  She brought with her 60,000 pounds in dowry on her marriage.

The Family of Osmond-Médavy

Rose Guillemette Thérèse de Thère (born in 1733, buried in the church of Valognes on the 31st of January, 1767), lady of Baudreville, Ourville, of The Park, Saint-Nicolas de Pierrepont, Ecaulleville, Pirou, Beauchamps and Mesnil-Rogues, married at Valognes on the 5th of July, 1756, the high and powerful lord Barnabé-Louis-Gabriel d’Osmond Médavy, originally of Saint-Gervais in the diocese of Sées, chamberlain of his highest royal master the duke of Orléans son of my lord Eustache, count of Osmond and of Marie Louise de Pardieu.  He was presented to the king by the duke of Orléans on the 7th of July, 1763 at Versailles.

 

From the marriage of Rose Guillemette de Thère and Barnabé-Louis-Gabriel d’Osmond Médavy was born:

 

  1. Anne-Eustache-Charlotte-Rose d’Osmond-Médavy, who is on the following page.
  2. Charlotte Rose Jacqueline d’Osmond (born in 1764, died in Switzerland between September 1792 and the 6th of November, 1793) husband (marriage contract from the 2nd of April 1780) Christophe-Joseph de Malbec de Montjoc de Briges (1761-1795), from whom came the posterity of de Briges, Lecourtois de Sainte-Colombe, de la Gonnivière and Doynel de la Sausserie (19).

 (19) See, on this subject, The Society of Archaeology and History of la Manche Miscellanies 13th series, 1984, pp. 74-76

The Family of Mauconvenat de Sainte-Suzanne.

Anne-Eustache-Charlotte-Rose d’Osmond, lady of Saint-Nicolas-de-Pierrepont, Ecaulleville, Ourville, The Park, ect, baptized at Valognes on the 4th of June 1757, died on the 20th of August, 1813, at the castle of la Bretonnière, married, at Golleville, married Adolphe-Charles de Mauconvenant, knight, marquis de Sainte-Suzanne, son of René-Jacques-François Bonaventure de Mauconvenant, horseman, lord of Peseville, lord and patron of Sainte-Suzanne, and of Marthe Bonaventure Helloin, born and baptized in Sainte-Suzanne on the 12th of July, 1743, died at Valognes on the 7th of October, 1829, who was the last lord of Ourville Park.

 

Their only son, Louis Adolphe, baptized at Valognes on the 2nd of January, 1780, died there on the 23rd of the following January.

 

Anne d’Osmond died at Golleville on the 20th of August, 1813 and was buried in the cemetery of that community on the north side of the church where her tomb still exists today.

 

The last lord of Ourville Park, Adolphe-Charles de Mauconvenant, marquis of Sainte-Suzanne, embraced a military career.  He began on the 6th of July, 1756 as a teacher at the Royal Regiment of Vassals.  He was named lieutenant on the 11th of September, 1758, after the affair of Saint-Cast (20).  In January 1761, he changed to the regiment lieutenant-colonel  of dragoons of which he became one of the first captains in 1771.  He retired in 1774 with the rank of colonel and was decorated with the Knight’s Cross of Saint-Louis in 1775.

 

A supporter of new ideas, he was elected mayor of Golleville in 1790, but, in the face of the turn of events, he abandoned the task of mayor and took once again to the service in 1792 in the “mounted division of the province of Normandy” (Army of the Princes), and then, continuing on to Jersey in 1793, he became officer of the regiment of “Cocarde Blanche [white badge or rosette] and of Dresnay”.  In 1798, he was accorded the rank of camp Marshall (21).

 

 Being the wife of an immigrant, Anne-Eustache-Charlotte-Rose d’Osmond- Médavy was arrested under the order of le Carpentier (22) in virtue of the law of suspects, the 24 Thermidor year II (11th of August, 1794) and she divorced in order to avoid the confiscation of her property for the profit of the Nation.

 

On the 4th of Brumaire, year VII (the 25th of Octobre, 1798) before Master Langlois, notary at Valognes, she sold her ownership of Ourville Park to Jean- François Coquoin, then housed at Bricquebec, for the price of 40,000 francs and twenty jars of wheat (23).

 

Once the torment of the revolution had passed, the ex-husband and wife presented themselves to the mayor of Golleville, on 11 Prairial year X (the 31st of May, 1802) who then proceed to remarry them, a new marriage contract being presented to Master Mauger, notary a Saint-Saveur-le-Vicomte, on 7 Prairial year X.

 

Having become a widow (Anne-Eustache-Charlotte-Rose d’Osmond- Médavy passed away on August 20th, 1813 at Golleville), the marquis of Sainte-Suzanne remarried on September 26th, 1814, this time to Angélique-Jeanne de Montmort de Beaurains (1785-1841) widow of Louis-Bon-Jean de la Couldre de la Bretonnière (24).

 

After the fall of Napoleon I, he was one of the first to swear loyalty to the Bourbon dynasty and, after the assassination of the Duke of Berry (1820), he sent a letter to the president of the council of ministers supplicating them to “lay at the feet of the king and of the princes of his family the expression of his just indignation, of the profound sadness which this abominable crime moves us to…”

 

He possessed a vast fortune and among his holdings were:

  • The castle of la Bretonnière at Golleville, acquired for 160,000 pounds in 1778, from Bernard-René Jourdan, marquis de Launay, governor of the Bastille.
  • From 1782-1786, the Hotel Fouquet de Réville (since known as the Hotel du Campgrain or de la Moissonnière), acquired on the 12th of June, 1782 from Paul-Hyacinthe-Charles de la Houssaye, marquis of Ourville for 23,300 pounds.  This hotel, which was located in the Place des Capucins in Valognes, was totally destroyed in 1944.
  • In 1786, the Hotel Viel de Gramont (or Gigault d’Hainneville or de Sainte-Suzanne) through the exchange of his hotel in the Place des Capucins with Louis-Bernardin Jacques Gigault de Bellefonds (February 13, 1786).  This hotel, located at 107-109 Rue des Religieuses, escaped the destructions of 1944.

Finally, still in Valognes, the Hotel de Cussy, or de la Bretonnière, which also has the name of Hotel de Sainte-Suzanne.  It belonged to Louis-Bon-Jean de la Couldre de la Bretonnière, whose widow, Angélique-Jeanne de Montmort de Beaurains, got married a second time to Adolphe-Charles de Mauconvenant of Sainte-Suzanne (September 26, 1814).

 

(20) On the 11th of September, 1758, the French troops commanded by the Duke of Aiguillon, held back the landing attempt of the English under the command of Admiral Howe.  The objective of the landing was probable to take Saint-Malo.  (Seven Years’ War).

 

(21) Equivalent to the modern rank of brigadier general.

(22) Jean-Baptiste Lecapentier (1759-1829), deputy of La Manche at la Convention (1792), representing the people of the mission of La Manche (1793-1794).

(23) A.D. Manche, notary office at Valognes, 5 E15 112.

(24) Author of the construction project of Cherbourg Harbor (1778).

 

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